This reading by David Cross of Marc Maron’s “Pan-American” is part of the SELECTED SHORTS program “Out of the Kitchen with Lucky Peach”hosted by Hope Davis
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Marc Maron's Pots and Pans
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Weird Meal, Great Memories
This reading by Peter Meehan of his essay “Crab Rangoon,” is part of the SELECTED SHORTS program “Out of the Kitchen with Lucky Peach”hosted by Hope Davis.
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Cooking at the Bottom of the World
This reading by David Cross of Jase Grimm’s memoir “The South Pole Cook” is part of the SELECTED SHORTS program “Out of the Kitchen with Lucky Peach”hosted by Hope Davis.
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Extreme Marmalade
This reading by Gaby Hoffman of Kevin West’s essay “Seville Orange Marmalade” is part of the SELECTED SHORTS program “Out of the Kitchen with Lucky Peach”hosted by Hope Davis.
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Gaming at Winnie’s
This reading by Gaby Hoffman of Rosie Schaap’s “Gaming at Winnie’s” is part of the SELECTED SHORTS program “Out of the Kitchen with Lucky Peach”hosted by Hope Davis.
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A "Noir" Mushroom Tale
This reading by Sarah Steele of Nelly Riefler’s story “Supreme Cloud Ear” is part of the SELECTED SHORTS program “Out of the Kitchen with Lucky Peach”hosted by Hope Davis.
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Meehan and Schaap Talk Drinking Games
This talk between Peter Meehan and Rosie Schaap is part of the SELECTED SHORTS program “Out of the Kitchen with Lucky Peach”hosted by Hope Davis.
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Selected Shorts The Stories of Alice Munro: Young Love
Guest host Hope Davis presents a coming-of-age story by Nobel Prize-winning author Alice Munro, and a quirky romance by Aimee Bender.
Munro was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2013. It was an acknowledgment of what her readers had always known—that her deceptively simple stories of small lives in small towns tell us a lot about what it is to be human. In the course of her long career she has published over a dozen short story collections. Other honors include the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction, the Rea Award for the Short Story and the Man Booker International Prize.
SELECTED SHORTS has featured a number of Munro stories over the years, and the Nobel award was a good reason to celebrate her again. A special evening at Symphony Space included readings of two of her stories. Munro herself joined us via Google Hangouts, and chatted with another great contemporary Canadian novelist, Margaret Atwood. You can hear that talk here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFZXaeeMykc
This program features “How I Met My Husband.” The narrator, a young girl from a rural community away from home for the first time, in her first job, grows up fast in the course of a summer. The story was first published in 1974 as part of Munro’s collection Something I've Been Meaning to Tell You. The reader is Amy Ryan. Ryan was nominated for an Academy Award and Golden Globe for her performance in “Gone Baby Gone.” Her work in television includes roles on “The Wire,” “In Treatment,” and “The Office.” On stage she has appeared in “A Streetcar Named Desire,” “The Women,” and “Uncle Vanya” among other works
The second story on this program is Aimee Bender’s “The Meeting.” Its narrator, performed by Paul Hecht, is sure he’s met the wrong girl; but he can’t seem to stay away. Bender is the author of the short story collections “The Girl in the Flammable Skirt,” “Willful Creatures,” and “The Color Master,” and the novels An Invisible Sign of My Own and The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake. She teaches at the University of Southern California.
“How I Meet My Husband,” by Alice Munro, performed by Amy Ryan
“The Meeting,” by Aimee Bender, performed by Paul Hecht
The SELECTED SHORTS theme is David Peterson's “That's the Deal,” performed by the Deardorf/Peterson Group.
For additional works featured on SELECTED SHORTS, please visit http://www.symphonyspace.org/events/series/71/selected-shorts
We’re interested in your response to these programs. Please comment on this site or visit www.selectedshorts.org
And for more thoughts on the stories in SHORTS, check out literary commentator Hannah Tinti’s site at http://hannahtinti.com
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Meeting the Wrong Woman
This reading by Paul Hecht of Aimee Bender’s “The Meeting” is part of the SELECTED SHORTS program “The Stories of Alice Munro: Young Love,” hosted by Hope Davis.
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Meeting the Wrong Man
This reading by Amy Ryan of Alice Munro’s “How I Met My Husband” is part of the SELECTED SHORTS program “The Stories of Alice Munro: Young Love,” hosted by Hope Davis.
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Selected Shorts: The Stories of Alice Munro — Daughter and Father
Guest host Hope Davis presents a father-daughter story by Nobel Prize-winning author Alice Munro, and Ursula K. Le Guin’s revisionist look at the Garden of Eden.
