And if a great story isn’t enough to kick you in your more callipygian regions and get you to work, according to his NYTimes obit, Mario Benedetti is responsible for more than 80 books. If you move now, maybe you can catch up. Maybe I should stop soliloquising and give you your story already. Here’s Mario Benedetti.

Oh, wait, I’m not done. Over at Iambik, we’re giving away audiobooks this week. You should enter to pick up my most recent if you haven’t already, as I’ve got a couple of new ones in the works. Also, because tonight’s is a short story, and won’t nearly keep you cozy. And now, really, Mario Benedetti.

So, here’s a bonus for you, thanks to Mel U of The Reading Life, and one of the internet’s most enthusiastic readers of Jean Rhys.

In related news, this article about Global Warming affecting the intelligence of reptiles has been floating around the internettish circles. A scary thought, to some, but I take great pleasure in the thought that someday salamanders may fit themselves with earbuds and join our clan of the literarily satisfied.

Now, about Jean Rhys…

Then sometimes I’m introduced to other projects that leave me licking the dust of underachievement. Tonight’s narrator is behind one such project. You should have a listen to Poetry Scores, and share in the dust-licking awe of it. And as a bonus to all of us, Chris King, the genius responsible, is a Rilke enthusiast of the very best sort. It’s our lucky day.

Visit Poetry Scores and Confluence City and don’t forget to thank Chris for the story.

I’ll be back very soon now, honest.

Reflecting on his interpretation of Alice McDermott, I realise that perhaps I haven’t given her a fair shake, and that should change. This is heartwrenchingly rendered beauty, which, given our narrator, shouldn’t surprise anybody.

I’ll be back in my own voice very soon now, and still have a few guests to post. If you told me you’d read for me and you haven’t, I am probably very disappointed in you, although I just might understand all the same.

So, when I was sent a story that I didn’t know, I was allowed to sit back and listen and discover and marvel, as you should. If you really want my experience, be on your third glass of wine before you listen. It’s worth tomorrow’s headache.

I’m here to tell you resolutely not to mind this, not to let it interfere with the almost toxic pleasure you might receive from a Patrick/Flannery one-two-punch. If anything, think of it not as a probably loud computer fan, but rather, as a Flannery O’Connor story as broadcast from the other side of the buckle of the asteroid belt.

The next two weeks will be just full of guests, and if you’ve offered a story and haven’t delivered, I will remember this when your birthday rolls around. There’s still time to redeem yourself. You know who you are.

So, it’s time to drop some buds into your head’s sound detection holes and try not to smile sheepishly when he whispers “… for I do like a certain degree of raggedness and neglect.” And then look up to see if anyone catches you mid-blush. Make no excuses, but barrel down and enjoy the rest. I expect you’ll get as much out of Sam’s interpretation of Frau Wilke as I have. For more, keep your eye on Wandering with Robert Walser

I’m featuring guest readers for the next month or two, and am in search of more guest narrators, although admittedly the bar’s being set high. If you’d like to have a try at reading for the podcast, email me.

And so, I would appreciate no murmured speculation on rhinoplastic nasal blockage or testosterone injections on my part. For the next month or two, I’ll be hosting some featured narratorial guests, as I take care of some necessary business of a personal variety, which may or may not involve the sexual reassignment of my nose. Go ahead, speculate away.

My first guest, George Carr, is (on my authority) among the world’s most dedicated and assiduous close readers of David Foster Wallace, so it was with a blushing schoolgirl’s delight that my inbox received his reading of Everything is Green. It’s a story on the shorter side, when measured in minutes, but don’t let that stop you: every second is greater than itself. And if you’re as in thrall by George’s voice as I am, put your eyes back here next week for more. Enjoy.

I’m featuring guest readers for the next month or two. Stop writing to me with snoopy questions about my health! My health is just fine! Or at least, it is, and will continue to be if you don’t send me into a paranoiac hell of hypochondriasis. Nor am I in prison. Yet. I do have a talented stable of guests lined up, and if you’d like to have a stab at a reading, email me.

But this, coupled with more quotidian gripes involving overworkedness and not-enough-rings-in-the-circus, and there’s been precious little time for fuzzy drinks and cabana boys, not to mention podcasting.

I’m making it up to you, of course, by the quality of the text itself, and the promise that this foul season will be over soon, and the cold nights of blankets and books will be upon us again. In the meantime, you’ll have to excuse the raspiness, or invite me to record in your convalescent cave.

But to keep things spicy in the meantime and extend the celebration, I have recorded a hidden bonus track. Now, before you go randomly link-clicking, if you’re offended at all by utter filth, if you think the things that two consenting grownups do with the bodies of each should should only be done with a chorus of angels humming hymns in the background while doves fly overhead, then go elsewhere, please. If none of this is true, go listen to my joyous retelling of a naughty letter from Joyce to Nora. I mean it. FILTHY. I’m warning you.

Whatever your kinky streak, happy day. Here’s the Bloomsday collection to-date.

I left some residual background noise in tonight’s recording for the sake of achieving verisimilitude with the subject matter. Also, because it’s Bloomsday next week, which means I’ve still got work to do.

Look again at that list of names. What’s a girl got to do to help make 2011 or 2012 another 1980? Maybe a new John Sayles novel can’t hurt…

Tonight’s story was originally published on Fifty-Two Stories, and is here with the permission of the author, a fact that I am laying down right now in case Fifty-Two Stories happens to have an intellectual property lawyer in the family with some time on his or her hands. And actually, Mr or Mrs Fifty-Two Stories and all sister and parent companies, if you’re reading this and you do come from legal blood, we should get married.

For the rest of you, you could get your brain into top form fast by looking closely at the right 3/4 of Kyle Minor’s legendary reading list. Here’s his web site, if that’s your bag.

But I couldn’t have been more wrong– it’s delightful, right? I very nearly entered the realm of squealing schoolgirl as I got deeper into this one.

Fernando Pessoa has been a long-standing point of not insignificant fixation in the writerly pursuits of Your Faithful (If Not Schedularly Published) Storyteller, for reasons that will be forehead-smackingly obvious to some of you. As for the rest of you, rather than stand around in the dark, I welcome you to take a guess.

