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Archive for the ‘Magazines’ Category

Dawn Powell–“A Diamond to Cut New York” (New Yorker, December 3, 2018) (June 26, 1995)

Posted in Dawn Powell, Diary, Dorothy Parker, Ernest Hemingway, Florence + the Machine, Funny (ha ha), Gore Vidal, New Yorker, Norman Mailer, Tiny Desk Concert, Truman Capote on December 1, 2018| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: FLORENCE + THE MACHINE-Tiny Desk Concert #795 (October 16, 2018).

Florence + the Machine has slowly won me over.  When I first heard their (her) songs, I wasn’t impressed.  I felt there was something missing.

I don’t know if I changed my mind on those early songs, or if she did something more in her layering but I suddenly found her songs intense and really powerful.

Florence Welch and her band play three songs at the Tiny Desk.  I have so much grown to love the full production that I wasn’t sure I would enjoy it as much when stripped down.  For the Tiny Desk it’s just her on vocals, with a guitars a synth an d a harp!  And man her voice has just become a force unto itself–she could sing a capella and it would be great.  But the backing vocals add an amazing and unexpected punch.

She starts the show with the lovely “June.”  It begins with her voice and some harp notes.

Florence performed with her eyes closed.  Within seconds of hearing her first note, the raw power of her un-amplified voice was chilling.

Then the guitar joins in and the lovely “oh ooh, oh ooh, woah” fill in the gaps perfectly.  Even something as simple as Florence’s hand clap add an interesting percussive element to the climax of the song.

It’s impossible to talk about Florence without her backing band. Tom Monger adds exquisite ethereal textures to the songs with his stunning mastery of the pedal harp. Hazel Mill’s backing vocals and anthemic power chords on the keys accentuate the poignancy of the lyrics at just the right moments. And Robert Ackroyd’s rhythmic, steady acoustic guitar drives the music forward.

The second song “Patricia” builds slowly over its time.  The harp plays a kind of haunting melody that is accentuated by two almost sinister deep notes.  The song feels like it’s heading to an end after about three minutes, but that’s just the middle section.  After a big smile, the hand claps continue as the song grows louder and louder as they sing “it’s such a wonderful thing to love.”

The intensity of the musicality is almost secondary to the message in her lyrics. Ear-worm melodies coupled with repetitive phrases create universal, awe-inspiring anthems.

Her nervousness was palpable and stood in stark contrast to her fully produced stage show. “I’m sorry I’m shy,” Florence Welch told the crowd of NPR family and friends gathered for her Tiny Desk performance. “If this was a big gig, I’d probably be climbing all over here and running around.”

The final song is the one that won me over, “Ship to Wreck.”  She reveals her humorous side when she says, “We haven’t practiced this.  It could be terrible.  Especially for you.”

I love the hugeness of the recorded version of the song.  This version replaces some of the power with more interesting subtleties in the harmonies and the lovely melodies.  It’s a striking version of the song.

[READ: November 28, 2018] “A Diamond to Cut New York”

The December 3, 2018 issue of the New Yorker was an archival issue, meaning that every story was taken from an earlier issue.  The range is something like 1975-2006, which is odd since the New Yorker dates back so much longer.  Although the fiction pieces are at least from the 1940s and 1950s.

This particular piece is a collection of vignettes from Dawn Powell’s diaries which range from 1933 to 1963 (she died in 1965).

I have wanted to read Dawn Powell for years and yet I keep finding other books that jump in front of me first.  As I read this I wondered if maybe Powell isn’t for me, as I really didn’t know what in the world she was talking about for many of these entries.  but there were many glimmers of the wit that Powell is known for poking through.

There’s also the problem of context.  I have virtually none for most of these entries, so even if there are clever comments, I probably have no idea. (more…)

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Najem Wali–“Wars in Distant Lands” (Harper’s, February 2008)

Posted in Boney M, Harper's, Huh?, Humiliation, Najem Wali, Night Owl, NPR/PRI/PBS, Raymond Stock, Tom Waits, War on November 30, 2018| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: GORDI-“Can We Work It Out” (Night Owl, November 20, 2018).

I wanted to finish out November with one more live recording.  Turns out NPR was there to help out.  They have a new feature called Night Owl.

