December 24, 2021 by Paul Debraski
SOUNDTRACK: hiatus
[READ: December 24, 2021] “The Young King”
This year, S. ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar. This is my seventh time reading the Calendar. The 2021 Short Story Advent Calendar is a deluxe box set of individually bound short stories.
As always, each story is a surprise, so you won’t know what you’re getting until you crack the seal every morning starting December 1. Once you’ve read that day’s story, check this link where editor Alberto Manguel is providing daily commentary on each of the stories he selected for this year’s calendar.
I was pretty delighted that Oscar Wilde was selected for this short story (with the caveat that there are hundreds of more recent Irish short story writers to choose from of course). And it started off with Wilde’s wit with the king’s courtiers needing Etiquette lessons because most of them still had natural manners–a very grave offense.
But then, good lord, this story dragged on so torturously.
A 16 year old lad is named to be the next king. He was raised by goatherds so he is blown away by the sumptuousness of the castle. But, as is the case with children’s stories, of which this is apparently one, he has three bad dreams.
Long dreams. Elaborately detailed and yet rather tedious dreams. Continue Reading »
Posted in Alberto Manguel, Canadian Content, Children's Books, Children's Fable, Christmas, Hingston & Olsen, Ireland, Morality, Oscar Wilde, Religion, Short Story, The Short Story Advent Calendar | Leave a Comment »
December 23, 2021 by Paul Debraski
SOUNDTRACK: hiatus
[READ: December 23, 2021] “The Fire Balloons”
This year, S. ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar. This is my seventh time reading the Calendar. The 2021 Short Story Advent Calendar is a deluxe box set of individually bound short stories.
As always, each story is a surprise, so you won’t know what you’re getting until you crack the seal every morning starting December 1. Once you’ve read that day’s story, check this link where editor Alberto Manguel is providing daily commentary on each of the stories he selected for this year’s calendar.
This is the kind of story that unfolds itself, proving to be too big for itself.
It is about a king who feared death. So he ordered a cemetery to be built in the center of the kingdom with very high walls. Everyone currently buried would be dg up and moved to the new cemetery.
This takes extensive time and involves many years of building a digging (often with one piece sufficing as an entire body). Continue Reading »
Posted in Alberto Manguel, Canadian Content, Christmas, Death, Giovanni Pontiero, Hingston & Olsen, José Saramago, Portugal, Short Story, The Short Story Advent Calendar, Translation | Leave a Comment »
December 22, 2021 by Paul Debraski
[DID NOT ATTEND: December 22, 2021] KT Tunstall / Christine Havrilla [moved from August 23, 2020]
So KT Tunstall was supposed to play three shows in my area. The show at Ardmore was added when the other shows were rescheduled. Then COVID pushed the shows back again.
For some reason this show was listed as being on December 8 for a short time before it was corrected to being on December 22.
That meant that it looked like she was playing four shows in the Philly area at different venues.
I like Ardmore, although if I can see a band closer I will go there instead. Even though KT’s SOPAC show was postponed, the fact that it was postponed and not cancelled meant that I could just wait until she came back to South Orange. Continue Reading »
Posted in Ardmore Music Hall, Ardmore, PA, Christine Havrilla, Gupsy Fuzz, Indigo Girls, KT Tunstall, SOPAC, WXPN 88.5 FM--Philadelphia, PA | Leave a Comment »
December 22, 2021 by Paul Debraski
SOUNDTRACK: hiatus
[READ: December 22, 2021] “Truman Capote”
This year, S. ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar. This is my seventh time reading the Calendar. The 2021 Short Story Advent Calendar is a deluxe box set of individually bound short stories.
As always, each story is a surprise, so you won’t know what you’re getting until you crack the seal every morning starting December 1. Once you’ve read that day’s story, check this link where editor Alberto Manguel is providing daily commentary on each of the stories he selected for this year’s calendar.
