Hidden Dimensions of the Hidden Dimension Tony E. Adams Makagon, D. (2004). Where the Ball Drops: Days and Nights in Times Square . Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 268 pp. ISBN 0816642753. $29.95 (cloth). My father owns a restaurant that has been in his family since 1936. In 1997, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) decided to audit my dad. This was somewhat disconcerting since the restaurant did not have a history of tax fraud. My father and his family did not have one, either. On one of the days the audit occurred, I happened to be working at the restaurant. I remember a woman came in, took a seat with my father, and asked him a few questions. At the end of their meeting, my father asked her one, too. ‘‘Why did the IRS pick me?’’ he said. ‘‘We want you little people out of business,’’she replied. ‘‘We make more money from large businesses. Small businesses, like yours, are wastes of time.’’ Hearing this, I quickly glanced at my father’s expressionless face. I was angry, but did not want to make the situation awkward for my father. After the auditor left, my dad told me that big business jeopardized his small business. He told me that he only asked the auditor this question because I was around: he wanted me to hear it, for myself, from an authority figure. He told me that much of society was moving in this direction, towards bigger and thus better visions of society, visions that welcome and worship corporate politics. I think my father’s assessment of U.S. culture was accurate. I think Daniel Makagon would say he was accurate, too. Informed by ethnography, rhetoric, and phenomenology, Makagon, in Where the Ball Drops (2004), presents ‘‘one version of a story about life in Times Square’’ (p. xv). He does not claim to tell ‘‘the story’’ of the space (p. xv), and, influenced by the writings of Walter Benjamin, uses his experiences of being a ‘‘fla ˆneur’’ to understand the square’s workings and our workings of it. He provides us with a ‘‘thick description’’ of the space, a description utilizing (in)formal interviews, local Tony E. Adams (M.S., Southern Illinois University, 2003) is a doctoral student in the Department of Communication at the University of South Florida. Correspondence to: University of South Florida, 4202 E. Fowler Ave., CIS 1040, Tampa, FL 33620, USA. Email: tony@smada79.com. ISSN 1535-8593 (online) # 2006 National Communication Association DOI: 10.1080/15358590600763466 The Review of Communication Vol. 6, No. 1 Á 2, January Á April 2006, pp. 150 Á 152