Should you want that guess to be educated, start here. And then go read The Book of Disquiet

From the printed introduction to tonight’s story (from The Selected Prose of Fernando Pessoa):

Among the dozens of names under which Fernando Pessoa wrote an which, in a certain way, wrote Pessoa, there was one female persona, called Maria José. The letter attributed to her was typed on three and a half pages, but Pessoa-Maria signed her name next to the title. One of the striking features of the letter is the language, for Pessoa succeeds in rendering the simple but long-winded diction characteristic of Maria José’s economically disadvantaged social class. He also reveals, in spite of his oft-declared disinterest in matters of love and sexuality, a remarkable capacity to evoke a woman’s hopeless love for a man.

On another note, the ‘casts have been unspooling a little more slowly than usual lately, and for that I’m truly sorry, and am sorrier still that after such a long wait, you’re only getting ten minutes out of me today.

We can only hope that this is something I’m making up for in quality.

There are reasons for these delays, good reasons which may mean exciting things for our little adventure in storytelling and anecdotage. But in the meantime, know that the next one will be long enough for you to wish it was over already.

Which means, of course, it’ll be impossible to celebrate my winnings by dumping the books on the bed and saucily getting to know them in satin sheets and slow motion. These are books to be treated reverently, I think. I hate bookstores closing as much as my wallet loves a sale, and I’ve been a part of too many such liquidations to share.

So, a few years ago, while trawling the shelves in a similar situation in a midtown shop, I found Susan Daitch’s Storytown, which sat unread until a few months ago. This was a shame, because the stories here are sui generis, told brilliantly, and inspired. I’m reading the first one for you as tonight’s bedtime story. And with that, a Archimedes moment of redemption: maybe you’ll like it, and buy it, and we can keep our vultures circling elsewhere.

In other news, this new journal looks wonderful, and I’ve been impressed with Broadcastr (in closed beta, but they’re giving out invites every day, so get over there), and plan to post a small story on that site next week.

Because the weather knows this about me and is a relentless jerk about this, my revenge is in the form of a seaside adventure story based largely on southern waters. Which is, admittedly, analogous to bringing double your milk money to school and handing one over freely to the big bully. But I don’t know how to kick the weather where it deserves to be kicked, so this is the best I can do. Enjoy it, and keep your toes warm-socked.

[n.b. OH, I'm sorry if you experience any sort of psychedelica presenting in the form of pounding headache or tinnitus when listening to this. I was playing around with a new audio setup, one which I may have to abandon if I can't get the levels right. But, you know, this is indulgent geekery and hopefully it sounds OK to you.]

ps: if you want to sign up for my mailing list, you’ll not only be among the first to know about new stories, but you’ll also receive a short excerpt from a sleazy vintage novel in each story announcement. If that’s your idea of a good time, You can sign up here.

Here’s one, a good story, from an author you likely don’t know. I didn’t know of him either until Robert very kindly and generously shoved a book into my filthy mitts. I’m a bit of a busy reader, with a half dozen books open and a pile of books to read that the mountain certifiers are always interested in measuring. So, while I’m always interested, in a DROP EVERYTHING sort of way, of hearing about a new author, it has to really get under my nose for me to sit at attention. Fortunately, I think Robert’s been listening perspicaciously, and clearly has an idea how to do that. From his synopsis of the story: Lots of dialogue, odd situations, lots of internal musings and a Flannery O’Connor feel. No fooling.

In related news, there will be new chapters of The Man Who Can’t Die starting tomorrow. Catch up while you can. Also, I have a little something over here, if you need to listen to more.

Someone on iTunes recently remarked that he suspects I may be mentally insane. You may be correct, anonymish commentator. Or, I may be cold, is all.

But this should warm us right up, regardless its effect on our mental state.

(ps: for those of you who are made of time, I’ve been tossing some petals to the wind on tumblr. Unsure if it’ll stick. But come say hello.)

People of the internet and listeners of these stories, please know that I don’t handle disappointment well. If you ever want to bully me into giving you my lunch money, just tell me how disappointed in me you are.

Now that I think about it, given that it’s a big travel week in the land of the Great Grope, tonight’s story is all kinds of topical. While it’s widely understood as an allegory on the inevitability of the touch of death, I think instead one should think of the inevitability of, you know, the touching of, erm, junk.

Jake, my friend, you’re a genius.

So, I’ve spent the past few weeks dorking off, quietly (<– likely to the great relief of those who have to tolerate me daily). As with so many things, my voice eventually came roaring back, and so at long last, here’s some PKDick, in the hopes that another hard kick comes with it.

(This is a metaphor. I will kick you back.)

So there I was, splayed out on the floor surrounded by cracked copies of Pnin and Pale Fire and Ada and all the rest, just madly paging through a title, locating its place within the vast underworld of my memory, enjoying the moment of recognition, then putting it aside and grabbing the next… and then I reached for the stories.

One of the nicer books in my library of the beaten and battered is a lovely hard-cover of the collected stories, and toward the end of it, the Vane Sisters, which proved to be the reminiscent equivalent of a half-ton of Madeleines force-fed by aliens. Not only had I forgotten how imbued this story was with everything I love about literature, but in its way, it seemed to be a sort of Ur-text for Icelander. No fooling: if you’ll pardon the connect-the-dots of the subject matter, this was not unlike being poked in the neck by the very ghosts the story conjures. Spooky stuff, for a girl on the floor of her own dusty library.

Two clues to solving the story’s puzzle:

1> You may need to listen to it twice.
2> You may need to see this, the final paragraph, to make sense of things:

I could isolate, consciously, little. Everything seemed blurred, yellow-clouded, yielding nothing tangible. Her inept acrostics, maudlin evasions, theopathies – every recollection formed ripples of mysterious meaning. Everything seemed yellowly blurred, illusive, lost.

#####

PS: Wanna hear some of Icelander
by Dustin Long? The entire first chapter is ready for your ears.