I read this whole story believing it was written by Truman Capote and believing that perhaps (as with many of the other authors in this collection) he originated from a place I didn’t realize. And that Hassouna Mosbahi was a person or perhaps a place that I’d never heard of.
And I thought it was really weird and meta that Truman Capote was writing about himself and that he was writing about himself as if he were dead. It seemed like a pretty crazy conceit.
Whoops.
This story is introduced by a narrator who relates his forgetfulness. He has arrived home in Tunisia, but he’s not sure why. Eventually he discovers a telegram that informs him his grandmother has died. While he is in the center city he sees Truman Capote in his white suit and hat. Continue Reading »
Posted in Alberto Manguel, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Canadian Content, Christmas, Hassouna Mosbahi, Hingston & Olsen, Prostitution, Short Story, The Short Story Advent Calendar, Tunisia, William M. Hutchins | Leave a Comment »
December 21, 2021 by Paul Debraski
[DID NOT ATTEND: December 22, 2020] KT Tunstall / Dina Hall [rescheduled from May 5th 2020 and June 28th 2020 and December 22, 2020 and July 9, 2021]
KT Tunstall and Sellersville Theater did everything they could to make this show happen. This was the fifth rescheduled date.
I’m not even entirely sure if Dina Hall was still opening at this point.
I almost feel bad not going to this show I’ve been following it so carefully. But of the three venues where KT was playing near me, this was the most inconvenient and least likely for me to go to.
Nevertheless, I’m happy it finally happened.
Dina Hall is a folksinger from Bethlehem–originally from Sayreville NJ. When she’s with her full band she rocks out a bit more. I’m not sure if this was a solo or a band show.
Posted in Dina Hall, KT Tunstall, Sellersville Theater, Sellersville, PA | Leave a Comment »
December 21, 2021 by Paul Debraski
SOUNDTRACK: hiatus
[READ: December 21, 2021] “The Three Hermits”
This year, S. ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar. This is my seventh time reading the Calendar. The 2021 Short Story Advent Calendar is a deluxe box set of individually bound short stories.
As always, each story is a surprise, so you won’t know what you’re getting until you crack the seal every morning starting December 1. Once you’ve read that day’s story, check this link where editor Alberto Manguel is providing daily commentary on each of the stories he selected for this year’s calendar.
By the time I saw Leo Tolstoy I was getting a little annoyed by the end of this collection. Nothing against Tolstoy at all–we should all read him more, but again, I wanted a contemporary writer to get excited by.
And then this story turned out to be exactly the same as Ray Bradbury’s story (obviously Tolstoy was first), but it was less satisfying.
Basically, a bishop is aboard a ship and is told by the pilgrims on board that there’s an island nearby with three very holy hermits. Naturally the busybody bishop needs to see them to make sure they are praying correctly. So he disrupts the entire voyage, making everyone else delay their travels for at least a full day, so he can be a pain in the ass to these poor hermits.
He tries to teach them about god, but they don’t understand him. Continue Reading »
Posted in Alberto Manguel, Canadian Content, Christmas, Hingston & Olsen, Leo Tolstoy, Leo Wiener, Religion, Russia, Short Story, Supernatural, The Short Story Advent Calendar, Translation | Leave a Comment »
December 20, 2021 by Paul Debraski
SOUNDTRACK: hiatus
[READ: December 20, 2021] “Ch’ien-niang”
This year, S. ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar. This is my seventh time reading the Calendar. The 2021 Short Story Advent Calendar is a deluxe box set of individually bound short stories.
As always, each story is a surprise, so you won’t know what you’re getting until you crack the seal every morning starting December 1. Once you’ve read that day’s story, check this link where editor Alberto Manguel is providing daily commentary on each of the stories he selected for this year’s calendar.
As with Homer and Hans Christian Andersen, I am fairly surprised that Manguel went back to the Tang Dynasty (even if it the Golden Age of Chinese literature) to find a story. Especially since “’Ch’ien-niang’ is a Chinese version of Sleeping Beauty with a twist.”
