On Demand
Selected Shorts
Sunday, February 22, 2009
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Let's Not Talk
This week on Selected Shorts: The world grows quiet, and a horrible weekend in the country.
This program has the provocative title “Let’s Not Talk” because in both of the two featured stories, a longing for silence plays an important part. Kevin Brockmeier’s “The Year of Silence” was included in The Best American Short Stories 2008 It speculates on what it would be like if all the noise, all the sounds of civilization and daily life, were to fade to an auditory stillness. Brockmeier lives in Little Rock, Arkansas, and is the author of such novels as THE BRIEF HISTORY OF THE DEAD and THE TRUTH ABOUT CELIA. Reader Anthony Rapp appeared on Broadway in the musical “Rent” and as Charlie Brown in the Broadway revival of “YOU’RE A GOOD MAN, CHARLIE BROWN.”
Host Isaiah Sheffer likens our second story, Ring Lardner’s “Liberty Hall” to the traveling game of “Conversation Stoppers” in which players vie for the honor of making the most boring observation. In this Lardner tale, first published in 1928 in a magazine with the fitting title “Hearst’s International Cosmopolitan,” a sophisticated show business couple get trapped in a ghastly chatter-filled weekend and take extraordinary measures to escape. The zestful reader is five-time Emmy winner and screen actor Christina Pickles.
“The Year of Silence” by Kevin Brockmeier, read by Anthony Rapp
“Liberty Hall” by Ring Lardner, read by Christina Pickles
For additional works featured on SELECTED SHORTS, please visit Symphony Space For information about the 2009 Stella Kupferberg Memorial Short Story Prize contest, go to http://www.symphonyspace.org/shorts/writing_contest
Host Isaiah Sheffer likens our second story, Ring Lardner’s “Liberty Hall” to the traveling game of “Conversation Stoppers” in which players vie for the honor of making the most boring observation. In this Lardner tale, first published in 1928 in a magazine with the fitting title “Hearst’s International Cosmopolitan,” a sophisticated show business couple get trapped in a ghastly chatter-filled weekend and take extraordinary measures to escape. The zestful reader is five-time Emmy winner and screen actor Christina Pickles.
“The Year of Silence” by Kevin Brockmeier, read by Anthony Rapp
“Liberty Hall” by Ring Lardner, read by Christina Pickles
For additional works featured on SELECTED SHORTS, please visit Symphony Space For information about the 2009 Stella Kupferberg Memorial Short Story Prize contest, go to http://www.symphonyspace.org/shorts/writing_contest
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