Short Story Wednesday

 (from 2013) (And long before the movie, PIG)

"Michigan Man’s Tastes Get Him Into Trouble"

by Patti Abbott

Daniel was not a gastronome at birth, but it wasn’t long before the word was applicable. Stories detailing incidents of his superior palate as a toddler were numerous. He learned his skills at the side of the finest cook he’d ever met—his mother. 

“Too much rosemary?” she’d ask him before serving the holiday dinner. 

The aroma of roasted poultry was intoxicating to her young son, even if the chicken was a tad over-infused with garlic. She held the fork out, having stolen the smallest tidbit from the underside of a breast. 

“More lemon. And a pinch more marjoram.”

“Brilliant,” she said, after tasting it.

Daniel’s early reading matter was the work of James Beard, and by twelve, he’d successfully replicated Beards’ recipes. He taught himself French to study the work of Escoffier, the author of Le Guide Culinaire, and inventor of the five mother sauces. Daniel aspired to the title bestowed on his mentor: roi des cuisiners et cuisinier des rois.(king of the chefs and chef of the kings). 

This was unlikely however since he rarely cooked for anyone other than himself. 

Eventually Daniel came on the idea of using the finest ingredients available to create a contemporary version of the five sauces. Quelle drole to confine oneself to ingredients as prosaic as butter, garlic and cheese. He would turn Escoffier’s codification on its ear. 

The first four sauces were unparalleled successes. His fruit sauce featured Dansuke watermelons and Yubari cantaloupes, the world’s most expensive melons. A curry was composed of Devon crab, Beluga caviar, Scottish lobster, and quail eggs. A topping composed of caviar and goji berries made his eyes roll with pleasure, and his penultimate sauce, a dessert concoction, used 28 different imported cocoas, some formulated personally for him by chocolatiers.

His final sauce would use white truffles, available only a few months each year. The best were found in Italy, and especially in Alba. Traditionally the truffles had been ferreted out by pigs that, mysteriously, had the nose for it. But pigs also had the inclination to gobble down the white gold, sometimes destroying the entire yield. So pigs had mostly been replaced by dogs that were satisfied to feast on pedestrian treats rather than the truffles. 

“I should like to go along,” Daniel told the importer at the Eastern Market in Detroit. 

“To the airport to pick up your shipment?” 

“To Roccafluvione.” 

This was the town in the Le Marche region his supplier identified as a viable source.

“You mean to the marketplace there?”

Daniel drew an impatient breath. “No. I want to hunt them myself. I should like to smell the earth, to inhale the scent I’ve read about since childhood.” He paused. “And I want to hunt with pigs rather than the dogs. I have a preference for traditional methods.”  

He’d waited a long time for this day and he’d be damned it some mutt was going to tarnish the image of striding amidst the oak trees, pig in hand.

“It’s mostly forbidden,” said his importer. “You’ll have to make special arrangements.”

“I’m prepared to do whatever it takes.” 


Daniel opened his wallet. And eventually his bank account.

And so it was on a dark October day that Daniel and his guide, Bruno, and the Marco, the pig, set out into the hills.

“No one knows you are here?”

Daniel shook his head. 

“You must never speak of this excursion to anyone. Normally I’d ask you to wear a blindfold,” his guide said in excellent English. “But I doubt you will make a second trip.”

“No,” Daniel agreed. “This will be my only outing. Truthfully I am not fond of fungi. They tend to disagree with me, in fact.” His stomach was already rumbling.

“Then why this trip? We have perfected the shipment of truffles, you know.” 

Daniel explained his lifelong desire to hunt for the truffles that would complete his final sauce.

The man nodded knowingly. “I detest red wine. Yet I always drink a glass or two at my local tavern. The owner makes a point of giving me the best red wine in the house because of my profession,” he said, waving his arm around. “I know it’s good, but I’d much prefer beer.”

The pig, trudged on, only occasionally giving a half-hearted snort. He was very large and far uglier than Daniel had imagined.

“You will know you are amongst the truffles when we arrive. It will remind you of locker rooms back in school. Feet, sweat, testosterone, earth.” Bruno drew a breath and his chest expanded. “Marco has the area’s finest sense of smell. Much better than those damned dogs.”

Daniel smiled.

“So you’re going to eat only enough to see that this sauce is up to snuff, and then never touch them again,” Bruno said, after a while.

“That’s about the size of it,” Daniel said. “Just enough to ascertain I have met my objective.”

The oak trees towered above them, the forest growing denser as they walked. At last, Bruno glanced at Daniel, indicating with his eyes that the rope had been tugged by the eager pig. Using the stout stick, he made Marco back away. The three of them stopped. A nice stand of oaks towered over a pirate’s bounty of the white gold. 

The odor was overpowering, and Daniel suddenly felt light-headed. Perhaps it was not just eating fungi that made him ill: it could also be the smell. Without warning, he plunged headlong into the swell of truffles. 

The pig, angry at this unexpected blanketing of his greatest joy, jerked loose of the rope, immediately gobbling away at both Daniel and the truffles. Within seconds, a piece of Daniel and a piece of the white truffles co-mingled. A piece of leg, a piece of thigh. And so it went.

