Short-a-Day: Jonathan Lethem's "The Night They First Played Monster Eyes"

Originally published in A Public Space 03, Winter 2007. Personal enjoyment rating (out of 100): 82.

In the same issue that brought us a story hidden in what is essentially the pure description of a (now empty) house, we also get this lovely twist on a fictional narrative: a story hidden within coverage of a live (fictitious) band. That's less new, but Lethem, no stranger to writing fiction about music (or marching to the beat of his own drum), handles it well, moving from a journalist's observations ("It's what makes this band sound alike to any other that makes them intriguing, at this distance: they could be the Beatles, heard from the street")to the inception of an audience to the transcendence of a band ("It's the moment when they realize that rather than being as good as they'd always hoped, or even better than they hoped, they're simply as good as they are, no hope required").

This isn't a story about characters, or plot, it's about the rhythms of life, the moments that either define us or which we choose to use to define us. After all, what are we if not the sum of our memories, right? This is the moment where, with "a blobby series of wide purplish spots from a track of lights mounted behind the band" pique the curiosity of the masses, where the drummer and bassist are suddenly transformed through the opportunity of the performance into "two women [who] look fresh and alive, a thousand percent less ordinary than at the retail outlets or previous social gatherings from which these men are fairly certain they recognize them." Lethem even goes so far as to tackle the question of ultimate authorship: when you're really locked onto a song, when the lyrics seem to describe just you, only "dangerous" you, then isn't the band just a mouthpiece with which to unlock your own feelings? The story's a thoughtful, successful meditation in that regard, and though these ideas might just as easily have been raised in an essay, it feels better tackled as fiction.

Short-a-Day: Jose de Pierola's "In the Belly of the Night"

Originally published in A Public Space 03, Winter 2007. Personal enjoyment rating (out of 100): 68.
[Part of the FOCUS: Peru series.]

The only thing missing from this story, about a Peruvian soldier preparing to execute an Indian scholar, is the context for such an action. But even without that, de Pierola's writing is effective enough in conveying the fast-motion replay sort of stream-of-consciousness that tends to run through our minds as we wait and prepare to take a final action. The "How did we get here" and "How can we make sure we never end up here again" sorts. As the Indian attempts, quietly, to convey his own humanity (even as he digs his own grave), Ubilluz thinks of his wife, his son (the "little midget"), his own father (the reason for him joining the military), and his commanding officer. It reads like this:

Wouldn't it be nice if they never sent you on another of those missions that scare me so much? Yeah, it'd be nice, real nice, really, really nice. Ubilluz lit his cigarette. The sweet, heavy smoke warmed his throat. The Indian with someone else's voice was smoking leisurely, the asshole, as if he were waiting for the bus. The red ember of his cigarette, like a little piece of charcoal, turned yellow, lit up his cheekbones, then turned red again. It was only then, maybe because of the contrast, that Ubilluz could smell the wet earth permeating his whole body. Mmm, so good, it smells like wet earth, daddykins. That's what it's like in the mountains, brown sugar: fresh air, sweet water, everything so, so damn good."

Jump for More

Short-a-Day: Mark Slouka's "The Hare's Mask"

Originally published in Harper's Magazine, January 2010. Personal enjoyment rating (out of 100): 25.

I'm going to call this story "specifically generic," for while Slouka adds plenty of details about a dead father -- his penchant for hand-crafting his own trout flies, his love of Krazy Kat, the brave face he puts on for his son despite his awful near-escape from the Holocaust (the narrator's grandparents were not so lucky), these could just as easily be happening to anybody, could be about anything. The few bits that land cleanly -- the father's grief at having to kill and eat the rabbits he had raised and named, or the image of his smile ("as if, having long ago given up expecting anything from the world, he continually found himself mugged by its beauty") -- come across as anecdotes, nestled into a story-within-a-story. And Slouka's grand attempt to mesh the two stories together -- the son remembers himself at nine years old, remembering his father at nine years old -- seems forced, especially the tantrum the boy throws when he learns that his sister wants a rabbit (she, of course, unaware of the significance this might have for her father).

Plenty of lines, of course, simply fall flat: "My father stood to the right, an awkward eight-year-old in a high-necked shirt and tie, a ghost from the future." Thoughts go unfinished, too: the father appears to be teaching the son (via their ritual of making trout-flies) that "Some things you can finish," but that's not the direction the story goes; likewise, the flashback memory of the father's childhood among the rabbits is complicated by the inclusion of a man -- possibly Milos Werfel, though why does that matter? -- who is hiding out in a narrow trench behind the rabbit hutch. This may clarify the relative levels of ease between generations -- the hiding Jew, the escaped father, the now relatively well-off American son -- and it may help to connect the image of caged rabbits to the horrors of the caged Jews, but if this is the feeling that is suddenly overcoming the son, it's leaning too hard on the tropes of collected Holocaust fiction and, as I said earlier, adding very little that's specific on its own. At once both too clever then, and not clever enough, depending on what you're reading this sort of story for.

Short-a-Day: Don DeLillo's "Hammer and Sickle"

Originally published in Harper's Magazine, December 2010. Personal enjoyment rating (out of 100): x.

I'd like to give Harper's and DeLilo the benefit of the doubt and say that this story was simply too intellectual for me, but I'm not sure that's entirely fair. Jerold Bradway, lightweight criminal in a minimum security prison that's built around an abandoned soccer field (near a supposedly haunted school), spends his days ruminating about how best to become a phantasm, "someone who slips in and out of physical reality," a creature that, like the news, can be depended on to disappear. Certainly Jerold doesn't think much of himself or his circumstances; he is simply a man in the midst of free enterprise, whatever that means.

Also occurring in the story: the prisoners are currently watching a program in which two children read complex financial reports that have been broken down, by their mother, into a sort of half-ironic half-serious singsong:

"Greece is ready to restore trust."
"Aid package of 40 billion dollars."
"How do they say thank-you in Greek?"
"Efharisto."
"Say it again, slowly."
"F. Harry Stowe."
"F. Harry Stowe."
They exchanged a fist bump, deadpan, without looking at each other.

Jump for More

Ringing in the New Year

Just a reminder (and an invitation) to everyone out there: I'm going to be in Times Square tonight, working as a moderator for the livestream and blog coverage of all the New Year's festivities. The video link below starts at 6:00, you can get a mobile app here (which lets you submit pictures and comments), or join us the old-fashioned browser way right here. I hope you will: we're connecting the whole world, and there's no feeling quite like this.

2011 on livestream.com. Broadcast Live Free