Ch’ien-niang is a legend that the narrator had often heard of.
Ch’ien-niang was designed to marry Wang Chou. But Chou was to be sent away instead. Continue Reading »
Posted in Alberto Manguel, Canadian Content, Chen Xuanyou, China, Christmas, Fairy Tales, Hingston & Olsen, Romance, Short Story, Supernatural, The Short Story Advent Calendar, Wayne Schlepp | Leave a Comment »
December 19, 2021 by Paul Debraski
SOUNDTRACK: hiatus
[READ: December 19, 2021] “The Fire Balloons”
This year, S. ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar. This is my seventh time reading the Calendar. The 2021 Short Story Advent Calendar is a deluxe box set of individually bound short stories.
As always, each story is a surprise, so you won’t know what you’re getting until you crack the seal every morning starting December 1. Once you’ve read that day’s story, check this link where editor Alberto Manguel is providing daily commentary on each of the stories he selected for this year’s calendar.
This is the story of Trudy, a young woman who pretends to be much younger in order to win a suitor.
Trudy met the man, Richard, on vacation. She and her friend Gwen had gone to Austria and after a couple of days they ran into Richard, who had known Gwen for years. Continue Reading »
Posted in Alberto Manguel, Canadian Content, Christmas, Hingston & Olsen, Muriel Spark, Romance, Short Story, The Short Story Advent Calendar | Leave a Comment »
December 18, 2021 by Paul Debraski
SOUNDTRACK: hiatus
[READ: December 18, 2021] “The Travelling Companion”
This year, S. ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar. This is my seventh time reading the Calendar. The 2021 Short Story Advent Calendar is a deluxe box set of individually bound short stories.
As always, each story is a surprise, so you won’t know what you’re getting until you crack the seal every morning starting December 1. Once you’ve read that day’s story, check this link where editor Alberto Manguel is providing daily commentary on each of the stories he selected for this year’s calendar.
I have mixed feelings about including a Hans Christian Andersen story here. On the one hand, I don’t think I have ever actually read an HCA story (of course I know many of them). So on the one hand it was interesting to do so. But, as with Homer, there was no from the last century and a half in Denmark worthy of inclusion here?
In this story a Poor John’s father dies immediately. So Poor John sets off with his few belongings to seek his fortune.
The first night he slept under the stars and in the morning gave some coins to a beggar. Later that night, he happened upon a church and made to sleep there for the night as the weather was worsening. Continue Reading »
Posted in Alberto Manguel, Canadian Content, Christmas, Death, Denmark, Fairy Tales, Hans Christian Andersen, Hingston & Olsen, Short Story, Supernatural, The Short Story Advent Calendar, Trolls, Violence | Leave a Comment »
December 17, 2021 by Paul Debraski
SOUNDTRACK: hiatus
[READ: December 17, 2021] “From the Fifteenth District”
This year, S. ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar. This is my seventh time reading the Calendar. The 2021 Short Story Advent Calendar is a deluxe box set of individually bound short stories.
As always, each story is a surprise, so you won’t know what you’re getting until you crack the seal every morning starting December 1. Once you’ve read that day’s story, check this link where editor Alberto Manguel is providing daily commentary on each of the stories he selected for this year’s calendar.
I thought had read more by Mavis Gallant, but apparently I hadn’t. This is a light and amusing ghost story, set in the fifteenth district of Paris.
But Gallant has an amusing twist on the concept right from the start.
A deceased soldier says that he is haunted by the entire congregation of St. Michael and All Angels on Bartholomew Street. Since he received his posthumous purple heart, people await for him to come and receive communion, and the crowd gets larger every year. Continue Reading »
Posted in Alberto Manguel, Canada, Canadian Content, Christmas, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Ghosts, Hingston & Olsen, Mavis Gallant, Paris, France, Short Story, The Short Story Advent Calendar | Leave a Comment »
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SOUNDTRACK: hiatus
I Just Read About That... 