This is the second of two programs honoring Munro, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2013. Accepting the prize, she was characteristically modest, saying, “I thought that stories were so important in the world, and I wanted to make up some of these stories.” The settings and the people in her narratives are modest too, but they bear out another observation of hers: “I think any life can be interesting, any surroundings can be interesting.”
In the course of her long career she has published over a dozen short story collections. Other honors include the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction, the Rea Award for the Short Story and the Man Booker International Prize.
SELECTED SHORTS has featured a number of Munro stories over the years, and the Nobel award was a good reason to celebrate her again. A special evening at Symphony Space included readings of two of her stories. Munro herself joined us via Google Hangouts, and chatted with another great contemporary Canadian novelist, Margaret Atwood.
This program features “The Moons of Jupiter,” in which a middle-aged woman is helping her aging father through a health crisis. As a result, she winds up looking down the length of her own life, his life, and that of her daughters, recalibrating old relationships with new information. In the story, her father, a working man with a taste for poetry, recites part of Joaquin Miller’s "Columbus," and its stirring refrain is probably Munro’s wry take on the vicissitudes of life: "Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on!" The story is performed by Holly Hunter, who won an Oscar for her work in “The Piano,” and whose other films include “Raising Arizona,” “Broadcast News,” “The Firm,” and “Thirteen.”
The second story in the program is Ursula K. Le Guin’s “She Unnames Them.” It’s a sly feminist reworking of the story of Adam and Eve. In the original, God made “the beasts of the field and the birds of the air,” and Adam got to name everything. In Le Guin’s version, Eve thinks it’s time for a change. Reader Joanna Gleason is well suited to alternate endings — she originated the role of The Baker’s Wife in Stephen Sondheim’s “Into the Woods,” for which she won the Tony Award.
“The Moons of Jupiter,” by Alice Munro, performed by Holly Hunter
“She Unnames Them,” by Ursula K. Le Guin, performed by Joanna Gleason
The SELECTED SHORTS theme is David Peterson's “That's the Deal,” performed by the Deardorf/Peterson Group.
Check out additional works featured on SELECTED SHORTS.
We’re interested in your response to these programs. Please comment on this site or visit Selected Shorts.
And for more thoughts on the stories in SHORTS, check out literary commentator Hannah Tinti’s site.
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Family Orbits
This reading by Holly Hunter of Alice Munro’s “The Moons of Jupiter” is part of the SELECTED SHORTS program “The Stories of Alice Munro: Daughter and Father,” hosted by Hope Davis.
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Eve Has the Last Word
This reading by Joanna Gleason of Ursula K. Le Guin’s “She Unnames Them,” is part of the SELECTED SHORTS program “The Stories of Alice Munro: Daughter and Father,” hosted by Hope Davis.
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Selected Shorts: Heroes and Villains
Guest host Hope Davis introduces three tales about heroes, heroism, and challenge.
In Larry Doyle’s “Reboot Me,” a superhero with too many powers and not much sense needs rebranding. And you can help. Doyle comes by his comic chops honorably — he worked on the comedy series Beavis and Butt-head and The Simpsons, as well as contributing humor pieces to Esquire and The New Yorker, among other magazines. He is the author of the novels I Love You, Beth Cooper and Go Mutants! and the anthology Deliriously Happy (and Other Bad Thoughts). The reader is the irrepressible illustrator Chip Kidd, last heard on SHORTS’ Downton Abbey tribute show.
The program’s second piece is an excerpt from Michael Chabon’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. The story is set during and after World War II. Two Jewish cousins become successes in the new adventure comic book industry, and the story alternates between the real-world lives of the characters and their steamy, fantastical comic-strip narratives. In this excerpt, in true comic-book tradition, mousy librarian Judy Dark is transformed into the seductive, dangerous, otherworldly Luna Moth, “a woman warrior with power enough to help right the world’s many wrongs.” She (and Judy Dark) are embodied by Aya Cash, a SELECTED SHORTS regular whose television credits include Brotherhood, Law & Order, Mercy, and The Newsroom. Films include Begin Again and The Wolf of Wall Street.
The program’s mood shifts with John Biguenet’s “I am Not a Jew,” in which a tourist is tormented by a neo-Nazi gang. His response leaves him riddled with guilt and self-doubt, and reminds us that sometimes it’s not so easy to tell right from wrong. Reader David Strathairn’s many film and television credits include his Oscar-nominated portrayal of Edward R. Murrow (Good Night and Good Luck), roles in Lincoln and most recently Godzilla, and his leading role on the Syfy series Alphas.
