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(pasotraspaso/flickr)
Lives changing shape: A short, sweet summer pretending to be a boy shapes one girl’s future, while a wife and mother loses her grip on life as she sinks further into alcoholism.
“I had a sex change once, when I was six years old...it was summer swimming lessons…My mom had bought me a bikini…It was so easy, the first time, that it didn’t even feel like a crime. I just didn’t wear the top part…The short form of the birth name my parents bestowed me with was androgynous enough to allow my charade to proceed through the entire six weeks of swimming lessons, six weeks of boyhood, six weeks of bliss.
--Ivan E. Coyote, “No Bikini”
Lives changing shape: A short, sweet summer pretending to be a boy shapes one girl’s future, while a wife and mother loses her grip on life as she sinks further into alcoholism. A program featuring two engrossing stories that were also turned into short films. Ivan E. Coyote’s charming “No Bikini” is about a little girl who is mistaken for a boy in her swimming class, and the sudden freedom this allows her. Coyote, despite the masculine first name, is a woman writer born and raised in Whitehorse, in the Yukon Territory. She has published three story collections and a novel, including Loose End and One Man’s Trash. Her story was made into a short film by the Chilean filmmaker Claudia Morgado Ecanilla, and is read by Sonia Manzano, well known to television audiences as Maria on “Sesame Street,” who has also become a children’s book author. The mood shifts with the second story, Larry Brown’s “Kubuku Rides (This is It)” which chronicles the alcoholic odyssey of a loving wife and mother whose life is disintegrating. Brown, who died in 2004, was both a writer and the captain of the fire department in Oxford, Miss. "Kubuku" was made into a film by Terry Kinney and Doug Bost of Steppenwolf Films, and is powerfully read by Myra Lucretia Taylor. The program features short audio clips of each of the films after the readings, and concludes with a roundtable discussion among the filmmakers, with SHORTS host Isaiah Sheffer. No Bikini” by Ivan E. Coyote, read by Sonia Manzano
“Kubuku Rides (This Is It) by Larry Brown, read by Myra Lucretia Taylor
--Ivan E. Coyote, “No Bikini”
Lives changing shape: A short, sweet summer pretending to be a boy shapes one girl’s future, while a wife and mother loses her grip on life as she sinks further into alcoholism. A program featuring two engrossing stories that were also turned into short films. Ivan E. Coyote’s charming “No Bikini” is about a little girl who is mistaken for a boy in her swimming class, and the sudden freedom this allows her. Coyote, despite the masculine first name, is a woman writer born and raised in Whitehorse, in the Yukon Territory. She has published three story collections and a novel, including Loose End and One Man’s Trash. Her story was made into a short film by the Chilean filmmaker Claudia Morgado Ecanilla, and is read by Sonia Manzano, well known to television audiences as Maria on “Sesame Street,” who has also become a children’s book author. The mood shifts with the second story, Larry Brown’s “Kubuku Rides (This is It)” which chronicles the alcoholic odyssey of a loving wife and mother whose life is disintegrating. Brown, who died in 2004, was both a writer and the captain of the fire department in Oxford, Miss. "Kubuku" was made into a film by Terry Kinney and Doug Bost of Steppenwolf Films, and is powerfully read by Myra Lucretia Taylor. The program features short audio clips of each of the films after the readings, and concludes with a roundtable discussion among the filmmakers, with SHORTS host Isaiah Sheffer. No Bikini” by Ivan E. Coyote, read by Sonia Manzano
“Kubuku Rides (This Is It) by Larry Brown, read by Myra Lucretia Taylor
About Selected Shorts
Selected Shorts features some of the finest artists of the American theater reading contemporary and classic short fiction-the most distinguished works of the early masters such as Chekhov, Maupassant, Malamud and dozens of others.
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Comments [6]
Ihad taped "No Bikini" & "KaBuku Rides" ,but not sure what date.But on Sat.,11/1
it was a repeat. on the following day there was no broadcast of "Selceted Shorts" at 4:00pm ".Can you explain to me what's with schedule? Thank you
Dear Dan:
Thank you for your note and attentive concern. You are correct. This past Sunday SELECTED SHORTS was pre-empted (a rare event), so that we could air a timely political special program. Happily, you will have an opportunity to hear the missing program, which will feature "Ad," by Elizabeth Crane, read by Jill Eikenberry, and "A Piece of News," by Eudora Welty, read by Kathryn Markey, this coming Saturday, Nov. 8th, at 4pm. If by any chance you cannot catch the broadcast, SELECTED SHORTS programs are available for a limited period after their initial broadcast as podcasts. For further information see our program website, www.selectedshorts.org
the short story," Kubuku Rides( This Is It)", can be purchased in a collection of short stories by Mr Brown called "Facing the Music"
Dear listener: thank you for providing this information for your fellow bloggers. Please note that information about where to find all our stories in print is available on our website, www.selectedshorts.org
Sorry I missed the first story...but "Kubuku Rides" affected me as it did the previous commenters...Ms. Taylor did a spectacular job portraying the cunning, baffling, powerful hold alcoholism can have on a woman, on a family, on a world.
Dear Martha:
Thank you so much for your lovely appreciation.
I just heard "Kubuku Rides" read on select shorts, the girl who read this was spectacular.
This brought me back to the time years ago when I lived this husbands plight (with a live in girlfriend), The hopelessness and no power over what was going on, just a mess...
She wound up leaving me (because of increasingly occuring episodes similar to those in this story) and I don't want to know what happened...This story brought me right back. Our story had an ending like the one read here...
First heard this reading on my way home in the car, then ran into the house to continue listening. For me the genre thru which I am most accustomed to experiencing LIFE is the lives of everyday people. The people who will repeatedly say that they are great, the people who say nothing, the people who say they can no longer afford the fuel to stay in business,the state workers being laid off so the budget can be balanced.
However, there are too many who have no clue of the struggles in others lives.
I am also on the search for both the audio & written versions of the story by Larry Brown as well as now wanting to read all of his short fiction. I have loved and listened to the show for as long as I can remember.
Dear Patricia:
Our agreements with our authors preclude the distribution of audio copies except those stories that have been approved for inclusion in CD anthologies. Please check our website, www.selectedshorts.org, for a listing of those, and for information about where you might obtain this story in print.
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