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Selected Shorts Archive
March 2009
Unexpected Developments
Sunday, March 29, 2009
”… one morning when he thought he was quite alone, he began to make the most remarkable motions. First he would give some little springs, then make a bow; then, with his slim legs, he would give a lively spring in the air, clapping his feet as he did so, and then turn round cleverly, skipping and frisking about in a comical manner, smiling as if he had an audience, twisting his poor little puppet-like body, bowing pathetic and ridiculous little greetings into the empty air. He was dancing.
I stood petrified with amazement, asking myself which of us was crazy, he or I.”—Guy de Maupassant, “Minuet.” .
Four tales with twists by masters of the genre.
Dazed and Knights
Sunday, March 22, 2009
“Mrs. Whitaker found the Holy Grail; it was under a fur coat.”— Neil Gaiman, “Chivalry.”
A husband thinks his wife is a doppelganger, and a knight in shining armor makes an appearance in a London suburb.
Hard-boiled and Hard Tack
Sunday, March 15, 2009
”…Captain Cullen did not look happy…Captain Cullen did not want God to know that he was pleased with that wind. He had a conception of a malicious God, and believed in his secret soul that if God knew it was a desirable wind, God would promptly efface it and send a snorter from the west...” –Jack London, “Make Westing.”
A crime classic, and adventure on the high seas.
Women on a Mission
Sunday, March 08, 2009
“She had read all her life of the openness of the West, of its red rivers and plains leafed in neutral in-breathing gold, of the miraculous Indians and the Rockies, which were mountains of mist that formed and unformed dreams so fast as to confus even the youngest of dreamers.” –Mark Helprin
Hijinks among jewel thieves, and a woman making her own way in the Old West.
Strong Men, Stronger Women
Sunday, March 01, 2009
”…She began to embrace the idea of winnowing: travel less, do less, it is more…at first she regretted the winnowing, but then she did not: she had had a mind, but nothing had properly got in its way…So she’d burn her swamp, pat her good trees, cook her egg.”—Padgett Powell, “The Winnowing of Mrs. Schuping.”
A tricky courtship and a quirky Southern romance, in two contemporary tales.
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