Every so often, late at night over the past couple years, a team of NPR Music video producers has been toting approximately 80 pounds of audio/video equipment and a statue of a golden owl to the far reaches of American cities. The owl is our Night Owl, and it’s the totem that has presided over nearly every episode of a show that goes by the same name. Night Owl is our chance to get out into the field, put some of our musicians somewhere unexpected and see what magic may arise.

They have released a bunch of these videos on YouTube.

I picked one from an artist I didn’t know yet, Gordi.

I’ve heard of her, of course, but I think this was my first exposure to her.  She has a lovely (slightly rough) voice as she sits at the piano singing this pretty, ache-filled song.

[READ: February 8, 2018] “Wars in Distant Lands”

This story was translated from the Arabic by Raymond Stock.

At first I really enjoyed this, it felt very contemporary and compelling.   And then it just got weird and war-based.

The narrator pulled Teresa’s postcard from the mailbox.  She was arriving on a train at 7PM on June 16.  The end said, this is being mailed from Havana and will probably arrive the same day as her, which it did. (more…)

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William Gaddis–“In Dreams I Kiss Your Hand, Madam” (Harper’s, August 2008)

Posted in Books about writers, Coleman Barks, Excerpt, Field Recordings, Funny (ha ha), Harper's, Jalaluddin Rumi, Ninth Letter, NPR/PRI/PBS, Philip Glass, Red Baraat, William Gaddis on November 29, 2018| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: PHILIP GLASS FLASH CHOIR-“The New Rule” (Field Recordings, July 10, 2012).

One of the first Field Recordings I posted about was with Philip Glass.  So I thought it would be fun to complete the Field Recordings (this is the last one)  with Philip Glass as well [A ‘Flash Choir’ Sings Philip Glass In Times Square].

This is one of those super-fun, public Field Recordings.  And it’s more public than most.

To honor Philip Glass’ 75th birthday this year, we here at NPR Music commissioned Glass to create a short work that would be great fun for amateur and professional singers alike.  So Glass took a work he had first written for soprano and instruments as part of his 1997 3-D “digital opera” Monsters of Grace, and arranged it for soloist and eight-part chorus. And were very lucky indeed to team up with the Make Music NY Festival, member station WQXR and the Times Square Alliance to realize this project at one of the world’s most iconic spots, the Crossroads of the World, Times Square.

As with the Red Baraat Make Music NY Festival, this is a wonderful public event where all manner of people came out to sing along.

A big part of what we do is to try to make all kinds of music engaging and accessible — and wouldn’t it be great to invite anyone who wanted to come and sing in a world premiere by one of the most celebrated composers of our time? About 200 singers gathered to sing with the ebullient Kent Tritle, one of America’s most accomplished and beloved choral conductors, and soprano soloist Rachel Rosales. (And a handful of singers were folks who had simply been walking by and were swept up in the moment.)

Before the song begins you can hear someone say, has anyone rehearsed this?  And the response is no, I think that’s the point.  And indeed, 200 voices joined together, even if some are imperfect (and who knows if anyone is) sound fantastic.

On this sweltering day, the singers’ mindful intention to gather in Times Square and its visceral result — all breath and sweat and palpable effort in the middle of glossy Times Square, with stifling heat, noise and a zillion blinking distractions — was just amazing and honestly quite moving.

The chorus sings with typical Glassian aplomb (repeating doo doo notes) while Rachel Rosales sings the lyrics.  I love hearing the bass voices do their part, it’s otherworldly.

For his text, Glass selected words from the medieval Sufi Muslim poet Jalaluddin Rumi, as translated by Coleman Barks. In his poetry, Rumi urges the reader to break free of the constraints of daily life — to upend expectations and jettison traditional thinking in an unending quest to unite with the divine. “Here’s the new rule,” Rumi wrote. “Break the wineglass, and fall towards the glassblower’s breath.” And somehow — beautifully, magically and only briefly — this fleeting chorus became the heartbeat of Times Square

It sounds great and rally captivated everyone.  And that’s why I love the Field Recordings and hope they bring them back.

[READ: February 4, 2018] “In Dreams I Kiss Your Hand, Madam”

This is from a 1947 manuscript published in 2008 in Ninth Letter.  Gaddis used some of this material in his book The Recognitions.

The story is set in a lush apartment.  The host is a man named Alex P_____.  He had recently published a book, an anthology called In Dreams I Kiss Your Hand, Madam, “a collection of imaginative love stories, stories of beauty and devotion, tales of passion and gallantry…from writers of seventeen countries n the past seven centuries.”