Bruno stood dumbfounded, trying to decide what to do. There was little choice, he thought, looking at the earth beneath him. Knowing the trouble this affair would cause, he and his pig, beaten hard with a stick, ran all the way home.

Monday, Monday

Short Story Wednesday: "Scab Painting" Yoka Ogawa

 https://www.newyorker.com/books/flash-fiction/scab-painting

 

This is one I would have expected by Murakami. Twins are born. One is initially smaller but over time becomes the larger twin. This larger twin collects newspaper articles on imposters and is an expert at removing scabs. His sibling indulges this activity until he is grown and no longer has scabs. The brother then learns how to hurt himself enough to produced scabs. Over time, he fashions artwork from his scabs and when he dies his sibling presents them to the mourners as tokens.  

Perhaps the flash fiction length produces stories like this that are more an idea than a story. I am not even entirely sure of the sex of the more normal twin. The writer never says they are both boys but in fact, refers to this twin as a tomboy. Or maybe I missed the reference. An odd one indeed.

Monday, Monday

Short Story Wednesday: "My Cheesecake-Shaped Poverty" Haroki Murakami

 https://www.newyorker.com/books/flash-fiction/my-cheesecake-shaped-poverty-haruki-murakami

 Kevin, my grandson, has been reading Murakami in school. He even had to write a story in the style of Murakami. I would love to read it. I often wonder if they ever read the writers we read fifty years ago. It seems not. Certainly they are rarely white male authors.

This is a very ordinary story for a writer known for his unusual stories. A young and very poor couple rent a house on a triangle-shaped property well outside of the city. The reason for the very low rent is that trains pass by incessantly day and night. They cannot hear each other speak. They live here for two years.  This has to be a true story because I see no other reason Murakami would write it. I guess it's just to point out what poverty forces on people. Although most young couples lived a version of this.

Monday, Monday

Friday's Forgotten Books: SURVIVORS WILL BE SHOT AGAIN, Bill Crider

 (reviewed by Ed Gorman)

Bill Crider's new Survivors Will Be Shot Again may be my favorite of all the Sheriff Dan Rhodes novels for two reasons.

                                                                 1                            

  If you think Crider was funny before, wait until you read the scene where Rhodes walks into a convenience store and goes into a mental rage about how Dr. Pepper refuses to sell the original sugar DP online. Good thing he comes to notice that he has walked into a robbery. Ultimately he has to take the gunman's weapon away by throwing a loaf of bread at him. That's the first chapter.

  The regulars are at their best and or worst.

  The enterprising young woman who got laid off as reporter on the local weekly is back again with her very successful online newspaper of newish kinds of stories that  she sometimes "enhanced" for the sake of excitement. She has turned the mild mannered Rhodes into a local bad ass of heroic stature.

   Hawk and Lawton, the two elderly deputies who who make Rhodes' day miserable by trying to force information out of him by withholding other information ("in the loop") from him. 

   Seepy Benton, erstwhile community college professor and very very amateur crime solver, is pushing what was originally a ghost repellent spray but will also work if nudists are invading your domicile.

   Wal Mart-- there are so many references you get the feeling that Wal Mart is  the official church of the small Texas town.

   And lest I forget...the discovery of several illegal marijuana patches...guarded by junior sized alligators.   

  Then there is the A storyline. There have been break-ins on ranch and farm buildings. Curiously one of the men whose outbuilding had been broken into and robbed is found murdered in a building owned by another man who had been robbed earlier. Given the material that gets taken the robberies are peculiar indeed.

  Bill Crider writes some the finest traditional mysteries around. He is a first rate plotter who also knows how to pace his material. Such a mixture of mystery, humor and even an occasional horrific moment give his work its unique mastery.

                                                                    2

  I grew up reading the now mostly forgotten Sinclair Lewis  He frequently wrote about small towns and their social ways in the 1920s and 1940s especially. He was both brutal and hilarious. His one novel that is still taught in college (several famous workshops won't teach him because he was allegedly a bad writer line by line) is Babbitt. The storyline paints a portrait of a boorish "booster" who extols American virtues that are actually American vices. But there are three scenes in which Lewis forces you to at least understand Babbitt to some degree and after you read them you can't quite find him as repellent as you once did.  

   Bill Crider does the same thing here with his suspects. They are not likable. But as Crider reveals their back stories you see that in some way they are broken men.

   Perfecto.

"The Girls in Their Summer Dresses" Irwin Shaw

 https://www.classicshorts.com/stories/dresses.html

 

This is one of the great short stories for me. A husband and wife, walking in New York, confront the issue that he cannot stop looking at women passing them on the street . The wife admits that this is ruining their marriage, breaking her heart. She says that he will eventually, if he hasn't already, act on it. And he cannot really deny this. He claims he is helpless not to look over any woman who comes into his view. They have planned a day for just the two of them: a football game, dinner, a French movie, but by the end of their walk they change their plans and go to spend the day with friends. 

I am very glad that I did not have a husband that did this. Or if he did, I never noticed. 