#####

Okay, done shilling. Back to Nabokov:

Although it has been my misfortune to have at practically all the noted American writers of the last half century, I did have the great good luck never to have so much as glimpsed Alfred Chester. He was, by every account, a genuine monster whose life comprises one of those Cautionary Tales that tend to over-excite journalists and school-teachers. Drink and drugs, paranoia and sinister pieces of trade did him in early, and the chronicle of his descent is as fascinating to read about in these pages as it must have been pretty grim to live.

I gave away two copies of this book to summer birthday friends this year, figuring that those are BruceLee fighting words if I’ve ever heard them applied to an author. Haven’t heard the report back, and I shook the piggybank or I’d ply you all with copies as well, but in the meantime, there’s this for an appetite whetter.

The unfortunate thing was that the title of the book, when viewed from across a subway car, can seem offensive. And was seen as offensive, based on the shuffling and shifting and awkward faux-coughing that I only noticed later.

Which reminded me that a month or two prior, I was reading this in one of the world’s most busily trafficked airports. Which also offended lots of people, visibly, but I didn’t care. The book was too good.

I don’t have any other such books in my Leaning Tower of Books to Read Soon, but now I’m a little saddened by that. There’s something powerful in reading a double-take-inducing book. Even if people find it foul or offensive (but then again, I’m one who hasn’t minded being considered either of these things. So here’s my plea to you for the day. You know the movie trope involving the geeky comix kid, the one we learn is a geeky comix kid because he tucks the comic book inside his school book? I’m looking some equally offensive book titles, into which I can sandwich the actual books I’ll be reading. Unless those offensively titled books are good, in which case I’ll just add to my Tower. Any ideas?

Meanwhile, Ben Greenman’s book doesn’t have an offensive title, unless you’re poised to do nothing. It, however, should be read all the same.

TECHNICAL NOTE: my megafancy headphones developed a bad case of psoriasis during the editing of this piece, so the sound quality may itself be offensive. Hopefully not too much… hopefully.

In the meantime, if you really need some sort of morbid fix, here are a few other scattered places where I’ve littered the internet with my sonant scraps. There’s a reading of Stella of the Angels at The Urban Sherpa. A recording of an Amy Meckler original poem at Revolving Floor. I can’t stress enough how pleased I am with the serial reading of The Man Who Can’t Die, which you’ll be able to catch up on while I’m away… And if long form’s your game, I still drop in and have a drink with Librivox from time to time. Have a listen to The Decameron or Moll Flanders, and honestly, if that doesn’t keep you busy for the next couple of weeks, you really should be reading to ME.

See you next month. Run through a sprinkler or open fire hydrant vicariously for me in the meantime.

1> the last post was James Joyce, who can hardly be noted without mention of underthings OR orificial expulsions. And underthings are far pleasanter for that particular task.

2> this post features a rare appearance by my friend Patrick, who has a tendency to tease us all with the hope and promise of starting his very own regular microphone-purring habit. Patrick is, if memory serves, the only other living person to have made a narrator’s appearance here, and once you listen, you’ll understand why. If you don’t, ask Christine. You’ll want to lap him up out of your headphones, and if you figure out how to do so, tell me.

3> it’s hot where I am, and quite likely where you are too. Too hot for underthings. Too hot for overthings. Too hot for anything other than the barest of skin. And headphones.

I’m back next week, if we and our underclad selves survive. (For those following, there’re also new chapters at The Man Who Can’t Die)

It’s a confession I was embarrassed to make for years and years, but now I think it wasn’t so bad (my young indiscretion, that is; to this day, I still think the performance could’ve benefited from a little bra-tossing). If you’ve used the Joyce readings to-date successfully as soporific, here’s where we are, in reverse chronological order:

An Encounter, Eveline, Araby, The Sisters, and The Boarding House.

As you can see, only another few hundred years until I’m reading annual chapters of the Wake to you. Whether you snooze or send your undergarments airbound, Happy Bloomsday.

(Except the story doesn’t have a gender, so swap the pronoun for the more appropriate in that quote.)

I first read this story while obdurately at the beach with a friend on a cold, wet day. The only other beach-trawler was an Australian man, whistling and playing football by himself and wearing nothing but a floppy hat. This guy belonged perfectly with this collection of stories.

In fact, if story’s author is one whose writings (long and short) you haven’t yet read, I can tell you authoritatively that they’re perfect reading for rivers and hammocks and beaches and other June-type reading.

Speaking of June reading, by this daymarker it’s just about Bloomsday…

In the middle of all this, high on cold medicine in an open, hot, noisy college classroom, I set up all my equipment and made today’s audio book with a few of those people. Our makeshift recording studio was less than ideal, and I doled out narration assignments on the fly to whomever would take them. And, in addition to our room being ‘hot’ (both in room temperature and audio-wise), across the hall was another room full of laughing booklovers getting loaded on morning wine. So when you hear the occasional burst of drunken laughter in the background, that’s what it was. Drunk Torontans, courtesy (I hear), of this guy, and I don’t know what they were laughing at. If it’s anything like what I laugh at when I’m drunk at ten thirty in the morning, it was probably inappropriate.

Given those disclaimers, our recording came out not at all badly. And knowing that, I’d love for those of you who read to think of how it might come out if you’re recording where you’re comfortable (not to a room of people, and not a text you’d never seen, and not being pestered by the likes of me.) And, as I mentioned, shoot a note if you have any questions at all.

Many many many thanks to Victor, Ben, Mary, Ron, Jeevan, and Promod for reading with me– I had a blast and you all sound just lovely (and did I forget you? Please email me. And do you have a site or want a link? Also email me).

I hope you had anywhere near as much fun as I did.

(An aside: I know, sitting in a hotel bar reading the New Yorker says all sorts of things about my character, and you can judge and you’ll probably be right. Case in point: I like arugula.)

But I loved these letters, and couldn’t stop reading them, and blame the quantity of booze consumed that night on the fact that I had no choice but to sit and dumbly nod at the barman for countless refills while plying my way through. This is the one, for the curious among you, that really made my seat wobbly.

