This reading by Bobby Cannavale of Donald Barthelme’s “Chablis” is part of the SELECTED SHORTS program “We’re So Excited,” hosted by Hope Davis.
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Father's Day
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Snow
This reading by Mary Stuart Masterson of Ann Beattie’s “Snow” is part of the SELECTED SHORTS program “We’re So Excited,” hosted by Hope Davis.
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Selected Shorts: Illusions and Deceptions
Guest host Neil Gaiman introduces two tales of illusion.
In “Miracle Polish,” by Steven Millhauser, the protagonist buys a gimmicky product from a door-to-door salesman that changes his life—or does it? Gaiman likens Millhauser’s disconcerting fantasy to the fairy tale “Snow White,” in which the heroine’s wicked stepmother demands reassurance from her mirror. In “Miracle Polish,” the phlegmatic narrator slowly becomes more and more obsessed by his own reflection. Millhauser’s work includes his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer and the story collections Dangerous Laughter: Thirteen Stories and We Others: New and Selected Stories.
Selected Shorts regular Paul Hecht gives Millhauser’s bewildered character a bemused gravity. Among his many television and stage credits are roles in a number of Tom Stoppard plays including “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead”; “Night and Day;” and “The Invention of Love;” on television he’s appeared often on the “Law & Order” franchise, and he is an award-winning audio book reader.
The Edwardian writer H.H. Munro wrote under the pen name Saki, and his tales of preposterous goings-on in elegant society are often deliciously funny. But sometimes, says Gaiman, he tips into full-blown horror. His classic, “The Open Window,” features a beguiling young woman, a hypochondriac guest, and one of the great last lines in comic fiction. The reader is Tandy Cronyn, who has appeared most recently in the one-woman show “The Tall Boy,” by Simon Bent, and Nat Cassidy’s “Old Familiar Faces” for the New York International Fringe Festival.
“Miracle Polish,” by Steven Millhauser, performed by Paul Hecht
“The Open Window,” by Saki, performed by Tandy Cronyn
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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Mirror, Mirror
This reading by Paul Hecht of Steven Millhauser’s “Miracle Polish” is part of the SELECTED SHORTS program “Illusions and Deceptions,” hosted by Neil Gaiman.
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The Open Window
This reading by Tandy Cronyn of Saki’s “The Open Window” is part of the SELECTED SHORTS program “Illusions and Deceptions,” hosted by Neil Gaiman.
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Selected Shorts: Love, Longing, and Loose Change
Guest host Cynthia Nixon presents readings of three stories whose characters hope for love.
In Rick Bass’s “Fires” a rural recluse is ignited by a long-distance runner. “Fires” is set in a remote part of Northern Montana, and literary commentator Hannah Tinti notes that Bass is an ardent environmentalist as well as a fiction writer. “Fires” is from Rick Bass’s 1997 collection, In the Loyal Mountains. Other works include the collection The Lives of Rocks: Stories, Nashville Chrome: A Novel, and the memoir Why I Came West. His most recent novel is All The Land To Hold Us. “Fires” is performed by Ted Marcoux.
Willa Cather’s “A Singer’s Romance” was published in Cosmopolitan in 1900, and while the magazine in those days didn’t have quite the risqué content of the contemporary version, it is true to Cosmo’s dedication to the pleasures of women. Cather’s opera singer has a romantic job, but no romance in her life, and hopes that will change. The work is lusciously performed by Tony Award-winning actress Marian Seldes.
Our final story is a charming short by the Israeli writer and filmmaker Etgar Keret, “What Do We Have in our Pockets?” We’ve featured many of Keret’s playful fictions on SELECTED SHORTS, but this delicate gem just offers a man with a unique tactic for attracting happiness. The performer is our late friend, the writer and actor David Rakoff.
“Fires,” by Rick Bass, performed by Ted Marcoux
“A Singer's Romance” by Willa Cather, performed by Marian Seldes
“What Do We Have in our Pockets?” by Etgar Keret, performed by David Rakoff
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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A Singer's Romance
This reading by Marian Seldes of Willa Cather’s “A Singer’s Romance” is part of the SELECTED SHORTS program “Love, Longing, and Loose Change,” hosted by Cynthia Nixon.
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What Do We Have in Our Pockets?
This reading by David Rakoff of Etgar Keret’s “What Do We Have in our Pockets?” is part of the SELECTED SHORTS program “Love, Longing, and Loose Change,” hosted by Cynthia Nixon.
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Fires
This reading by Ted Marcoux of Rick Bass’s “Fires” is part of the SELECTED SHORTS program “Love, Longing, and Loose Change,” hosted by Cynthia Nixon.
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Selected Shorts: A Tribute to David Rakoff
Guest host David Sedaris presents a program celebrating the late writer and actor David Rakoff.
Rakoff read often for SELECTED SHORTS, and in this special tribute show, featuring two of his performances, we hear his exceptional ability to pull emotion and meaning out of a text, without getting in its way. David Sedaris, who was a friend of Rakoff’s, praises him as a “lover of language” who “could read anything.” Here, Rakoff reads Leonard Michaels’ “Cryptology,” in which a neurotic mathematician has a strange encounter, and Roberto Bolano’s “Gomez Palacio,” which is the name a dead-end town where a young man’s life nevertheless takes a turn for the better. Both stories feature bemused narrators with poetic turns of mind, and somewhat strange women.
“Cryptology,” by Leonard Michaels, performed by David Rakoff
“Gomez Palacio,” by Roberto Bolano, performed by David Rakoff
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
This is a re-broadcast.