Kevin Tipple

George Kelley 

Casual Debris 

Jerry House

Monday, Monday

 I am pretty much moved in, but now I have to pack for CA. Sort of exhausting-I always overpack, taking everything that might be needed despite there being a CVS a block away. Have I ever used the bandaids, neosporin, list of passwords, address book, knee braces, multiple sunhats, eye glasses, etc. I take? 

Reading COCKTAILS WITH GEORGE AND MARTHA-about the making of Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe. Watching the finale of MONSIEUR SPADE and TRUE DETECTIVE tonight. Enjoying MR and MRS SMITH. Rewatching FREAKS AND GEEKS after listening to a podcast on it. Still watching NORTHERN EXPOSURE, which was such an original show. The third season is terrific.

Watched JIRO-DREAMS OF SUSHI. Jiro was 85 when they made this doc and 15 years later at 100 he is still massaging fish in his restaurant. It looks like good sushi is about the quality of the fish you can get and how long you rub it.

I will post MONDAY, MONDAY for the next three weeks although it will be empty, waiting for you. I will read it on my cellphone but I can never seem to get anything much on there. 

FFB: City of Nets; A Portrait of Hollywood in the 1940s, Otto Friedrich

 

Donating books for the last five years, probably exceeding a thousand by now, it's been hard to decide what is worth keeping if I have already read it. I discarded a biography of Raymond Carver but not a collection of his stories. Same too with John Cheever. Shirley Jackson's bio went, but I still have a few of the novels. I held on to most of the short story collections but not many of the novels. I got rid of TOM LAKE (Ann Patchett) immediately after reading it only to have to hunt it down when my book group chose it for their March read.

CITY OF NETS, one of the classics on Hollywood I kept. The first time I read this book, I found a large section of the book was missing. So in time I bought another used copy and was able to finish it. World War II makes the forties an interesting era in Hollywood. Especially the influx of talented actors, writers and directors escaping from Europe. Friedrich skillfully weaves biographical sketches with historical information. He is especially interested in the immigrants who came to dominate the film business very quickly. Also fun to read about how our new enemies (esp. Japan and German) made for the new villains in various films.

This, along with ADVENTURES IN THE SCREEN TRADE, by William Goldman are two of the best books about the movies although the later is a bit dated. 

What I can't decide about is the many small literary and crime fiction outlets where my stories appeared over the years. Many of the stories are in my two collections but many are not. But realistically who is going to read them after I'm gone. I'm not Alice Munro or John Cheever. And they take up too much room.

"The President of the Louisiana Live Oak Society" Ellen Gilchrist

 obituary 

Ellen Gilchrist was one of those writers who I read as soon as her book turned up in the library years ago. She wrote short stories, novels, and memoirs. They were set in the romantic South of the 70s-2000. And I had forgotten all about the pleasure she gave me until I saw her death notice today. I was able to download IN THE LAND OF THE DREAMY DREAM for $3 on Amazon. She is often funny. "He put up with a lot from Leila because she had been named to the list of Beautiful Activists two years in a row." (This is her hair dresser)

In this story, which is surprising, funny and sad, in turns, Robert, a teenager, has made friends with Gus, a boy who spends most of his time sitting under the town's huge live oak tree. Gus is black and Robert's white mother secretly disapproves of this friendship but considers herself too liberal to act on her fear. And they are up to no good, selling dope and using it themselves. This makes it sound like it's a cautionary or scary story. But mostly it is not either and it ends quite dramatically or oddly depending on how much latitude you give Ms. Gilchrist. 

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY

Todd Mason

Kevin Tipple 

TracyK 

Jerry House

THE UNLIKELY ESCAPE OF URIAH HEEP

 

Jane, a woman in my exercise group, was looking for an Ann Patchett book at the library. Because she is tiny, she couldn't reach the shelf Patchett was on and no step stool was nearby. But another book was eye level: THE UNLIKELY ESCAPE OF URIAH HEEP, by H.G. Parry. She can hardly put this found book down. Has a book you never meant to read, never heard of even, become a real favorite.?

I have this on my kindle already. The story of her find is worth the price

Monday, Monday

Finally moved in and it went well. Lots of pluses and only a minor negative-my fridge is smaller. Cost me a bit and it was hard work but I think it's worth it. 

Watching PORTRAIT ARTIST OF THE YEAR (Amazon), Season 10. Love this show. As someone who has zero talent in that area, I am always amazed. Plus I enjoy that they use British celebrities as models. Also watching a bizarre show about someone named Natalia Grace who is either 6 or 30 and is either evil or her parents are evil. Also Monsieur Spade and True Detective. I finished Loudermilk and would like another season, Netflix. All Creatures Great and Small-will Dr. Farnum and Mrs. Hall eventually get together.

Trying hard to read the Ann Cleves book but so far I fall asleep after a few pages every night. It is not the book, it's me. 

Saw Teacher's Lounge, the German film nominated for Best International Film. It was a knockout. 

So what's up with you guys.

Letitia Morrison Carter RIP

This is my cousin, Letty, whose memorial service I attended via Zoom yesterday. It is humbling to think of what I  have done with my life compared to she with hers. She was a rich woman due to an invention of her husband's for epoxying jewelry. But she was a poor child and a poor young mother. She wasn't born into wealth at all. She was a excellent cook, gardener, pianist and mother of four. At the service, the director of the RI Philharmonic extolled about the things she had done for her state. I am proud to have known and been related to her although I saw her only twice in my life. And oh, yes, they were fervent Democrats!