Really, just to say that if you want to be penpals, that’d be okay by me.

But today, sunshiny and springy and cheerful, I had a little encounter with a little critter (more about which you’ll hear if you don’t automatically fast-forward through my spoken moment preceding the story), and it struck me that now’s the time to read you something on the sad side.

(N.B.: admittedly, a story about the self-entitlement among those in positions of religious authority is somewhat topical, eh? Which may be at least partially why this particular story has been noodling on the chorus of the old bean lately. But it’s more than that, as these things often are, and know that my reading of this story should by no means be perceived as “my religion can beat up your religion.” Because you probably don’t want my opinion on such things– and that’s one area in which I’ll happily oblige. And, damn, that can get me into trouble, too, so maybe let’s just hit the button that sends the story from me to you already.).

These days, when the shadows on your computer screen start doing some sort of cold Finnish tango across the monitor, maybe you should refrain from thinking you work too hard, and just sit back and try to enjoy it.

Storytime!

(N.B. OH! And if this story doesn’t keep you sated until next time, you really should go and see my friends at Revolving Floor, where I’ve put voice to microphone on a glorious Lilithian poem by Amy Meckler. Get over there.)

Nice, right? Apparently an artist named Luca Dipierro is to blame.

But it’s time to forcibly extract the candy from your eyes and cram it in your ears. Here’s a story.

For those interested, I dug up a little history about the story and posted it over here.

But I have neither alien nor supervillain powers, nor, really, the desire to be violent in an anvil-dropping way, so instead, I started to think about what these months might be like if I had my say.

And hence, Benito Lynch. Hope it keeps you warm.

It’s a fiery little story, though. Let me know what you know, if you know what I think you know. And if you don’t know, teach me Greek.

And, this is the last time I’ll mention it here (for now), for fear of becoming Miette’s Bedtime Story Infomercial, but if you’re still hungry when you’ve finished with this, you should listen to my narration of the first chapters of The Man Who Can’t Die.

And because I’m not above shallow attempts to inveigle you into listening, let me mention that this story includes a pivotal scene with one man sucking the blood from the neck of the other. How’s that for a quick million?

Also, note that tomorrow (7th January 2010) will feature the debut of my audio recording of Jon Frankel’s The Man Who Can’t Die. I’m not as good at pure self-promotion as a I am inveigling, or else you would have found out about this podcast through some anthropomorphic cartoon string bean singing a jingle about it on the television. But I’m excited about it and hope you are too.

xo
– Mtte.

ps: for those in need of a stocking stuffer, here’s a sneak peek at Jon Frankel’s The Man Who Can’t Die, which I’ll be reading beginning next year, along with your regular shorter gems here. Can’t wait for you to hear it.

There was a time when I was little (and I was so cute, and so little!) when I wanted to be Jane Bowles. I was obsessed with the puppet show, unhealthily so, though thinking back now, I can’t think of any self-respecting adult who’d have introduced such a cute little thing to it.

But so I did not grow up to be Jane Bowles, nor a master puppeteer, though I’m lucky to have grow up (more or less) to be the sort of girl who’s still really excited to find a hefty copy of her collected works in a used bookshop in a far off town.

That said, I’m also the sort of girl to take her dog swimming in a hotel pool, so that’s quite enough autopanegyric.

A story:

Well, actually, I mean to do exactly that. The pain as rendered in tonight’s story is as visceral as words can create, and while I know your constitution can take it, I wanted to give you a chance to brace yourselves. Which is not to say that this is a story about pain, or one of those gruesome hyperviolent boy’s club tales that are all the rage* in certain circles. It’s not even a story about coping (although there’s plenty of that). You’ll have to listen to get the whole extent of the way she handles the body-mind wrestling match. But again: brace yourselves.

For those of you who just listen and don’t bother with my introductory pap, perhaps now is a good time to put your eyes to the above. I’m not fooling!

And about those round food monks mentioned in the story’s introduction, my mind will explode if it doesn’t implore. What do you think?

*a pun.

But there’s something about a perfectly wrought piece of existential blues that never fails to set me on fire, and it doesn’t matter how heavy the hands that deal the metaphorical blow, I just lie down and prostrate myself to it, or dip myself in candy and find the nearest wrapper, sucker-like.

And of course, if the story’s painfully good (haha) on top of that, I’m a total lost cause. Wrap up warmly and enjoy it.

(and PS: I read german poorly, and there’s not much Aichinger available in English translation, so if you have some, consider yourself lucky, or even better, generous (when you wrap it up and send it to me as a holiday gift))

Note: includes an outburst of wicked laughter. You’re welcome.

Now, at least a few of you are going to go perfervidly huffy with me for spoiling the whole work for you. And to that, in the spirit of rapprochement, I should remind you gently that this isn’t reality television or a celebrity love affair or the latest movie by the I See Dead People fellow. I mean, we’re talking about stories that were written a century and change ago, and you can go here to read them before taking a listen here. Or after. Or during. It’s the damned internet, where you can basically do whatever you want (or so I’ve heard).

And so, thanks Alex for the recommendation– you’re more than right about the rip-roaringness of the action, and if you keep asking, maybe I’ll read the rest.

So, several months ago, I may or may not have been at a certain big bookish event, and I may or may not have chatted briefly with a representative of an independent publisher known for foresightedness and inventiveness and openmindedness and other qualities sometimes surprising of publishing types. And during this chat, that may or may not have happened, the publisher may have mentioned an author in her catalogue that may (or may not) gel with my very fussy and finicky tastes, and later, I may or may not have gotten my sticky mitts on an illicit copy of that author’s book of short stories.

And it’s hard to say whether or not any of this actually happened, or whether or not this story is related to that anecdote. I mean, it was several months ago, and we all know what happens to memory. But however I may have come across tonight’s author, when I did it was not unlike experiencing a breakthrough while slurping an oyster on the street with one’s lasting love.

If we’re lucky, you’ll feel the same.

Number 1: I (your Miette) have never owned an iron. So god only knows if, in my delivery of tonight’s monologue, I am at all able to capture the sorts of things that go through a woman’s head while performing such an act.

