NFSL - How to Talk To A Hunter, and The Canoeists

About eight or nine years ago, when I was thick in the throes of college, the only thing that you could find me reading was short stories. At library book sales and Barnes and Noble (THE bookstore in Springfield) I would pick up anthologies and read them. I would sign up for courses in the short story. I met my advisor in a short story class.

And then in my junior year of college I took a class on comparing two sets of novels (a set by Camus, and a set by Dostoyevsky), and I walked away from reading short stories. In my final semester I took a class on writing them, but as far as enjoying them was concerned, I seemed to be finished. I preferred the investment of a novel better. Oh, sure, there was the occasional anthology of Non-Required Reading edited by Eggers or New Yorker fiction, but for the most part I had given it up.

Yesterday on my day of recouperation I curled up in bed for a good measure of the morning listening to my podcasts on iTunes. I subscribe to four of them--The Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor, Fresh Air, and two short story 'casts: The New Yorker Short Stories and Selected Shorts. The New Yorker podcast comes out once a month, but the Selected Shorts comes up once a week. (Both the Almanac and Fresh Air come out daily.) In case you are not familiar with the program, Selected Shorts is a series of contemporary short stories (usually three to four in number) read on a stage to an audience somewhere by actors. Mostly they perform in New York, but sometimes they travel--a couple of weeks ago one of the readers read from Edith Wharton's home in Massachusettes.

Yesterday was a collection of four stories, two of which were authors that I recognized. Emily used to be addicted to short stories by Pam Houston, and she would share with me--the first reader read Houston's "How to Talk to a Hunter." It was heartbreaking and delicious to hear...and then later in the broadcast was Rick Bass's "The Canoeists." I love Bass--he reminds me of Dillard in a way, or she reminds me of him (I don't know enough of the timeline to know which one came first). He is rich and decadent in detail and picks thin plots that almost seem not to exist so that he can be rich and decadent in detail. He is very sensual in what he rests on, and he writes his works as set in the outdoors. As I listened to Neil Patrick Harris read of Sissy and Bone, I closed my eyes and felt the cold river water, saw the shining firefly carcasses on the car-transported canoe. The short story finds place again, albeit in small capacity, in my life.

http://www.newwest.net/topic/article/rick_basss_the_lives_of_rocks/C132/L39/

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It occurs to me in this adventure that I may be conveying some things about what theme this endeavor of Blog 365 will take. A few things that you the reader should probably know:

I won't always be writing this in the morning. I just happened to get lucky the past couple of days.

I won't always write for this length. I had yesterday off and today they told me to take my time coming in to work, and I'm taking them up on it.

I won't always write just about my iPod or the arts. Right now there are no human interactions that are setting my mind on fire, FG and Mary have disappeared again, and MS and SKS are making plans to move to San Diego, all others were busy for the holidays, so I am getting my riches from the internet and from the books and articles I stumble upon. Pardon me whilst I live in my head and hibernate. I will write of what lights my fire on that particular day, and strive for the positive. Right now that lies in the arts.

Cupid, chained to Minerva's pet. :)