Letty Carter, age 89, passed away peacefully at her home in Little Compton, RI, on September 29, 2023. Letitia gave tirelessly to her family, community, and philanthropic endeavors. She was a leader, teacher, creator who touched and impacted many people. In her own words:

"My advice to you is not hard advice, but rather soft advice: Learn everything you can about what is going on around you. Volunteer, you'll meet some interesting new people. Attend some events and programs in Rhode Island. Be generous, not necessarily with money, but with your time and spirit. Read as much as you can. Catch up with your friends and family. Listen carefully. Say yes and thank you at appropriate times. Be kind. Know that a positive outlook often precedes a positive conclusion. Have passion for what you do."

Her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren have a groundwork for each of their lives built from Letitia's wisdom, kindness and guidance. Letitia was a visionary. She could see what had to be done, how to do it and then did it, enlisting and assisting others to completion. She was relentless when she took on or assisted in a project that enhanced her community and the state of RI. Letitia was one of the volunteers who opened Coggeshall Farm Museum in Bristol and served as its president. She is a founder of the Fiber Co-op at Slater Mill Historic Site, Pawtucket. As president of the board of Veterans Memorial Auditorium, she secured financing for major remodeling in 1990 and for the return of the Rhode Island Philharmonic's performances. She was a commissioner of the Rhode Island Convention Center Authority with special responsibility as chair of the Vets Foundation. She has been a board member of the Community Preparatory School for 10 years, three years as chair, and also has served as a director for WRNI Public Radio, Planned Parenthood, the Philharmonic, Rhode Island Mayoral Academies, the RI Philharmonic Music School and more. The philanthropic endeavors of Letitia and her husband John Carter have touched many lives, organizations and institutions in Rhode Island. Letitia's family extends heartfelt gratitude, thanks and love to each and every companion who lovingly dedicated themselves to caring for Letty. Letitia was preceded in death by her husband John S. Carter, Jr. She is survived by her four children: Kathy Martinez and her husband Alex of Colorado; John S. Carter and Nicole Peckham of Little Compton; Pamela Carter of Ringoes, NJ; Elisabeth Carter of Waltham, MA. Four grandchildren: Julia Martinez and her husband David Moskowitz; Maggie Foote and her husband Eric; Johnny Carter; Liam Rowe; as well as four great-grandchildren: Cash and Falcon Foote; Jonah and Zoe Moskowitz.

FFB: POIROT INVESTIGATES, Agatha Christie

 

(From Rick Robinson's blog TIP THE WINK.)

Poirot Investigates by Agatha Christie, Delhi Open Books. Kindle ebook edition

This is a short story collection written by Christie and first published in the UK by The Bodley Head in March 1924. In the eleven stories, famed eccentric detective Hercule Poirot solves a variety of mysteries involving greed, jealousy, and revenge. The American version of this book, published by Dodd, Mead and Company in 1925, featured a further three stories. Those stories are included in this ebook.

Contents:

1. THE ADVENTURE OF “THE WESTERN STAR”
2. THE TRAGEDY AT MARSDON MANOR
3. THE ADVENTURE OF THE CHEAP FLAT
4. THE MYSTERY OF HUNTER’S LODGE
5. THE MILLION DOLLAR BOND ROBBERY
6. THE ADVENTURE OF THE EGYPTIAN TOMB
7. THE JEWEL ROBBERY AT THE GRAND METROPOLITAN
8. THE KIDNAPPED PRIME MINISTER
9. THE DISAPPEARANCE OF MR DAVENHEIM
10. THE ADVENTURE OF THE ITALIAN NOBLEMAN
11. THE CASE OF THE MISSING WILL
12. THE VEILED LADY
13. THE LOST MINE
14. THE CHOCOLATE BOX

My Take:
In the mood for something simple, light, a little old-fashioned, I picked this ebook of fourteen Poirot stories. As expected, Poirot’s friend and companion Captain Hastings appears in each of the stories, relating the story to the reader in all but one of them, the other told by Poirot himself in flashback.

In a group of stories like this, especially as I read them one after the other, the bumbling ineptitude and various foibles of Hastings are on full, brightly lit display, and time after time his theories and guessed-at solutions are proved wrong, oft to his chagrin. Poirot, of course, is his usual intelligent and insightful self, his little grey cells leading him to the correct solution to each puzzle.

I read this on a pair of rainy afternoons, and thoroughly enjoyed it. One caution, however: the editing and especially the paragraph formatting are full of errors, so that it often appears as if one character has said something when it is actually another.

Short Story Wednesday: "Challenge the Impossible: The Final Problem" Edward D. Hoch

 (Review by Jeff Meyerson, a few years back)

Edward D. Hoch, Challenge the Impossible: The Final Problems of Dr. Sam Hawthorne (Crippen & Landru 2018).