Number 2: It is my opinion that “She blew shining bubbles of sound” is perhaps one of the finest phrases ever to be shucked from our language, and the fact that it exists in this narrative makes me think the entire thing’s worth another close listen by all of us.

Number 3: I’m not kidding in tonight’s blathery introduction about the naughty naked puppets, though I won’t tell you where people who get here by that route are being sent. Now, I suppose, they’ll just come here. I win!

Okay, your turn?

Enjoy a fine listen this actual autumn. I’ll yam at you next week with something fresh out of Canada, and I’ll bet money that you’ll love it.

Here’s the thing: I just love stories about sentient animals. I can’t get enough of talking dogs or super-intelligent rats or telekinetic polar bears– this is the stuff of unconditional love. And I know the analogies presented in this trope can only go so far, sure. But I don’t care– I could start a website called Miette’s Podcasted Stories of Intelligent Animals, and be perfectly happy doing so.

As it is, looking through the archives, there’s not much represented here yet — there’s the Saki, which is hilarious, and now Leiber, which is one of those that will hopefully make you check yourself in the mirror and pucker your nose in search of a stray whisker. I have several others in mind, but meanwhile, do feel free to fill it with your suggestions as well.

And I didn’t really think about how topical tonight’s story was until I listened to the reading of it. But Villiers de l’Isle-Adam may have been a little cigar-tunneling heavyhanded in his symbolism in this story (just a smidge), but I’m thinking he might have been on to something.

And if you haven’t read L’Ève Futur, there’s no time like now. You can read it while waiting in line to be judged by the Panel.

There had been times in his youth, in the ardor of young manhood, when he had cherished ambitions to be somebody great and important. He had not succeeded in surpassing a decent mediocrity. But in this assured, deep-rooted, indestructible mediocrity he had the satisfaction of thinking about those who struggled, those who had a faith, an ideal, a political, social, or artistic belief for which they strove, for which they suffered privations and anxieties – and which perhaps they never saw realized.

I mean, it’s enough to force even the likes of to shut the valve off and get back to reading affectionately to the children.

On a mostly unrelated note, one of the top authors in Miette’s Preferred Podcasted Authors Network here, Bart Midwood, has a new project in the works that I can’t help but pass along. Do add word of The Francophile to your Myface Twitty Bookmarks Feeds and if you’re in the area we’ll go see it together on opening night.

I don’t get the chance to kick back and listen to another’s purring drone very often, but when Patrick delivers the musing about Fran’s hair, there was a little patter in this dark heart o’mine.

And if you think all babies are angelic beauties and that children are some sort of personification of happiness, this may help set you straight — and in that sense, it’s a morality story. Hope you like. More from me next week.

In his forward to the collection of Pancake’s stories, James Alan McPherson quotes from a letter he received from Pancake: “Anyway, what was that Latin phrase about the Obligation of Nobility? If it’s what I think it means — helping folks — it isn’t bad as a duty or a calling. We’d both better get back to work.”

And there are some stories that cause us to shake the fog forcibly from our head, that draw our pens to the paper and force us to get back to work. And let me tell you something, these stories do that. And I know it’s summertime and we should take it easy and allow ourselves to dawdle in the sun, but if you need a firecracker tossed under your feet to get you to dance, you should have a listen.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to trying to glue the heads back on my flowers.

Meanwhile, Happy Bloomsday and here’s another from Dubliners.

One day I’ll just relent and read them all to you, but that’d be a big project, and if you’re anything like me, you’re already running on the fumes of big projects. And if you’re smarter than me, you’ll have discovered a long time ago that when you have too many big projects, the best way to make absolutely certain that you don’t forget to do another one is to tell the Internet about it then whet its palette with anticipation. And you can do so with such a painful and potentially-affected self-consciousness as to ensure that you’ll be forgiven if it takes you a decade to follow through on that promise. And if you’re as tight-fisted as me, you’ll know that this way of going about things is way cheaper than seeing a shrink.

But in any event, if you don’t know the Winter’s Tales, you should read them yourselves. For now, I’ve settled on that which I find most fabulist and late-springish in its step.

Come to think of it, getting one’s socks knocked off is one of those idioms that doesn’t sound like much fun, especially if your feet aren’t just washed. Or if it’s cold where you are. If you wish to throw your arms around your nerdish side, here’s the most convincing enumeration I’ve found for the origin of the phrase. Or, if you just want to sit back and stick your feet up and see what it’s like to have your socks knocked off, listen on.

But consider yourself forewarned: this is not a work of jolly maypole-dancing return-to-innocence, though it is appropriate and recommended for young and old, whether in classroom, cabana, cubicle or coffin.

In sadder news, J.G. Ballard has died, and I encourage you to have a listen to this reading of The Assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy Considered as a Downhill Motor Race. And then you might need to go out and read everything he’s ever read, and thank me for it.

On a not-unrelated-note, I’ve got these things called “tags” in place on this web site, which would have been a Real Big Deal about seven years ago, and which I’m just now getting around to. It’s not complete, but it allows you to do things like see all the Scandinavian stories I’ve read, and slap your forehead in disgust at how many more I need to read. I suppose this could be useful if you ever find yourself in a mood. Expect things to get interesting around here. Har det bra!

And as I mention when reading tonight’s story, this alone makes today one of the best days anybody’s had, in a good long while (if not EVER). There are some real treasures here, among them, a wilderness guide from 1979 written not by an enthusiastic back-to-the-land trailblazer, but by a wondrously grizzled mind capable of gems like this:

At this point, I’d like to throw in a few words about the bright blue, red, dazzling yellow, and orange fabrics used in outdoor clothing, pack bags, and tents. Millions of hikers and backpackers wearing these gaudy colors are turning the wilderness into one vast Coney Island. You look out across a magnificent forested valley. Not a sign of humans anywhere. No? Look again. Over on the far side is a trail, and suddenly you see it — a moving bright red spot, followed by another, and then another, four altogether. It looks like a line of red ants marching along single file. Your vision of the vast wilderness is ruined. Had these hikers been wearing forest green, brown, or russet clothes and packs, they would never have been seen at that distance. When you enter an established campsite, what do you find? Maybe dozens of tents so brightly colored that they practically knock your eye out. This colorful practice is a relatively new phenomenon. The old idea was to wear colors and live in tents that blended and harmonized with the greenwood. I don’t understand these brightly colored “environmentalists.” They must be colorblind!

