A couple of months ago, Paramount Pictures sent me a whip. It’s a very cool whip, made out of something that looks like leather, just like Indiana Jones’. I’d give it a try if I didn’t remember those famous words from boyhood, “Hey,watch out, Ricky, you could take someone’s eye out with that thing.”

In my case, it would probably be my own eye. Indiana Klutz and the Whip of Doom.

A few weeks after that, Paramount sent me these gorgeous posters for “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.” They’re actual movie-theater-size posters, Saturday matinee style, in those burnished brown and sepia tones that have made Indy one of the icons of our age.

Those same shades of adventure brown, with Harrison Ford’s face airbrushed into immortality, also grace the shelf displays of brand new flavors of Snickers and M&Ms available at a Minute Stop near you. They, and full-page magazine ads for any number of products, arrived in plenty of time for today’s