It was dedicated to Christine Ludington.  She had just referred to Alex as a pig because of what he said about the wife of young writer he has just published.  Then she changed the subject to say she could not imagine the satisfaction in breeding basset hounds.

Alex muttered that it was because she had never been a basset hound. (more…)

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Robert Coover–“The Hanging of the Schoolmarm” (New Yorker, November 28, 2016)

Posted in Allen Stone, Churches, Drinking, Field Recordings, Funny (strange), Huh?, Jamiroquai, Kenny Loggins, Mogwai, New Yorker, NPR/PRI/PBS, Postmoderism, Robert Coover, Sasquatch Music Festival, Set at School, Short Story, Stevie Wonder on November 28, 2018| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: ALLEN STONE-“Sleep” (Field Recordings, November 1, 2012).

I read this performer’s name as Alien Stone and was kind of excited.  Far more than when I realized his name was just Allen Stone.

This [Allen Stone: A Rollicking Moment, Performed On The Wind] is the final Field Recording set backstage at the Sasquatch Festival.

It amused me as the song started that they start singing “Danger Zone”  And the opening moment where:

“I feel like Zeus,” Allen Stone announces with a laugh as gusts of wind whip his long hair in dramatic fashion. With a mountainous vista behind him, he’s found himself in the kind of majestic rock ‘n’ roll moment that requires a callout to Kenny Loggins’ “Danger Zone.”

I was thinking that Stone sounded a bit like Stevie Wonder as he sang (which the blurb agrees with), but I also sensed a bit of Jamiroquai.

I thought the song was kind of dull, but maybe that’s because it is normally much bigger.

Usually, Stone performs his bluesy soul with the aid of a crack band, but here, we got the 25-year-old belter to perform his single “Sleep” — usually a big, rollicking rave-up — with just a guitarist (Trevor Larkin, performing unplugged) to supplement Stone’s voice. Channeling Stevie Wonder in all but appearance, Stone demonstrates here that his sound can withstand just about anything, even as it’s stripped down to its skeleton and performed on the wind.

I’ve not heard of him since this, so I don’t know what happened to him, but I’m not really that curious to find out.

[READ: January 11, 2017] “The Hanging of the Schoolmarm”

This is a short, simple story in which the title pretty much tells the whole thing.

But Coover has some fun as it gets there.

The story opens with the schoolmarm playing poker in the town saloon.  At stake is the saloon itself.  The men are awed by her refined and lofty character–they cuss a lot, but never around her. (more…)

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Will Mackin–“The Lost Troop” (New Yorker, November 27, 2017)

Posted in Carla Morrison, Field Recordings, Huh?, New Yorker, NPR/PRI/PBS, Short Story, Unlikable main character, Violence, War, Will Mackin on November 27, 2018| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: CARLA MORRISON-“Falta De Respeto” (Field Recordings, October 18, 2012)

This Field Recording [Carla Morrison: Out Of The Past, Into The City] is set in a New York City park, my idea of a Field Recording.  She has an audience (who are appreciative at the end) and everything.

The opening is so beautiful–the ooohs just soar and the accompaniment of guitarist Andres Landon (who has excellent harmony vocals) and percussionist Miguel Sandoval fill this out perfectly.

“Eres tan moderno, que mis caricias ya son anticuadas,” Mexican singer Carla Morrison croons to an indifferent lover in “Falta De Respeto” (“Disrespect”). That beautiful line — which translates as “You are so modern that my caresses are antiquated” — captures Morrison’s essence. Part tragic heroine, part bold feminist, she’s always a pining romantic, yet she won’t sit pretty in a corner and wait to be swept off her feet. She’ll get in your face and tell you just how much she loves you.

It’s an absolutely lovely song even if you don;t know what the words mean.

[READ: November 27, 2017] “The Lost Troop”

This is the second military story from Mackin in 2017.  While the previous story had some interesting aspects to it, this one painted a bad portrait of the soldiers and wasn’t really all that interesting.

It was December in Logar.  And it was slow.  It was like peace had broken out and no one had told them.  But they knew the war wasn’t over.