Of course, if he’d written this today, he’d be condemned for his impolitic prejudice against the colorblind. Know that I’m reprinting this passage for stylistic and training purposes ONLY, and by no means think that the colorblind population is incapable of selecting forest-appropriate outdoor clothing.

Which is just to say, the best way to enjoy this one is on the portable music player of your choice, while skipping through a jasmine field with a ribbon in your hair.

“We’re not big on heroes, either. The concept of heroes is alien. And I think that’s a very telling piece of our national ethos – no one deserves to be better than anyone else.”

If I didn’t already secretly pine for Canada on an almost daily basis, this tips the scales to metric. And here’s another quote, which (for any Carol Shields scholars) I’d love to find in its original context and in full:

“I’m concerned about the unknowability of other people…. That’s why I love biography and the idea of the human life told or shown. Of course, this is why I love novels, too. In novels, you get to hear how people are thinking. That’s why I read fiction.”

In my (not nonexistent) experience, fiction is worth loving as it brings the reader insight into what an author must think is unknowable about people, which is often extremely dissimilar to what I find unknowable about people. But I think the gist is there.

A disclaimer: You should know that this is the story that opens the collection of the same name. You should also know that the stories in this collection, while not mutually dependent, are definitely mutually more fascinating. Which is just a tip that if this is your cuppa, you should run out and snag yourself a copy, and read every last one.

Critically and academically, it’s the opening of this story that tends to get the most attention. But there’s an incredible rhythm throughout (the magnificence of which I likely don’t give justice), and it’s the ending that really got the chills going in this reader. I’d say more, but that’d spoil it.

And for those who are here on academic assignment, you shouldn’t take this as any sort of criticism against the value or impact of the opener — listen to your teachers or professors. The opening is worth study. But listen through to the end (yes, it’s almost an hour long).

It also makes prominent use of the word GALUMPH, a word that doesn’t see nearly as much usage as it deserves. Coincidentally, when out for a woodsy walk this morning, my co-perambulator noticed a set of tracks in the snow and noted that they likely belonged to “something large, galumphing.” And following so closely on the heels of my reading, left me all kinds of tickled. So we walked on, me in galumph-appreciative reverie, and stumbled upon a dead porcupine.

I’m not sure if that was an omen or, more importantly, what it has to do with galumphing.

Now, when this was first revealed to me, my knee started jerking and I impulsively wanted to hurl out BUT WHAT ABOUT Mavis Gallant! And Morley Callaghan!! But then I realized… that’s two names out of a BUNCH, and it’s about time I do something about it. And so, welcome to Canadian Short Fiction Month… yes, beginning almost half a month behind.

For starters, I thought Mr J’s lovely comment deserved another school-age-worthy meditation courtesy of Ernest Buckler.

And next? Send me the Canadian authors you’d have me read, and I’ll see how many I can get in. And if there are other groups under-represented, you should send them too. You can leave a comment, as always, or email me at miette (@) miettecast (.) com. The more you send, the more I’ll try to read this month, even with a throat full of (audibly detectable?) mucus. Deal? For Canada!

Now, I don’t have that intimate a history with these candies, but I know they’ve been around for a while, and evidently the endearments have changed over the years. But GET REAL and GOT CHA seem more for bleeding hearts, not those of the more sugary variety, and I wondered if someone in the candy factory was trying to tell me something.

Which didn’t stop me from eating the entire bag. Or thinking that had Zukofsky gotten a job coming up with things to print on candied hearts, I’d probably eat a bag every day.

The idea involved all these made-up memoirs floating about these days, and what a shame it is that they all have to be disparaged, refunded, yanked from shelves or production processes, and so on, especially in times of economic struggle. The idea is to take a fraction of the shelves of the Memoir section at your local bookstore, and refashion them into an entirely new genre: the Memwasn’t. Or the Fauxmoir. Whatever. The name’s beside the point.

But, think it over. It can be an inspiring game for authors, coming up with the most sensational, most unbelievably believable fake memoir imaginable. And at some point, there will be more and more of these books, and maybe no shortage of great ones, and people will be ardently buying and reading them, and the language will evolve and what we know as Fiction will be known as Memwasn’t (or whatever), and we can have stimulating arguments about Literary Fauxmoirs vs Genre Fauxmoirs, and we’ll all be happy again, and rolling in no shortage of books.

So there you have it, for any underemployed marketing brains just waiting for an idea to get you back in the game. All I want’s a credit at your awards speech. And to read all your fake memoirs… make em scandalous.

Because we can reminisce about all these things, or read lines like this and put our hands up in admission of the ageless:

“It’s about as real a smile as girls can do for each other, considering we don’t practice real smiling every day, you know…”

That’s pretty good, right? Happy wintertime.

So maybe instead you should just sit back, undo the button on your bluejeans (but, uh, not in -that- way) and have a quiet listen.

The problem is, as you may have heard, money in my country is not worth very much these days and table-benches are beyond my budget, and while there’s a new president whose first order of business, as you may have heard, will be to give me a new hybrid table-bench, I know better than to rely on economies and politics, and I went and gathered what I needed to fashion it myself.

Now, I’m not the handiest of people, and I’m actually fairly dangerous when put in front of power tools and sharp edges and, you know, screws and such, but I built the damned thing, which grew increasingly complicated from the initial idea of Top and Legs, to include such delicate bench-like features as Rabbited Feet and Lots of Slatted Inserts and Dependence on Measurements, and no shortage of other over-ambitious features for an unhandy sort. But it’s built. It’s wonky as all-hell, and if you’re ever over at my house and I invite you to sit on it, it can probably be safely said that I’m not your biggest fan. But it’s built– it’s my civic duty to let you all know that, wonkily or not, I’ve done my civic duty. And now it’s time to sit back and read more stories.

