A disclaimer for you on this happy June that will become self-evident soon enough: I love this story. I could read it a thousand times over and give you a thousand different insights. I love it in the peepish and borderline obsessive way its narratrice experiences love. Love it, in its own words, “as a mouse might love the hand that cleans the cage, and as uncomprehendingly, too, for surely I see only a part of him here.” …
It’s probably one of the better things in life — right up there with creative breakthroughs and lasting love and the slurp of streetside oysters — to have one’s hat tipped to new and great authors. In my case, it doesn’t happen often, because I’m finicky and discriminating with my own tastes, or as others have said, snotty. Some of my closest friends, in fact, have sworn never again to share enthusiasm of their own discoveries, for fear of my response. I’m not proud of this….
It’s always a little weird to me to read a sports story, with idioms like “burning one in” that are just so far removed from my patois that I can barely even get my mouth to go in that direction. And it’s equally odd to try and project teenage boy-speak, because it’s been quite a while since I’ve taken an interest in the mannerisms of teenage boys. But it’s springtime, and nothing’s more appropriate than boys and baseball. So here’s a little bit of both, no matter how much “burning one in” seems like the last thing you want a teenage boy to do.
So it was decided that I needed a table, but in thinking about the sort of table I might need, for the purpose the table would serve, it was further decided that the table needed to have certain bench-like properties. A hybrid, as we say in these times. The problem is, as you may have … Read more
In the two days since first reading of tonight’s story, I’ve been deeply ensconced with this idea of show-and-tell, to the irrational (read: batshit) point of showing-and-telling the objects comprising the contents of my desk to the various beasts kicking about the place, or showing-and-telling one runty waterlogged piece of the garden to another. And … Read more
A message from the author of today’s story:
Do you ever wonder as you are reading a story, or hearing one, such as on a podcast, for example, what or whom has inspired a particular story? Picture this: imaginary “directions” or “instructions” for a story that the author creates– after the story has been written–or told. Imagine that these “directives” led to this story–which in actuality they did not–well at least the author had no idea of any directives of any sort when the story came into being.
I was thinking about the last story I read to you, and thinking it’d be nice if other events of this variety, the sort of events that are difficult to explain to small children, were similarly reimagined. And not just on a large scale, either. I’m talking about The Pulling of My Wisdom Teeth Considered … Read more
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.