“ReBoot Me,” by Larry Doyle, performed by Chip Kidd
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (excerpt), by Michael Chabon, performed by Aya Cash
“I am Not a Jew,” by John Biguenet, performed by David Strathairn
The SELECTED SHORTS theme is David Peterson's “That's the Deal,” performed by the Deardorf/Peterson Group.
Find additional works featured on SELECTED SHORTS.
We’re interested in your response to these programs. Please comment on this site or here.
And for more thoughts on the stories in SHORTS, check out literary commentator Hannah Tinti.
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Silence is Consent
This reading by David Strathairn of John Biguenet’s “I am Not a Jew” is part of the SELECTED SHORTS program “Heroes and Villains,” hosted by Hope Davis.
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From Mousy to Moth Goddess
This reading by Aya Cash of an excerpt from Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay is part of the SELECTED SHORTS program “Heroes and Villains,” hosted by Hope Davis.
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Re-Brand a Super Hero
This reading by Chip Kidd of Larry Doyle’s “ReBoot Me” is part of the SELECTED SHORTS program “Heroes and Villains,” hosted by Hope Davis.
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Selected Shorts: We're So Excited
Oh, the self-indulgent ‘80s, the era of conspicuous consumption, the era that brought us Madonna, and Rubik’s cube, and made the word “like” into verbal punctuation. But it was also the decade in which some of our best contemporary writers came into their own. Writers like Ann Beattie and Donald Barthelme—each a winner of the Rea Award for the Short Story—and Raymond Carver, and chroniclers of the ‘80s scene, like Tama Janowitz. Works by all these writers were featured during a special “80s” evening at Symphony Space, and we feature them on this program.
First, Donald Barthelme’s “Chablis.” The long-time New Yorker contributor often wrote weird and fantastic pieces, but “Chablis” is a gentle tale of a bemused Dad coming to terms with his own maturity. It’s read by Bobby Cannavale, whose credits include roles on the television series Third Watch, Will & Grace, and Boardwalk Empire. Films include Blue Jasmine and Chef.
Tama Janowitz’s iconic story “The Slaves in New York,” was first published in The New Yorker, and seemed to sum up the era’s Zeitgeist. The ‘80s were all about big money, big spending, big art. But what if you were one of the “have nots”? Then, in Janowitz’s wry narrative, your life was all about patching together contingency relationships, and holding on to your apartment. “The Slaves in New York” is read by Anna Chlumsky who has had recurring roles on the television series “Veep” and “Hannibal,” and whose films include “My Girl,” “My Girl 2,” and “Trading Mom.”
Though the ‘80s was a decade of material extravagance, its writers were often spare, sardonic, close observers of more ordinary lives. One of these was Raymond Carver, who redefined the American short story. His works are so meticulous and detailed that you could be sitting next to his characters, like the long-married couple in “After the Denim.” In the story, a weekly ritual is threatened by interlopers. It’s read by Michael Cerveris, whose musical theatre credits include a Tony Award-winning performance in Stephen Sondheim’s “Assassins,” as well as roles in his “Passion” and “Sweeney Todd.” On television he had a recurring role on the fantasy series “Fringe,” and he reads frequently for SELECTED SHORTS.
Our final story is “Snow,” by Ann Beattie, another writer, like Raymond Carver, who extracts intense meaning from ordinary lives and ordinary acts. In “Snow”, a long-ago love affair is distilled into the memory of a single season. “Snow” is read by Mary Stuart Masterson, whose work includes roles on the television series “The Good Wife,” “Touch,” and “Mercy” and the films “On the Edge” and “The Cake Eaters,” which she directed.
“Chablis,” by Donald Barthelme, performed by Bobby Cannavale
“The Slaves in New York,” by Tama Janowitz, performed by Anna Chlumsky
“After the Denim,” by Raymond Carver, performed by Michael Cerveris
“Snow,” by Ann Beattie, performed by Mary Stuart Masterson
The SELECTED SHORTS theme is David Peterson's “That's the Deal,” performed by the Deardorf/Peterson Group.
For additional works featured on SELECTED SHORTS, please visit http://www.symphonyspace.org/events/series/71/selected-shorts
We’re interested in your response to these programs. Please comment on this site or visit www.selectedshorts.org
And for more thoughts on the stories in SHORTS, check out literary commentator Hannah Tinti’s site at http://hannahtinti.com
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After the Denim
This reading by Michael Cerveris of Raymond Carver’s “After the Denim” is part of the SELECTED SHORTS program “We’re So Excited,” hosted by Hope Davis.
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The Slaves in New York
This reading by Anna Chlumsky of Tama Janowitz’s “The Slaves in New York” is part of the SELECTED SHORTS program “We’re So Excited,” hosted by Hope Davis.
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