But that said, I’m happy to take your vote on what our young heroine saw beneath the quilt. A hint: I’m pretty sure it was not, in fact, an elephant.

Jesse Hill Ford (December 28, 1928 – June 1, 1996) was an American writer of Southern literature who produced one good novel (Mountains of Gilead), one popular novel (The Liberation of Lord Byron Jones) and a host of mediocre works entirely at odds with his public posturing at the heir-apparent to William Faulkner.

– Wikipedia Entry on Jesse Hill Ford

And maybe that’s true, beats me. I mean, I’ve gotten the impression that he wasn’t necessarily the mowing-the-lawns-of-the-elderly sort of gregarious, in character anyway. And I don’t know enough about his writing to know if the above is true or not.

But in the interest of improving the accuracy and objectivity of the world’s knowledge (which, I suppose, is the point), I’m drawing your attention there now. Hopefully we can resolve this before it becomes a full-on obsession, before I start the Jesse Hill Ford Credibility Restoration PAC, or somesuch.

It’s funny, imagining John Fahey sitting in a hotel rampantly scrawling. Not because he’s so otherwise voiceless, or should relegate his expressiveness to the steel-stringed style, or other reasons fascistic or idiotic. He’s just one of those guys one imagines (if the “one” doing the imagining were “me,” admittedly) never to have put down his guitar for anything other than a whiskey glass or a pee. You just don’t get that good if you have to stop to put it down. So it’s nearly impossible to think of him not only putting it down, but picking up a pen long enough to get good at that too.

And he was pretty good– listen for the mad scientist bit, partially quoted above.

In fact, if he and I were teenage girls, I might have to start a jealous fight with him over this.

And tonight’s super special Feel-Better-Just-For-a-Minute (or Feel-Even-Better-if-You’re-Already-Feelin-Okay) soundtrack by the author, but let’s keep it between us, okay?

In other words, not nearly as fun as speculation, and besides, I’m not about to give you all the information you’d need to know to perform such a task. But I will ask you this: have a listen (and keep your jaw taped up off the floor — this is a good one) and a think about it, and see what comes up. It could be worse, after all. We could be discussing politics.

Now, I was going to read you something from the Moomins, but it’s not quite as charming when removed from the illustrations of big Moomin innocently bent-over butts. Or rather, it’s just as charming, but I’m hopelessly unable to convey Moomin-butt-drawing charm by voice alone.

And besides, the Summer Book is pretty archetypal for changing-tree times. As much as bonfires and maybe as much as the Shrimp Song that Townes van Zandt sang. Any other absolutely perfect end-of-summer stories? I’m in a wood-fire mood.

And then waking from that little spat of brain damage to the discovery that… well, maybe I’d missed the point entirely.

The next morning, having forgotten about the whole scene thanks to a night of Thomas Disch dreams, I made the coffee and fed the cat, whose breakfast made its way back up several minutes later. And right in the middle of the mess was the cutest slick brown fur, with tail still mostly undigested.

Despite the fact that I had to clean it up, I was so proud.

Now, given that it’s superhero-movie-season, I asked to assist anyway, even though I -knew- it had nothing to do with the battery. I asked if he needed a jump, because where logic ends, blind altruism begins and I thought it’d be a good thing, to make somebody’s day, get him on the road again. So I offered the jump which was accepted, and pulled up beside him and got the cables and gave it a good effort, though it was doomed, pathetic really, as his under-hood ineptitude evidently rivaled mine own. Which is to say, it was worthless. And I couldn’t get the brake set right and was parked on a backward incline — or maybe a decline — in any event so I had to keep gassing to keep up the appearance of being idle, all the while trying HARD not to look like the idiot who can’t use the brake, much less get another car started.

And I’m not sure what I did end up looking like that night, but I’m fairly certain that it wasn’t confused with superheroics, and that it was clear to a discerning passerby, even if that passerby were to have been the subject of tonight’s story.

With these words, it is clear that if Nigel Dennis were still around I’d be his groupie. I’d start the FaceBook Club and make mashups on Youtube for him and disguise myself as an editor at Rolling Stone Magazine to obtain his personal email address, which I would then use in ways the word “subterfuge” can only begin to imagine. And when I web-two-dot-ooh’ed the Nigel Dennis article in the Wikipedia and tag it up, the index would indicate that Nigel Dennis writes about obscene bile-spewing puking beasts kept as pets because that’s what people do, and at this, you would join my Nigel Dennis FaceBook Club and we’d all order matching t-shirts. I -know- you would.

And in the FOR ME column of our imagined list, not in the treasured top slots but up there, would be the gift of Joycean spam upon a digital reemergence: boltmaker stippled scrapy heartedness burgoo overplentiful unended hydrophobous.

But for some reason all I could think was that these monkeys are capable of catching fish with their bare hands, and in the modern on-demand way we’d expect of them, when it takes me hours of unraveling knots and tying knots and waving a stick around in the water before, if I’m very very lucky, I manage to land anything more than ingredients for a muck-and-weed juice drink.

And then I snapped out of it and thought: huh, jealous of monkeys. Well, why not?

In other news, a killer thunderstorm knocked the power out twice before settling into the atmosphere needed for Poe regaleritics.

So a personal note to identity thieves in training: when you’re done with me, at least return me with a few heavy anecdotes and a thrilling punked-up haircut. OK?

Free Fish! Please Give Steve Buscemi a good home.

And of course I did. I found an exceptional home for him, a home where he’s given all the love and post-traumatic care that he needs, and maybe even such environmental niceties as filters and plastic sunken ships. And I mention this now not out of gratitude to his new clan, although that’s there in spades, nor out of self-congratulations for my successful act as adoption supervisor, though, you know, I felt pretty good about the rare chance at a good charitable act.

But on the off-chance that the noontime hot-sidewalk abandoner stumbles across this page, you little shit, do send me an email so I can say a few inappropriate and depravedly nasty words to you directly. Anonymous tips will not be prosecuted.