When I thought of which book to choose for the first of these short story collections to review, the choice was fairly easy.  Why not go with possibly the most prolific short story writer ever, a man who published over 950 stories, including one or more in every issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine for 35 years?  Ed Hoch created a dozen or more series characters of varying types, but my favorite remains the impossible crime specialist, small town Connecticut doctor Sam Hawthorne, who had some 72 recorded cases, published between 1974 and 2008, of a remarkably high quality.  Hoch did something interesting here, besides the ingenuity of the stories themselves, by setting them in a specific time and place, a smallish town in Connecticut between the doctor's arrival in 1922 and his final story, in 1944.  You always get a feel for what was going on in the world then, from the Depression to the Second World War.  Crippen & Landru has done fans a favor by publishing all 72 stories in five volumes (of which this is, clearly, the last), all with "Impossible" in the title.  From the first story, "The Problem of the Covered Bridge," in which a man drives into a covered bridge and seems to vanish off the face of the Earth, Hoch was a master at coming up with truly impossible-seeming crimes and then providing mostly brilliant solutions.  I'd recommend starting at the beginning and reading all five volumes, but you can't go wrong with any of them.

 

Jeff Meyerson

 

George Kelley 

TracyK 

Jerry House

Monday, Monday

 

Well, I might be trading noise for light upstairs. My  floor to ceiling windows facing west showcase a blinding light at sunset. We have finally had a few sunny days to make this evident. I guess I will be lowering those shades a lot of the time. I have made about two dozen trips upstairs with my shopping cart filled with various things. There is one of those flat bed carts that carries more but I twisted my ankle the first (and last) time I used it. When you don't drive your skills in negotiating doorways in not great. Come Friday, this will hopefully end. The worst thing is the 25 (at least) address changes I have had to do despite only an apartment # change. Some of them are quite tricky. If I had it to do over....no, I probably still would. A worrisome thing is going to CA before it is clear that my USPS has made the change. Yikes!

Watched SELF RELIANCE on Hulu , a C+ movie. I am tracking the movies I see on Letterbxd, a website now. A handy place, where you can also get reviews of friends who have seen it. Watching MR and MRS SMITH (or is it Jones) on Amazon. EXPATS, which is strange but the critics tell me to hang in so I will. Enjoying MONSIEUR SPADE and TRUE DETECTIVE sort of. When I need to feel relaxed I watch ALL CREATURES GREAT AND SMALL, where the problems of a lamb are tolerable. I enjoyed BARGAIN BLOCK on MAX, a show where they redo houses in Detroit. I never thought I would be watching redecorating shows again, especially since I will never do that again, but the Detroit aspect won me over.

Reading Ann Cleves RAVEN BLACK and Sigrid Nunez, THE VULNERABLES. 

Going to see a play (FORTUNE) in Ann Arbor today. I don't have high hopes because it's never been performed before.

Not sure how much I will be around or have Internet access this week. It's all up to the Gods.

FFB: LAST NIGHT AT THE LOBSTER, Stewart O'Nan

 I have read this novel many times and it never gets old. I hope my book group likes it. I have never read a novel that so completely puts you in a setting as this one does. And the setting is the last night of a Red Lobster restaurant in Connecticut. O'Nan perfectly captures how a chain like this one works, what the employees are like, the regular customers too. What a failing mall that surrounds it feels like on a very snow night a few days before Christmas. Manny is the manager and he is presiding over the death sentence dealt to his beloved place. He will still have a job--at the Olive Garden--and he can take five people with him. He considers this during the long day too. I love O'Nan and this is my favorite. You can read it in a few hours.

Short Story Wednesday: "The Year of the Rabbit" Alice Mcdermott

 (This story is an excerpt from McDermott's novel, ABSOLUTION. 

A young wife is in Vietnam in 1962 with her husband who is in the Navy. She discovers she is pregnant and comes under the care of a Navy doctor. One night, three months into her pregnancy, she feels cramps and sees a small amount of blood. Although she shares this information with her husband and he does summon the doctor, it is her Vietnamese housekeeper and her army wife friend who help her through this trauma of the miscarriage. Her new friend also shares the night terrors that are haunting her. The three women fashion a burial and ceremony for the fetus. There are other details about the US in Vietnam but they are really extraneous to this story but I am sure are relevant to the novel. I have always enjoyed McDermott's writing especially her novel CHARMING BILLY. You do feel in this excerpt that her marriage will not survive her husband's behavior during this incident. I will have to get the book and find out. 

George Kelley

Todd Mason

Monday, Monday

Really liked ALL OF US STRANGERS although I must admit I had to go home and google the ending. It's a bit tricky. THE BOYS IN THE BOAT was easy to understand but pretty much a routine production. Clooney used to be a better director, I think. And this was a book that I really admired. Could another director made a better picture with this material. I think yes. Somehow he emphasized the wrong things.

Reading:

About to begin Wednesday's Child and also reading Last Night at the Lobster (O'Nan) Lots of podcasts. I listened to a two-hour discussion of a one-hour episode of True Detective, for instance. Is that crazy?

About to begin Expats (Prime)(First episode was terrific)

 Not sure about Woman in the Wall  but I really got into on Funny Woman (PBS) and hope they do another season.

Mostly I am trying to organize my move three flights up and across the hall. 

How about you?

