Week in Seven Words #385

cadence
The barefoot woman on the terrace is singing as she arranges her body into meditative poses. Her voice, clear and high, reminds me of the music of Hildegard von Bingen.

dissolve
The tiramisu melts at the touch of the fork.

efficiency
I feel like a package on a conveyor belt, directed first to the booth with the camera models, then to a counter for processing the order, followed by another counter for the payment, and then to the pick-up area, until I'm finally deposited through the automatic doors to the curb.

enjoyment
The first thing that delights him about the trip is the length between stops for the express train. For her, it's the garden where she hovers over flowers with her camera.

functions
Exploring an herb garden: the spidery magic of milk thistle, and sharp, refreshing scents of rosemary and sage. The gardener gives a talk on women's medicine in the Middle Ages, including plants, like birthwort, that led to serious health problems. At one point, she begins referring to menses by its old-fashioned euphemism, "the flowers." Someone becomes confused about which flowers she's discussing.

pictorial
The accuracy of the text is questionable, but the illustrations are compelling, inviting the reader to discover obscure connections between plants and people.

twist
Her horror story begins with a man sitting alone on a boulder in the woods. It ends with a giant, murderous avocado bursting through a kitchen door.

Good Short Fiction: 4 stories from Adaptations

Collection: Adaptations: From Short Story to Big Screen
Editor: Stephanie Harrison

Title: Auggie Wren's Christmas Story
Author: Paul Auster
Auggie Wren works at a cigar store. His real name isn't Auggie Wren; that's just what he told the author, Paul, to call him. Auggie is an unassuming guy. You wouldn't guess that he's a photographer and that every day for years he's been taking a photo of the same street corner ("the same people in the same spot every morning, living an instant of their lives in the field of Auggie's camera"). And you'd probably never guess how he got his camera. That's where the Christmas story comes in. A major part of the story is that he pretends to be a blind old lady's son who has come to visit her for Christmas; the old lady is on to him, but she's lonely and he's got nowhere else to be, so they pretend. Another thing that isn't clear is whether Auggie is making this story up. How much do you want it to be true? Either way it makes for a good story.

-------------

Title: The Harvey Pekar Name Story
Author: Harvey Pekar
Illustrator: R. Crumb (Robert Crumb)
Harvey Pekar doesn't change much from one panel to another in this short comic. He's a scruffy ordinary guy who is thinking out loud about his life and more specifically his name: Harvey Pekar. It's a strange name, he thinks, and he talks about how people used to tease him for it. He then mentions other Harvey Pekars he's seen in the phone book. This is the best part of the comic - his thoughts on the multiple Pekars and how his identity might be bound up with them. Is he connected to them in a deeper way than shared names? What are they like? Maybe his life could have turned out like theirs, who knows. "Who is Harvey Pekar?" he asks. I looked at one image after another of Harvey and wondered the same thing, getting a better sense of him but also asking myself just who he is and why it's him (and not another Harvey Pekar) featured in the comic.

-------------

Title: My Friend Flicka
Author: Mary O'Hara
When Kennie McLaughlin's father grudgingly allows him to tame one of the colts on their ranch, Kennie is drawn to a wild and fast colt that no one thinks is tameable. It's difficult to confine the young horse; she goes into a frenzy, breaks free and runs off. Her need to get away is so desperate that one day her escape attempt ends in a horrible injury:

Twenty yards of fence came down with her as she hurled herself through. Caught on the upper strands, she turned a complete somersault, landing on her back, her four legs dragging the wires down on top of her, and tangling herself in them beyond hope of escape.

The colt's chances of survival are slim; her skin is lacerated, and the wounds are infected. Even if she pulls through, there's a chance that she'll be crippled for life. Kennie needs to make a choice: he can abandon her as a lost cause and let the ranch workers shoot her, or he can try his best to nurse her back to health.

My Friend Flicka is a warm family tale, though the warmth is never cloying, and the possibility of death and serious injury is presented starkly. Part of what makes it a good story is that it shows how a young boy learns to take responsibility for another life. His attempts to tame the colt led to her injury; to discard her in the aftermath would be callous. Kennie and his horse form a deep bond; he's determined not to betray her and treat her life lightly.

-------------

Title: A Reputation
Author: Richard Edward Connell
Saunders Rook is an ordinary pleasant guy who would like to be noticed a little more. So one evening when he's dining at his club, he breaks into a lull in the conversation by telling everyone that he's going to commit suicide on the Fourth of July - a pronouncement that surprises him at least as much as it surprises his audience.

He had never demanded much of life; his existence was not rigorous, but placid. He was a sub-editor on a woman's magazine - he conducted the etiquette page - and this brought him twelve hundred dollars a year. He had inherited an income of twelve hundred more. He was able to live in modest comfort, for he was an orphan and a bachelor; he had a season ticket at the opera; his health was good. If he had a cross, it was a light one: minor editors of minor magazines usually rejected his minor essays, imitations of Charles Lamb, hymning the joys of pipe-smoking and pork-chops. So it startled him not a little to hear himself announcing his imminent self-destruction.