But something good came of it, in that it’s a more natural anecdotal segue than I’m used to.

(This a second-hand mic, a little poppier than usual, back next week purring into the usual devices)

And I should mention… I’m not much for promotion other than that of the Self, but those of you with an interest in the more overtly prurient might take a shine to the new podcast of my friend Mia (also worthwhile bedtime material), most subtly titled I Want Your Sex. And for those of you without an interest in the overtly prurient, well, don’t click there, ok?

But it hasn’t been quiet enough. All week there’ve been people, russian sailors doing ballet with cinderblock slippers (if you need some imagery), fewer than ten feet above my head, all day, back and forth and back again.

But today, I could hold out no longer, and instead of waiting for a quiet day, waited for a quiet spell, which was a way shorter wait.

That said, if you listen closely, in perfect silence and with headphones held tight, you may hear with your very own button-ears what I been hearing. Didja??

And I almost had to stop and compose myself, because I was so deeply distressed by the fact that frost can’t heave in private (and I’m not a histrionic sort of girl), and saddened that a frost’s heave has to be announced clearly for any old asshole who happens to be driving by, and that even though this old asshole was told that the frost was heaving, which was too much, I wanted more… I wanted a sign telling me exactly why the frost was heaving.

Well, it was then explained to me that this condition probably had very little to do with the emotional state of the frost, and was intended as a warning to the state of the pavement. Which made me better about the frost, which I care about a little more than pavement. Apparently, this old asshole is also a little biased that way. Which is not meant to offend any pavement that happens to be listening.

So, many times it’s been asked of me, and many times I’ve answered that I, in what sometimes seems to be my inestimable ignorance, am aware of far fewer African writers than I should be. And, in the equally inestimable ignorance of the publishers of many of the short fiction anthologies from which I ply stories to read to you… well, you guessed it.

And rest assured, this is an acknowledgement that makes me wish I were flexible enough to kick my own ass, because a story like tonight’s makes me think I should. But I’m not (flexible enough), which is where guys like Isaac are useful. So thank you Isaac, and if others of you want to introduce me to something new, send it along.

But rest assured, there’s nothing Victorian here. Not much, anyway. Maybe a metaphor for industry, revival architecture, the destruction and rebirth of the city… honestly, there’s nothing Victorian in today’s story. Would you just listen to it already?

And I assure you, Roadsome Load is NOT the title of tonight’s story, and the problem was one of those lingual bowline knots that only whiskey or a nearby leatherman can unhinge. Fortunately for both me and my tongue, it worked out its own kinks JUST in time.

What I need is a blooper outtake bungle reel.

Because, you know, there aren’t many articles written about this, which is surprising, because from the sound of things, the race for this public office is not of no importance. So it was nice to find such an article, one that really cuts to the quick of the more serious matters of a campaign. In it is quoted an assistant, or an aide, or associate (who can remember when you’re reading through the dengue) who says something to the paraphrastic effect of “you know, you really get to know her, and she gets in your foxhole, and you get in her foxhole.”

Now, when you think about it, surely you know what’s being suggested here. But when you don’t think about it, or when you’re sick and can’t think about it, it might mean something else entirely. It might remind you of Barthelme. Don’t you think? Might it?

The fantasies were pretty grand, actually, as I patiently crawled alongside the road behind him, and I was just about to peel around him and slam on the brakes, when from nowhere and with no warning, the student hangs an unannounced left turn and smashes right into a car parked not ten feet away from us.

It occurs to me now that this student might be reading this, and if so, listen, man… there’s still hope for you.

The first time I ever drove I blew an engine. While driving in the middle of a major metropolitan area. And this was about a year before receiving a license. But you know, I was motivated by a determination not unlike that of the star of tonight’s story, although maybe without the desire to receive a beating.

So you stay focused, and stay clear of lawyers.Oh, and while you’re at it, do stay away also from any vehicles I happen to be driving.

For Dream, remembered always, and loved even longer.

Wow, that sounded a little snake-oily- let me try that again:

Step right up folks and have a look at the one, the only, the world’s finest, most discriminating, most hyperventilating-inducing collection of the web’s best audio content: Earideas.

There, that’s a little less in your shopping cart of the internet sell-out mall. And I won’t even mention that Miette’s Bedtime Story Podcast is included in the Earideas directory of the internet’s best audio content (Are you surprised, really?), although I guess it’s too late.

The real reason I want to tell you about Earideas is because I’ve been challenged. I’m supposed to find “The Five Best Podcasts I Know,” and while I do -know- of five other podcasts, it strikes me that -you- probably have the internet a little better tapped than I do.

So, uh, anybody know any good podcasts, other than this one? You can share them with me through the comments or by email to miette (at) this domain. And I won’t be offended, and assume that whatever you send is your Number 2 pick. Right?

Or, you can go straight to Earideas and tell them yourself.

And in exchange, I’ll give you a story. A good one.

But so, more helpful might be to present alternative programming. And, well, I happen to be able to help there. For the characters among you, hang in there.

Oh, and well, at the recommendation (read: incessant prodding to the point of NUISANCE, and you know who you are) of more than you than I’m able to count, fine, I’ve made a page on that web site everybody’s talking about where you can be my, well, “Friend,” if you can find me. Though I still can’t imagine why anyone would want to be on any other web site but this?

There’s a moral here somewhere, involving holding on to tired hallucinations, and applauding half-conscious on-road activity. You would probably be best to ignore it. Have a story instead!

And while I’d like to reach out and cry for help, I’m not sure you’d be able to distinguish the tears from the passel of sweat. So I’ll offer instead that if you’re now in one of those more mildly temperate climates, you should be counting celestial bodies. And if you, too, are sweating hard, well, we’ll do in sympathy, and doesn’t that sound nice, in its own way?

I LOVE SARAH, KINDA?

Which is nice, but only kinda. And some advice to other budding young taggers in need of epic gestures of romance: maybe you might consider keeping the paint safe in the can until you’re a little more sure of things, right?

And if that specific Sarah is reading, I’m sure he or she was just having a moment. I’m sure you’re loved, totally!