FFB: BEAUTIFUL LOSERS, Leonard Cohen (from 2011 reviewed by Deb)

 

Leonard Cohen’s BEAUTIFUL LOSERS

Leonard Cohen was born in Montreal in 1934, which makes him the same age as my mother. I don’t quite know how that happened, because he always seemed so much younger than my parents when I was a teenager obsessively listening to “The Songs of Leonard Cohen” LP. Today Cohen is best known for his vast catalog of music, including “Suzanne,” “Joan of Arc,” “First We Take Manhattan,” and the beautiful “Hallelujah,” which seems to have been covered by every singer with a recording contract. However, in the 1960s (after graduating from McGill University in 1955 and trying law school and some other career paths), Cohen published several volumes of poetry and two novels: THE FAVOURITE GAME (1963) and BEAUTIFUL LOSERS (1966). I discovered these books in the 1970s; I enjoyed THE FAVOURITE GAME, but it was BEAUTIFUL LOSERS I read repeatedly during my teen years.

BEAUTIFUL LOSERS begins with an unnamed (and undoubtedly unreliable) narrator who is living in utter squalor, unwashed and filthy. Despite his living conditions, the narrator is a scholar, a historian whose major field of study is a luckless Indian tribe whose name has historically been translated as “loser.” The narrator tells the story of a love triangle involving himself, his late wife Edith (one of the last members of the aforementioned tribe), and F, the domineering man loved by both the narrator and Edith. When the novel begins, F, like Edith, is already dead—although a “Long Letter from F” forms the middle portion of the book. Intertwined with the hallucinatory story of spiritual and sexual love, betrayal, drug abuse, mind games, religion, philosophy, politics (especially the Quebec independence movement), mental illness, and suicide, is the story of Catherine Tekakwitha, a 17th century Mohawk who converted to Catholicism, lived a post-conversion life of intense self-denial (one would be tempted to say masochism), died at a young age, and became a saint.

This brief summary does not do justice to the profound depth of the novel, the various voices within it (comic, tragic, learned, foolish, yearning, interrogatory), the richness of its language, the rapid shifts in perspective. Yes, it is a sixties time-capsule: veering wildly in tone, leaving so much ambiguously half-said, containing simultaneously so much intellectual heft and so many intensely-detailed descriptions of sex and torture; it seems to epitomize a certain sixties outlook and attitude. This is not a novel for the weak of heart, but if you know Leonard Cohen only from his music and you’re in the mood for a real change of pace, I highly recommend BEAUTIFUL LOSERS.

Incidentally, this is the novel which contains the passage that begins, “God is alive; magic is afoot,”famously used in a chant/song by Buffy Ste. Marie.

Short Story Wednesday: Louise's Ghost, Kelly Link

 

This was a bit of a slog story for me bit it  may well be my failing. I always think I will enjoy a less conventional story but I often don't. Link was mentioned as publishing her first novel (after many stories) this year on the New York Times Book Review Podcast so I looked online for a sample of her stories and the title appealed to me so I read this one.
Two women, both named Louise, are having lunch. They are accompanied by one of their children, Anna, who only eats green food, dresses in green and plays with green toys. You get the idea-although that idea gets tiring quickly. As does sorting which Louise is which. One of the Louises' confesses to having affairs with multiple cellists and the other confesses she has a male ghost living with her. He is naked and hairy and she never knows where she will find him curled up. 

Louises' friends give her ideas on how to get rid of him, none very effective. So the story goes on with the annoying green child, the affairs with cellists, and attempts to get rid of the ghost. Naming both women Louise was a gimmick to me and tiring. I will try another of her stories because she is well-thought of and this one was too long and bereft of any ideas beyond this. 

Anyone else read her? I bet Todd knows her and recommend a story. 

Kevin Tipple

TracyK 

George Kelley 

Jerry House 

Steve Lewis

Monday, Monday

 Hoping there's a smile on my face because the Lions won. And maybe the Bills too.

Probably bad luck to even write that.

Have hardly been out of the apartment all week (cold & snow) although that has given me time to get another couple of hundred books ready to donate and several bags of clothes. And shoes. Some of these shoes haven't been worn in 20 years. Moving again gives me the chance to go over what to keep yet again. And I am not keeping books I haven't read in over thirty years or big books or books I have read several times. So mostly I am keeping the books the family has written and collections of short stories and recent purchases. Oh and the 30 or so journals I have stories in. Would like to pitch them but maybe someday Kevin might read them.

Liked AMERICAN FICTION although it was more a story about family than one about writing to me. Wright and Sterling K Brown were terrific. I am tired of the dementia elements though. If there is an older person, you know that is going to happen. As it also did in the last season of BREEDERS. Great show but finished now. FARGO finished up too. So too REACHER although I haven't watched the last episode yet.

Started TRUE DETECTIVE (Max) and MONSIEUR SPADE (AMC). Watching NORTHERN EXPOSURE (PRIME), which was very creative for its day and had more sex in it than most shows today. 

Reading LAST NIGHT AT THE LOBSTER for my book group and A HAUNTING ON THE HILL (Hand) for me. Also listening to THE GIRL WHO DIED (Ragnar Jonasson) via Libby. And a million podcasts as I fill bags with the things I should have gotten rid of two years ago. 

