I read in the news yesterday that television writers here in the U.S. have gone on strike, and that because of the strike, everybody’s arms are collectively thrown up in a great wide panic, because nobody knows what’s going to happen on Charmed and because there’s nobody to script the next great Wardrobe Malfunction, and this sounds like very bad news indeed and I was sorry to read it.
Last night, I was thinking of what to write to you today while starting to doze off just prior to handing over the wheel. I woke up with one of those Holy Mother I’m Dozing Off kind of starts, and, as I was now more alert than usual during this leg of the trip, I made the sad discovery that what I’d read as the Bikini Avenue Exit was actually something far more G-Rated, and significantly less scandalous.
Some days, as a podcastress, you find that it’s about a billion and two degrees of sour sunshined degrees outside, measured by the scales of Daniel or Anders either/or, and while the last thing you feel like doing might involve heavy lifting dressed in black, the next to last thing, on days such as those, might involve trying to get discernible sound and meaning to emerge from your throat.
If I were a state fair judge offering blue ribbons after thoroughly scrutinizing the stories that have been read to you to-date, tonight’s would be a heavy competitor for Most Gut-Bursting Opener in American Short Fiction, specifics of which, there’s nobody can offer sympathy like me. And I’m pitting this as the prizewinning hen against … Read more
Given that Tonight’s Story invokes the Mann Act, and given that the Mann Act is bar-none the best Congressional Act of 1910 (and I dare you to find a better one. I mean, Chuck Berry was charged with violating the Mann Act. Frank Lloyd Wright too.)
What we’ve got going on here, for those assiduous enough to parse their eyes over these words (and I suspect that I’m not speaking about many of you, that most of you just download the listening bits, which is quite all right) — but for those of you reading, I thought I’d thank you with … Read more
NOTA BENE This podcast is published with permission of the Guy Davenport estate. To further enjoy the works of Mr. Davenport, please see amazon.com
Listening to this one earlier, I noticed something. A noise, behind the entire story, not unpleasant, entirely, but a nuisance, distracting, and not unfamiliar. And then it hits: The dog, oft noted in these recordings, had used the moments of storytelling to enjoy an early repast. And given the fact that a) the dog lacks lips