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Gomez Palacio
This reading by David Rakoff of Roberto Bolano’s “Gomez Palacio,” is part of the SELECTED SHORTS program “A Tribute to David Rakoff ” hosted by David Sedaris.
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Cryptology
This reading by David Rakoff of Leonard Michaels’ “Cryptology” is part of the SELECTED SHORTS program “A Tribute to David Rakoff ” hosted by David Sedaris.
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Selected Shorts: Dogs, Dates, and Dilemmas
John Lithgow walks the dog, and Rick Moody tweets for love, in two stories presented by guest host Parker Posey.
First Lithgow reads Lydia Millet’s charming “Sir Henry,” about a dignified dachshund, his aloof dog walker, and his celebrity owner, David Hasselhoff. She discusses the story in an interview with SHORTS’ literary commentator Hannah Tinti, saying that she was interested exploring a character who could relate to dogs, but not to people, and in the combination of dignity and comedy elicited by dachshunds.
The story was first published in the online journal Electric Literature, and subsequently as part of Millet’s collection Love in Infant Monkeys. Her other works include Oh Pure andRadiant Heart, How the Dead Dream, Ghost Lights, and Magnificence.
In our second story, which also made its first appearance in Electric Literature, Rick Moody accomplishes the nearly impossible—a love story told in tweets. It appeared in increments, 140 characters at a time, with the well-known author of The Ice Storm ringing all the changes on hopeless love succinctly conveyed. Comic Mike Birbiglia and actor Aya Cash scintillate as the mismatched couple in what Moody punningly titled, “Some Contemporary Characters.”
“Sir Henry,” by Lydia Millet, performed by John Lithgow
“Some Contemporary Characters,” by Rick Moody, performed by Mike Birbiglia and Aya Cash
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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Lydia Millet speaks with Hannah Tinti
SELECTED SHORTS’ literary commentator Hannah Tinti talks to Lydia Millet about “Sir Henry” and short fiction.
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Some Contemporary Characters
This reading by Mike Birbiglia and Aya Cash of Rick Moody’s “Some Contemporary Characters,” is part of the SELECTED SHORTS program ““Dogs, Dates, and Dilemmas” hosted by Parker Posey.
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Sir Henry
This reading by John Lithgow of Lydia Millet’s “Sir Henry” is part of the SELECTED SHORTS program “Dogs, Dates, and Dilemmas” hosted by Parker Posey.
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Selected Shorts: Peas, Pancakes, and Pretensions
Guest host Robert Sean Leonard presents three food-related works from a special program performed at the Getty Center in Los Angeles: “Drama at Dinner.”
When Polonius said “brevity is the soul of wit,” he could have been predicting the writer Lydia Davis, whose pearl-sized stories recently garnered her the Man Booker International Prize for achievement in fiction. Her most recent book is Can’t and Won’t. For the Getty program, Leonard read her consumer complaint “Letter to a Frozen Peas Manufacturer.” Leonard won a Tony for his portrayal of the younger A.E. Housman in Tom Stoppard’s “The Invention of Love,” and played long-suffering Dr. James Wilson for eight seasons of the hit television series “House.” More recently he has had a featured role on “Falling Skies,” and appeared as Henry Higgins in the 100th anniversary production of George Bernard Shaw’s “Pygmalion” in 2013.
Next, Nora Ephron’s “Serial Monogamy: A Memoir.” The playwright, screenwriter and director died far too young in 2013, but she comes wonderfully to life in this account of her early days in New York, as a fledgling writer and cook. Her food fads, cookbooks, and chef worship parallel changes in her love life — this is, after all, the woman who gave us “When Harry Met Sally” — and also provide a sharp look at the changing food scene in America. Reader Mary Kay Place’s long career in television includes roles in “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman,” “Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City,” “The West Wing,” and “Bored to Death.” On film she has appeared in “Being John Malkovich,” “The Rainmaker,” and “Sweet Home Alabama” among other works.
After two contemporary looks at food and dining, this program concludes with a classic, an excerpt from Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, in a translation by none other than Lydia Davis. Emma Bovary’s boredom with her marriage and her social ambition are reflected in her responses to a sumptuous dinner party at a grand chateau, where she “felt enveloped in warm air, a mingling of the scents of flowers and fine linen, the savor of the meats and the smell of the truffles…Even the powdered sugar seemed to her whiter and finer than elsewhere.” The reader is Emmy Award-winner and SHORTS regular Christina Pickles.
“Letter to a Frozen Peas Manufacturer,” by Lydia Davis, performed by Robert Sean Leonard
“Serial Monogamy: A Memoir,” by Nora Ephron, performed by Mary Kay Place
Madame Bovary (excerpt), by Gustave Flaubert, performed by Christina Pickles
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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Madame Bovary (an excerpt)
This reading by Christina Pickles of an excerpt from Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary is part of the SELECTED SHORTS program “Peas, Pancakes, and Pretensions,” hosted by Robert Sean Leonard.
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Serial Monogamy: A Memoir
This reading by Mary Kay Place of Nora Ephron’s “Serial Monogamy: A Memoir” is part of the SELECTED SHORTS program “Peas, Pancakes, and Pretensions,” hosted by Robert Sean Leonard.
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Letter to a Frozen Peas Manufacturer
This reading by Robert Sean Leonard of Lydia Davis’s “Letter to a Frozen Peas Manufacturer” is part of the SELECTED SHORTS program “Peas, Pancakes, and Pretensions,” hosted by Robert Sean Leonard.
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