So what are you up to?

On what would have been the 57th.

 

The photographer didn't show up so thank goodness someone had a Browie camera.

FFB' NORMAL PEOPLE, Sally Rooney

 

Normal People is the story of two teenagers, who fall in and out of love through the last years of high school and the first year of college. Connell's mother is a housekeeper for Marianne's family so there is a class difference. In high school, Connell is popular and Marianne, a loner. This changes over the years. Both are very smart and their relationship is sophisticated for their years. It is also about intellectual and political discussions and not just a sexual attraction. Both of them have periods teetering on mental illness. We root for them to find a way to be together and successful in their studies and happy in their friendships. The writing is beautiful and it's always fun to spend time in Ireland. There is also an excellent TV series based on this book on Hulu, I believe.

Short Story Wednesday' DANCE OF THE HAPPY SHADES-title story

 

Munro's first collection of stories won the Governor's Award in Canada. The stories are set in southwestern Ontario. The title story concerns a teenage girl and her mother who attend a recital at her piano teacher's house. Much is made of this yearly event among the adults especially. How it has become tiresome and shows a decline in the teacher. The food is not appealing and haven't they all done this so many times. At the end of the poorly-attended recital, a new group of children enter the house. It is clear they are from some sort of institution and their appearance suggests they are Downs Syndrome children. The final pianist is very talented, which seems to put everyone on guard. It seems like a trick,, perhaps to embarrass the audience in some way. It is not acceptable for such a girl to have this gift. Except to the piano teacher. (The title was the title of the song she played). A wonderful collection, many of the stories are about Munro's father. 

Kevin Tipple

George Kelley 

TracyK 

Todd Mason

Casual Debris 

Jerry House

Monday, Monday

Since Tracy and Jeff have occasional problems posting here, please copy your comments before posting and send them to me if they don't post (pattinaseabbott@gmail.com) I certainly miss it when I don't hear from all of you. 

Well, Winter arrived this week. It is 8 degrees here today. We had snow off and on for a few days and although it didn't amount to much, it was horrible for driving as it switched from sleet, to snow, to rain and the winds are ferocious. Of course, I don't drive so I look out here from the 8th floor and worry about accidents.

Watched MASTER GARDENER last night. This is the last of a trilogy by Paul Schrader about men who have committed terrible crimes but then sought to redeem themselves. I like this one but not as much as FIRST REFORMED or THE CARD COUNTER.

Finished up FOR ALL MANKIND (Apple), and although I will probably watch another season, I am tired of watching men floating about in space. And REACHER (Prime) has become disappointing with way too many scenes of extreme violence. Waiting for MONSIEUR SPADE and TRUE CRIME tonight although I will have to watch the Detroit Lions too. A show I have always enjoyed is BREEDERS on Hulu, although I think this is its last season. I will certainly miss SLOW HORSES (Apple). I am catching up with BEEF (Netflix) also.

Finished the SISKEL AND EBERT book, which somehow didn't spend enough time on some things I expected it to. Like looking analytically at why they so often differed in their opinions. I can't imagine there is enough to say for another book though. Still struggling to finish THE FIREKEEPER'S DAUGHTER, which is way too long. 

How about you?

FFB: MY BEST SCIENCE FICTION STORY. Edited by Margulies and Friend

 (from the archives: reviewed by Bill Crider)

Forgotten Books: My Best Science Fiction Story -- Edited by Leo Margulies & Oscar J. Friend

Is anyone but old guys like me interested in the history of certain genres these days? I've seen blog posts from whippersnappers who don't have any interest at all in reading the older books in their area of interest.  I can understand, however, since I have little interest in reading the newer ones.

But for somebody who does care about the history of SF, this would seem to be an essential book. It's fun because of the stories, of course, but each writer provides a short introduction to explain why a particular story was picked for the collection. (My favorite line in these is the final one in Henry Kuttner's intro: "Anyway, my wife wrote it.")

You have to wonder, considering the date of the collection (1949) if the writers would have chosen different stories later on in their careers. Too bad they're not around to ask. Cheap copies abound around the Internet, so why not pick one up an give it a try. See if you agree with the authors' choices.

Posted by Unknown at 6:30 AM 7 comments:

Short Story Wednesday: "A Conversation with My Father" Grace Paley

 

In this story, a daughter is visiting her 86-year old father on his deathbed. He asks for a story but is dissatisfied with the one she gives him, a one with many possible outcomes. He asks for one like Chekhov or another Russian writer would write. He wants the details that make the story come alive for him. She is unwilling to propel her character into an old-fashioned type plot. She wants her character to be free. 

Her story is about a woman whose son has become a drug-addict and how she takes up drugs to share his experience. As the daughter provides more and more of the details that her father craves, we see her unwillingness to tell the whole story is related to her father's dying and his willingness to hear it all signals his acceptance of what's ahead. A very post-modern story but lots to think about. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAe0aR_imms

 

Jerry House 

Kevin Tipple

George Kelley  

Todd Mason

Casual Debris

What Stephen Soderbergh watched, read, in 2023. (How does he have time to make movies?)

 https://thefilmstage.com/everything-steven-soderbergh-watched-and-read-in-2023/

Monday, Monday

 

Snow has arrived and I live in fear now of falling and breaking something so I won't be outside much. The drug I take for breast cancer really wreaks havoc with bones.