People who overlooked him before now turn to him with breathless questions. They ask him why he's doing this. To protest the state of civilization, he says, and they go wild with interest. Suddenly everyone is talking about Saunders Rook. He gets letters from people who either beg him to reconsider or congratulate him on his determination. He's invited to dinners thrown by intellectuals and artists, and his essays are solicited for magazines (though he notices with some nervousness that a couple are scheduled for posthumous publication). One of the ironies of the story is that Saunders loves his life, especially now that he's getting all this attention. Still, he has a reputation to maintain, so he keeps pretending that he's grown deeply disgusted with the world.

"But why do you feel that the state of civilization requires so drastic a protest?"

Deline asked this question as Saunders Rook was enjoying the third course, tender roast young guinea-fowl with mushrooms; Rook loved good food.

"Because," said Saunders Rook, with fork poised, "it's rotten."

Around the table went murmurs of approbation and interest.

Richard Connell's story pokes fun at the chattering classes and how they're quick to read profundity into Saunders Rook's words; hype, excitement and endless discussion swirl around Rook's careless statements, as if he's become a kind of prophet of the age. Connell is also careful to show us the day of reckoning: a sunny beautiful Fourth of July in Central Park, where Rook has decided to kill himself. Families are strolling and picnicking, and the city seems to be shining. Will Rook go through with it? It's the most important decision he'll ever make, and you wonder whether he'll be guided by his private self or by the demands of his public persona; maybe it's gotten to the point where his reputation really is everything. You also get the sense that no matter how he chooses, he'll fade back into obscurity at some point, once his fifteen minutes of fame are over.

-------------

Other stories from this collection include Babylon Revisited (by F. Scott Fitzgerald), The Basement Room (by Graham Greene), Killings (by Andre Dubus) and The Sentinel (by Arthur C. Clarke), along with The Swimmer (by John Cheever), Tomorrow (by William Faulkner), and Your Arkansas Traveler (by Budd Schulberg).

-------------

This post has been linked to at the Breadcrumb Reads blog in Short Stories on Wednesday #16.

Week in Seven Words #89

coiling
They're sitting in the kitchen making long colorful paper chains to loop around the walls of their sukkah. The decorative chains spill over the kitchen table and pool and heap on the floor.

decumbent
Hit by an illness first thing in the morning, I find that the world is shaky when I'm out of bed. I stay under the covers, reading by the light that slides in through the blinds.

furtherance
I learn again that it's best not to put off doing something good and worthwhile with the complacent thought that there will be another opportunity for it soon.

illustrative
As I'm reading them picture books about a spiffy giant and a Gruffalo and a snail that travels the world on a whale's tail, she asks me why the pictures show some things but not others; for instance, if the story tells you that a fox ran off and hid, the picture only shows you the hiding part but not the running part. After I tell her that everything can't be shown, and that the people who write and illustrate the books have to pick and choose, her older brother starts to talk about how in movies you can't see what's going on with all of the characters either; when one character's story is on screen, other characters are off-screen, with things happening to them that we can't even see but maybe will only hear about later.

lucent
On my walk home, bright globes of light burn on either side of the path. It's nighttime and a fresh new day has begun.

precipitation
The tables and chairs are beaded with rain water.

unawares
Scrabble Junior can be as challenging as regular Scrabble, simply because Scrabble Junior lulls you into a false sense of security.

The life of a bohemian dog redux

Someone very near and dear to me adds his interpretation to this photo.

Book sculptures

Click on the image to find out more about Brian Dettmer (the "Book Surgeon"), an artist who takes out-of-date books and crafts them into something like this, using only the illustrations and text that already exist in the book:





More of his book sculptures at the link. What he does with them is extraordinary, though I did squirm a little at the thought of old books getting cutting apart, however delicately.

And now, some words from the Bennet sisters

Jane

"I would not wish to be hasty in censuring anyone; but I always speak what I think."


Elizabeth

"I do assure you, Sir, that I have no pretension whatever to that kind of elegance which consists in tormenting a respectable man. I would rather be paid the compliment of being believed sincere. I thank you again and again for the honour you have done me in your proposals, but to accept them is absolutely impossible. My feelings in every respect forbid it. Can I speak plainer? Do not consider me now as an elegant female, intending to plague you, but as a rational creature, speaking the truth from her heart."


Mary

"Far be it from me, my dear sister, to depreciate such pleasures! They would doubtless be congenial with the generality of female minds. But I confess they would have no charms for me - I should infinitely prefer a book."


Kitty

"I do not cough for my own amusement."


Lydia

"Have you seen any pleasant men? Have you had any flirting?"

Smokers a century ago...

... could find flag girls among their cigarettes.

America, golden and brisk:



Buxom Belgium:



Greece, as graceful as one of the three graces (or nine muses):



Saucy Italy:



Japan, cautious and coy:



Proud Portugal:



Abyssinia, in her lovely unfurling colors:



Lots more at the NYPL digital archives (from Poland to India to Montenegro), as part of their collection of Cigarette Cards.