Selected Shorts February 2010

Driving around Seattle, my radio is generally tuned to NPR even though I despise the general lack of facts on their news programs. I just don’t have an alternative for news. My other choices are either right-wing talk radio with occasional news, left-wing talk radio with occasional news, or the stations with traffic and weather with a side of headlines. KUOW does have a few good shows though, so I keep it tuned there. For instance, an hour of BBC most nights.

I’ve come across Selected Shorts on occasion when I turn on the car radio in the evening. Unfortunately, I invariably flip on the radio in the middle of a story. That’s just no good, so I usually turn the radio back off.

I’ve been looking for fiction podcasts, particularly general fiction. PRI has made Selected Shorts available as a podcast, so I subscribed when I ran across it in January. I’m not always amazed by the stories, but Selected Shorts certainly gets some talented readers. They have some truly amazing readings. The readers are generally actors, so they have some dramatic chops. And it’s clear that Selected Shorts actually plans and directs the shows before the readers step on stage for the performance. Most are done before a live audience. So far, this is my gold standard for how to do a fiction podcast right.

Note: These were distributed as podcasts during February. It appears that the show airs on the radio somewhat differently.

Vantage Points

An excerpt from Let the Great World Spin, by Colum McCann, performed by Brian Stokes Mitchell. I believe this is the opening section of the novel. It’s a description of New Yorkers as they watch Philippe Petit on the edge of the Word Trade Center just before he did his high-wire walk between the towers. Some poetic license with the facts, and the text bored me.

Salt (from War Dances), by Sherman Alexie, performed by David Strathairn. Sherman Alexie can do no wrong in my book. I was first introduced to his work through his movie Smoke Signals, but I think my memory about the movie is wrong. I could have sworn I first saw the movie when I was living in north Idaho where the movie is set. But it came out in June 1998, which is the month I moved to Boise. Anyway, Alexie’s trademark style is to handle sadness and pain with tenderness and humor. Salt is no different. A young Indian intern working the obituary desk at the Spokane Spokesman-Review confronts his own mortality. The piece didn’t affect me as strongly as some other Alexie pieces have, but it’s still awesome. And Strathairn, a pretty old guy, does a wonderful job reading the part of a young guy.

Download (link is to NPR-hosted MP3 and was valid as of the time of posting)

Inspired by the photography of Robert Frank

This episode is composed of works related to the photography of Robert Frank: an Allen Ginsberg poem because he was friends with Frank, two short shorts by young authors who wrote stories inspired by Frank photos at he Metropolitan Museum of Art, and two stories about immigrants because they are the quintessential Americans in Frank’s photography. Or so the podcast claims; I know nothing about Robert Frank.

The poem is Sunflower Sutra by Allan Ginsberg, read by Isaiah Sheffer (the host of the show). Well read, but as I rarely get poetry, including this, I’m demurring on any kind of commentary.

The Death of Jim Taylor was the first of two short shorts. Written by Elissa Hutson, Broadway actor Boyd Gaines performs the reading. Hutson imagines a white man’s reaction to the death of a black man in an industrial accident in the South in the 1950s. Decent story, but I wasn’t particularly moved.

Barbara Stanwyck, It’s Your Time to Shine was written by Bianca Galvez, and performed by Condola Rashad. Rashad, a budding stage actress, really makes this story shine. A quick elevator ride length exposition by a woman about her boyfriend Frank, done classic 1950s style.

Good Living by Aleksandar Hemon from Love and Obstacles, performed by Boyd Gaines. A Bosnian immigrant sells magazines door to door in the U.S. At one of the places lives a priest, and the immigrant deals a bit with the priest’s preconceived ideas about Bosnians, which our protagonist is willing to exploit. I love the unstated relationship and interaction between the priest and his gay stud houseboy.

The Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, performed by Condola Rashad, from The Thing Around Your Neck. Rashad’s reading for this story is good, but not as amazing as for the Galvez story earlier. I didn’t like this story too much either. I think it’s because it’s told in second person. A woman from Nigeria comes to America and deals with (as in Hemon’s story) some typical American reactions to foreigners. In this case, someone who fetishizes foreigners. In addition to the second person telling, the story had it’s moral a little too much on the surface for me. That sometimes works, but in this case it didn’t grab me.

Download (link is to NPR-hosted MP3 and was valid as of the time of posting)

Tales of Terror

Dracula’s Guest by Bram Stoker, performed by Aasif Mandvi. Yes, the guy who is the Muslim correspondent for The Daily Show. I didn’t know he did anything except comedy, but he’s good reading this story. Really good. The story isn’t particularly inspiring, but I’m not a huge horror fan. Seems to use a lot of horror movie cliches. Unseen creatures. Sudden drops in temperature. Characters who decide to enter abandoned towns despite warning of ghostly dangers. Granted, Stoker wrote this well before these were cliches, much less horror movie cliches. But I’ve seen and read them too much. Mandvi makes the story interesting though.

The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe, performed by Fionnula Flanagan. Really didn’t get this story. So there’s a disease plaguing a kingdom, and the prince holes up in a castle and throws wild parties while secluded from the dying populace. The the plague personified makes it into the palace, and things go wrong, as they do when the plague enters your home. I must be totally missing something here.

Download (link is to NPR-hosted MP3 and was valid as of the time of posting)

Forbidden Fruit

This episode has a couple of stories about stuff we’re not supposed to do.

Yurt by Sarah Shun-lien Bynum (from Ms. Hempel Chronicles), performed by Joanna Gleason. Superbly performed by Gleason. I particularly loved her voice for Mrs. Willoughby. A teacher leaves school for an extended trip to Yemen, and now comes by for a social visit after her return to the U.S. She’s pregnant, and appears to be abandoning her teaching career. You’d think the forbidden fruit would be the wild exotic sex life Ms. Duffy is having that’s got her pregnant, but I don’t think that’s really it. Solid story about people whose lives are in a rut.

Wild Plums by Grace Stone Coates (from Best American Short Stories of the Century, performed by Mia Dillon. A girl’s parents see picking and eating wild plums as something low class people would do, and forbid their daughter from picking or eating them. The neighbors quite enjoy their plums though, and invite the girl to go along with them. Not a particularly moving story, even with the humorous twit ending.

Download (link is to NPR-hosted MP3 and was valid as of the time of posting)