wnyc.org / 93.9fm / am 820

On Demand

Program Schedule

Topics

Selected Shorts Archive


February 2007

Title: Straying spouses and Brave New Words

Sunday, February 25, 2007

”…”God preserve me from the camaraderie of commuter trains…and even from the lovely ladies taking in their asters and their roses at dusk, lest the frost kill them. And from ladies with their heads whirling with civic zeal. I’m off to Torino, where the girls love peanut butter, and the world is a man’s castle.”
--John Cheever, “The Trouble of Marcie Flint”

Good works and marital chaos in the suburbs, and SELECTED SHORTS celebrates adult literacy.


Love, lost and found, and a Fish

Sunday, February 18, 2007

"Really, she hadn’t neglected the poor fish. ‘Neglect’ seems a word too heavy with submerged intent. Something was bound to slip to the side amidst the chaos of the domestic arena."
--David Means, "The Secret Goldfish"
A fish is more than a family pet, and another woman enriches a marriage in a contemporary story and a tale by an American master.


In Vino, Veritas?

Sunday, February 11, 2007

”… Now everyone was watching Richard Pratt. Watching his face as he reached slowly for his glass with his right hand and lifted it to his nose. The man was about 50 years old, and he did not have a pleasant face. Somehow it was all mouth; mouth and lips—the full wet lips of the professional gourmet.”
--Roald Dahl, “Taste” .

Two tales of wine snobbery escalation.


Debts Paid and Memories Honored

Friday, February 02, 2007

”…”Why my husband wants him about--" poor Mrs. Lanfear, the kindest of women, privately lamented to her friends; for Dredge, at that time--they kept him all summer at the bungalow--had one of the most encumbering personalities you can imagine. He was as inexpressive as he is to-day, and yet oddly obtrusive: one of those uncomfortable presences whose silence is an interruption.
--Edith Wharton, “The Debt”

Two tales of loyalty and bewilderment, from an American master and a contemporary story teller.