So instead they keep themselves busy.  They think back to the graveyard that looked like a used car lot.  One of them thinks they need to go back there because it might have been fake.   They take helicopters only to discover that there is nothing there. (more…)

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Ben Marcus–“On Not Growing Up” (Harper’s, August 2008)

Posted in Africa, Ben Marcus, Child Development, Disease, Excerpt, Fears, Field Recordings, Harper's, Huh?, Humiliation, Interviews, NPR/PRI/PBS, Sauti Sol, Short Story, SXSW on November 25, 2018| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: SAUTI SOL-“Love or Leave” (Field Recordings, May 30, 2012).

Here is another Field Recording [A Morning Walk With Sauti Sol] filmed at SXSW.  But this one is on a bridge. The four members of Sauti Sol are up at dawn (one even sings “good morning.”  As a guy runs past them, they realize “We didn’t have our morning job, today” so two of them run around the other two, to much laughter.

Their happy mood is clearly reflected in their wonderfully colorful jackets (and amazing harmonies.

“Love or Leave” is terrific, with a great riff.   There’s only the one acoustic guitar and their voices fill in everything else.

I don’t know anything about Sauti Sol.  So the blurb says:

In spite of the early hour and chilly air, Sauti Sol arrived at the Pfluger Pedestrian Bridge in Austin, Texas, in good spirits — not to mention colorful jackets that provided a welcome contrast to the cloudy sky. There, the Afro-fusion quartet from Nairobi greeted the morning birds and joggers with a version of its recent single, “Love or Leave.” The song amply demonstrates the group’s signature acoustic sound, which is anchored by the guitar of Polycarp Otieno and vocal harmonies of Bien-Aime Baraza, Willis Chimano and Delvin Mudigi.

There’s some pop elements including a kind of choreographed dance but the way the minor key hits in the chorus is outstanding.

It’s great that bands from Nairobi come to SXSW, and it’s even cooler that we get to hear them.

[READ: January 31, 2018] “On Not Growing Up”

I don’t really understand what this is supposed to be.  It is listed as fiction according to Harper’s.  It is written as an interview but neither party is introduced.

The first question is “How long have you been a child?”   The answer is “seventy-one years.”

The second question puzzles me even more and I think I’m thrown off from there.  “Who did you work with?”

Meyerowits for the first phase: colic, teething, walking, talking. He taught me how to produce false prodigy markers and developmental reversals, to test the power in the room without speaking.  I was encouraged to look beyond the tantrum and drastic mood migrations that depended on the environment, and if you know my work you have an idea what resulted. The rest is a hodgepodge

The interviewee says that the term adult is problematic.  It’s too easy to say that his childwork is directly divisive to Matures. (more…)

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Sam Shepard–“Indianapolis (Highway 74)” (New Yorker, November 23, 2009)

Posted in Cars, Cloud Cult, Depression, Drifters, Field Recordings, Hotels, Huh?, New Yorker, NPR/PRI/PBS, Sam Shepard, Sasquatch Music Festival, Short Story, Surreal on November 24, 2018| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: CLOUD CULT-“That Man Jumped Out the Window” (Field Recordings, September 12, 2012).

I feel like I know the name Cloud Cult, but this song sounded entirely alien to me.  This was an other Field Recording [Cloud Cult: A Moment Of Serenity] set backstage at Sasquatch! Music Festival.

I love the drama that they set up with this blurb

We were about to call it. The band was running late, our phone service wasn’t working well backstage in the remoteness of the Sasquatch Music Festival in rural Washington state, and the next band was about to begin on the main stage nearby — thus making the prospect of a Field Recording impossible. Then, suddenly, a white van rolled up, straight from the main gate, and out popped six musicians with stringed and brass instruments. Within minutes, they’d set up, sound-checked and performed a jaw-dropping rendition of “That Man Jumped Out the Window” (from 2005’s Advice From the Happy Hippopotamus) with no practice whatsoever.

I enjoy the orchestral nature of this song–reminding me of many other bigger bands that I like quite a lot.

It took me a couple of listens to “get” this song–there’s a lot of different vocal parts, almost as responses to the main part.

It opens with an acoustic guitar and is accompanied by strings and a French horn.  But the main verse is all acoustic guitar and cello (with stark backing vocals–the vocals are not really pretty exactly (they’re not un-pretty either), just powerful).

I’m not sure that this song is all that memorable for me, but I love reading this about the band:

More a family than a band, the Minneapolis collective does everything with purpose, talent and conviction, from its environmentally conscious lifestyle — in which it self-produces and releases albums from its geothermal-powered organic farm — to its charitable efforts to its emotive, even cathartic songwriting.