Went with a friend to see NABUCCO (Verdi) piped in from the MET in NY. The theater was sold out in Detroit and it's a big place I wonder if it's relevance to Israeli politics today was the reason. Usually the theater is a quarter full at most for these operas. It is fun to see the singers' faces close up and have subtitles too. 

Went with another friend to see FALLEN LEAVES (Karuismaki) and at first I was not sure what to make of it but after reading about him (a Finnish director)and watching another of his movies (THE OTHER SIDE OF HOPE) I liked both a lot more. Most of his films are on Criterion. 

Still working on my book club book (THE FIREKEEPER'S DAUGHTER) and the Siskel and Ebert bio. We watched their show (SNEAK PREVIEWS) religiously throughout the nineties. 

NORTHERN EXPOSURE is back on Prime. Not sure if I will watch more than a few episodes but it's nice seeing the old gang in Cicely, AK. Also a fun show LOUDERMILK (with Ron Livinstone) is back on Netflix. Looking forward to TRUE DETECTIVE (Max) (also set in AK apparently).

My brother, Jeff, wrote a nice piece about Mathias Nase's trip to Philadelphia in the 1600s for a little book put out by his genealogy group. I had to keep reminding myself that the Nases are not related to me. A shame because they have an interesting history. Doesn't look like the new family is nearly as much fun. 

What's new with you? 

FFB: KILLER IN THE RAIN, Raymond Chandler

 (from the archives)

Killer In the Rain by Raymond Chandler (reviewed by Richard Robinson)

Killer in the Rain by Raymond Chandler, stories originally published 1934-1941,
this collection © 1964 – copy shown is the Ballantine Books 1977 paperback

This short story collection contains 8 stories: “Killer in the Rain”, “The Man Who Liked Dogs”, “The Curtain”, “Try the Girl”, “Mandarin’s Jade”, “Bay City Blues”, “The Lady in the Lake”, “No Crime in the Mountains”.

These stories by Chandler are both less and more than they seem. Every one of them was cannibalized by Chandler and became part of a novel. Sometimes it was a character or two who made the transition, more often it was whole pieces of plot, in some cases (The Lady In The Lake) the entire story was used and became a novel by added plot and a few name changes.

In his informative introduction to this collection, Philip Durham traces the publication and cannibalization of these eight stories, part or all of which became The Big Sleep, Farewell My Lovely and The Lady in the Lake.

None of the stories in this collection appears in Chandler’s 1950 “official” short story collection The Simple Art of Murder. Once Chandler cannibalized a story he believed it should be buried, so the stories were left to fade away with the pulp magazines in which they were originally published, thus none of these stories was published by Chandler during his lifetime, though three were published in collections, which Chandler maintained were published by mistake and without his permission: “No Crime in the Mountains” appeared in Great American Detective Stories edited by Anthony Boucher (1945), “The Man Who Liked Dogs” appeared in Joseph Shaw’s The Hard Boiled Omnibus (1946) while “Bay City Blues” appeared in Verdict (1953).

This collection was my introduction to Raymond Chandler. I was wowed by the writing, and I was hooked. I read this, the collection The Simple Art of Murder and the collection Pickup On Noon Street before I ever got to one of Chandler’s novels. When I did start on the novels – with The Big Sleep if I recall correctly – I was so enthralled I didn’t notice there were pieces of the short stories I’d already read. If I had, I wouldn’t have cared. Or perhaps I noticed and just don’t remember now, after I’ve read all of Chandler so many times.

While these stories are not in the two volume Library of America set of Chandler’s works, they are to be found in the 1,300 page Raymond Chandler: Collected Stories published by Everyman’s Library, which contains all of Chandler’s short fiction, mystery and other. Whatever the source, it’s worth seeking these out. You just can’t go wrong with Raymond Chandler.

Short Story Wednesday: "Blue Island" Stuart Dybek

 

Stuart Dybek reading

 https://www.newyorker.com/books/flash-fiction/blue-island-stuart-dybek

Stuart Dybek writes almost elusively of  blue-collar Chicago, where he grew up. In this story, an older mentor (Romy) gives him advice on how to win back a girl. "Just ask her to go walking," he advises. And the narrator does. Dubek perfectly captures the city with all its smells, sights, tastes. Although he has lived in Kalamazoo, MI for many years where he teaches at Western Michigan University, he still walks the streets of Chicago. He has many collections of stories and poems. 

Todd Mason

Kevin Tipple 

Jerry House 

TracyK 

George Kelley 

Neer

Monday, Monday

 

I forgot it was Monday until five minutes ago. So this will be brief. Had a nice time with the family. Saw Ferrari, Iron Claw and Poor Things. All three were good. Reading THE OTHER EDEN by Paul Harding, which is wonderfully written although sad. Two more good movies on TV Scrapper and Afire. Also liked the doc American Symphony. Finished Slow Horses and will have to look for something new to watch. What are you guys up to? I am sick of winter, how about you?