The song is quite pretty–although I wonder if it would be more so in a fuller setting.  But as It ended, I found myself enjoying it and wanting to hear it again.  Someone asks if they should do another take.

Then, just as the song ended and the band members finally had a chance to view the majestic natural scenery around them — and as we prepared to record another take, just in case — the festival roared back to life. But for those few minutes, we were able to stop, breathe and take in the emotional significance of a moment of serenity. At which point Cloud Cult piled back into the van and rode off to its next gig.

[READ: April 7, 2016] “Indianapolis (Highway 74)”

This story was published in the New Yorker just eight weeks after the previous Sam Shepard story.  I had to look him up and it is the same Shepard who has been writing since forever.  But he is not especially known for his noir books.  His style has changed over the years although he does often write about rootless characters and absurdist ideas.

So this story is about a rootless character, “I’ve been crisscrossing the country again, without much reason.”  This character drives all over the place for long stretches of time.  On this particular night with a blizzard heading into town, he pulls into a Holiday Inn (more for its familiar green logo and predictability than anything else).

But when he asks for a room, they are booked.  There is some kind of hot rod convention in town–which he thinks is odd for the winter, but whatever.

The concierge tells him that there is one room that might be available–the people haven’t shown up and are going to call to confirm whether the weather will prevent them from showing up.

So he waits. (more…)

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Ann Beattie-“Save a Horse Ride a Cowgirl” (New Yorker, November 23, 2015)

Posted in Ann Beattie, Compote, Crooked Fingers, Death, Donald Sutherland, Field Recordings, Klute, Marriage (Happy), New Yorker, NPR/PRI/PBS, Sasquatch Music Festival, Short Story, Titus Andronicus, We Are Augustines on November 23, 2018| Leave a Comment »

 SOUNDTRACK: WE ARE AUGUSTINES-“New Drink for the Old Drunk” (Field Recordings, September 5, 2012).

I have never heard of We Are Augustines (and I’m pretty amazed to see them referenced with Titus Andronicus as if they were big enough to be known back in 2012.  Were they?)

For this Field Recording [We Are Augustines: Somewhere Over The Mountain], the three guys are on top of a mountain outside of the Sasquatch! Music Festival (where it is very windy, they keep saying).

The singer starts singing a song (perhaps an improv) and the band joins in briefly.  Then with two guitars and a box drum, they move on to their song proper.

The Brooklyn band We Are Augustines wouldn’t seem to lend itself to windblown acoustic sing-alongs: The songs on 2011’s Rise Ye Sunken Shipssongs bellow and soar in the electric, anthemic spirit of, say, Titus Andronicus. But for this Field Recording, captured during the closest thing to a quiet moment at the 2012 Sasquatch! Music Festival, the trio strapped on acoustic guitars — and grabbed a box for percussion — long enough to perform a cover of Crooked Fingers’ “New Drink for the Old Drunk.”

This has a good raw powerful feel and their style suits an acoustic performance–of course, this is a cover, so I still know little about them.  They were able to drown out the actual Festival (not far away at all), which you can hear as the song comes to and end.

[READ: January 7, 2017] “Save a Horse Ride a Cowgirl”

I really enjoyed this story a lot although I found it hard to follow a bit.  This was primarily because the protagonist of the story is not the person who opens the story.

It opens with Sterne crashing his car into the car of two young girls, Heidi and Bree.  We stay at the scene for a few paragraphs and we soon learn that Sterne was not at fault–the girls had been texting while driving.

We find this out through Sterne’s brother, Bradley, a lawyer.  And this story s all about Bradley. (more…)

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Jesse Eisenberg-“An Honest Film Review” (New Yorker, November 23, 2015)

Posted in Book Reviews, Essays, Field Recordings, Film & TV, Funny (ha ha), Jesse Eisenberg, New Yorker, NPR/PRI/PBS, Short Story, XPN Fest on November 22, 2018| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE AVETT BROTHERS-“Live and Die” (Field Recordings, August 22, 2012).

This Field Recording [The Avett Brothers: Hot Tea And Honey] takes place at the  XPoNential Music Festival (now XPN Fest–the only Fest I’ve been to (although not in that year).

At the time (2012), I didn’t know the Avett Brothers, but since then I have come to really like them a lot and have seen them live.  This song in particular is simply terrific.

Seth and Scott Avett spend a good chunk of their lives on one tour bus or another, so asking them to perform in one isn’t all that different from asking them to perform in one of their own living rooms. They may be far away from their native North Carolina but the setting is cozy enough for Seth Avett to brew tea before performing.

I think that Seth Avett’s voice is just wonderful, especially on this song.  In one of those weird eye/ear moments, I never imagined that the guy with the long hair and mustache could produce this voice–which sounds fantastic in this recording on their tour bus.

The Avett Brothers will soon spend a lot more time on that bus: The band’s new album, The Carpenter, comes out Sept. 11. Naturally, when asked to play a song from the record, the Avetts picked its first single, “Live and Die” — a sweetly hooky jam which lends itself perfectly to the pair’s acoustic-guitar-and-banjo interplay.

Scott plays a lovely lead banjo and Seth’s guitar complements it perfectly.  This version is just as pretty as the recorded version with the extra treat of Seth’s tired voice cracking here and there.

[READ: January 25, 2017] “An Honest Film Review”

This should complete all of the already-published Jesse Eisenberg pieces.  He does this type of humorous piece very well.  Taking something fairly simple and turning it into something else entirely.

This week he’s reviewing Paintings of Cole.  His first complaint is that the screening was all the way uptown.  Also, the premise is that a young man brings down the Italian mob by using paintings to send secret codes.  He complains that in grad school he wrote a story with that exact same idea.  He failed the class but Kern, the director, is getting Oscar buzz? (more…)

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Lauren Groff–“Flower Hunters” (New Yorker, November 21, 2016)

Posted in Bleached, Depression, Dogs, Drinking, Field Recordings, Halloween, Hoover's Soular Food, New Yorker, NPR/PRI/PBS, Parenting, Rain, Short Story, William Bartram on November 21, 2018| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: BLEACHED-“Electric Chair” (Field Recordings, July 25, 2012).

This Field Recording [Bleached: Picnic Table Punk] is related to SXSW (it was filmed on the eve of the 2012 Festival at a food-truck parking lot [The awesomely named Hoover’s Soular Food] off the highway — about a mile northeast of Austin’s swarming 6th Street.

Jennifer and Jessica Clavin make up the core of Bleached, a rough-and-tumble garage-rock band.  Bleached is one of many young punk-infused acts playing three-minute, three-chord bashers with sneering, unraveled immediacy. When played on stage, the band’s music takes on a messy-but-fun live-wire buoyancy.  “Electric Chair,” is a distortion-fueled strumfest built around [literally] two lines: “Just got out the electric chair / and I don’t see you anywhere.”

It almost sounds like they aren’t plugged in (“we’re playing too loud,” one of them says)–you can hear the pick hitting the strings almost as much as the chords themselves.  Adn someone sounds a wee bit out of tune, but that all seems appropriate for this band.  This song is a simple (very simple) rough and tumble garage rock song.

Assisted by Sara Jean Stevens on bass and drummer Jonathan Safley — here playing a light-up tambourine bought at the last second from a tchotchke shop — Bleached showcases its fun, off-the-cuff spirit. It may lack meticulous precision, but the band’s infectious energy and simple, winning hooks more than compensate.

I don’t really care for garage rock all that much and this song doesn’t do all that much for me.  It is too spare and, honestly, I need at least one extra lyric.

[READ: January 5, 2017] “Flower Hunters”

This story is set on Halloween.  But the protagonist, a mom, has forgotten about the day entirely.  The last two days she was absorbed in a book by naturalist William Bartram, who traveled through Florida in 1774 (he’s a real person).  And so, although her boys wanted to be ninjas, she had made one a costume that was a long-sleeved shirt tied in the back and a slotted mask.  The boy is calling himself Cannibal Lecture.  The other boy is getting an old fashioned sheet-as-ghost (she is made uncomfortable about a white boy in a sheet but hopes the rosebuds on the hem mitigate the effects somewhat.

Her husband comes in from work, sees the costumes, raises an eyebrow, remains merciful.

What I really liked about the story was the narrator’s tone.

“She says to her dog, who is beside her at the window…One day you’ll wake up and realize your favorite person has turned into a person-shaped cloud.
The dog ignores her, because the dog is wise.

In addition to failing Halloween , the woman is also failing at friendship.  Her best friend, Meg, told her she doesn’t want to be her best friend anymore: “I’m sorry, I just need to take a break.” (more…)

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