it's stuffy in here
At last I'm a character! Peter Stravlo has put me into his story, "Dufresne." I'm a big gray teddy bear. Thanks, Peter!
the geisha
In Anton Chekhov's sublime short story, "The Lady With the Dog," Dmitri Gurov pursues his love, Anna Sergeyevna, to her provincial Russian town and finds her with her balding husband at a performance of the operetta The Geisha. In Dezsö Kosztolányi's novel Skylark, the Vajkays, husband and wife, attend a Sárzeg performance of The Geisha. He is amused by the lyrics: "Happy Japan,/ Garden of glitter!/ Flower and fan/ Flutter and flitter . . ./ Merry little geishas we!/Come along at once and see/ Ample entertainment free,/ Given as you take your tea."
The Geisha (1896) is an actual operetta, a musical play really, by British composer Sidney Jones with Owen Hall and Harry Greenbank. It was inspired by Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Mikado and by the fad for all things oriental. Lieutenant Reginald Fairfax is enjoying a dalliance with the head geisha, Mimosa San, when his betrothed, Molly, arrives. The operetta included a song called “The Dear Little Jappy-Jap-Jappy”and another “Chin Chin Chinaman,” which may preclude it being performed any time soon. You can hear samples of both songs, if you dare, or buy the album at Amazon.
hapworth 16, 1924
Roger Lathbury writes about how he almost got to publish J. D. Salinger's Hapworth. Here's a link to the novella in question. And here's Michiko Kakatani's review of Hapworth.
they don't know that we know they know we know
"Why do we read fiction? Why do we care so passionately about nonexistent characters?" Cognitive science in the literature classroom. (thanks to Eliot in Worcester)
the borges cure
New flash fiction from Lynne Barrett.
three minutes
Submit to NPR's Three-Minute Fiction Contest. (thanks to Garry in Plantation)
the woman in the blue coat
Short fiction by Corey Ginsburg, editor of Gulf Stream, MFA candidate, Friday Night Writer. (click through pages to page 16.)
deep-holes
A new Alice Munro story in the New Yorker.
stories
The summer issue of Verbsap features two of our Friday Nght Writers: Tom Lassiter ("Lawns count, take mine, a beautiful carpet of St. Augustine, kinda an oasis in this damn crazy world. And it is crazy, right?") and Neil Crabtree ("For a moment, I regretted what I’d said. Her face twitched around the eyes and she looked away, blinking, like someone awakened from a faint with smelling salts under her nose.")
natasha
A new Nabokov story in the New Yorker. "On the stairs Natasha ran into her neighbor from across the hall, Baron Wolfe. He was somewhat laboriously ascending the bare wooden steps, caressing the bannister with his hand and whistling softly through his teeth."
the garden of last days
My review of Andre Dubus III's new novel in Sunday's Globe.
flash fiction
Another short story by Merle Drown. "In the Car."
shameless self-promotion
A nice preview here of Requiem, Mass. Thank you, James Aaron Lindsey!
dmitri decides
We will get to read The Original of Laura.
nabokov and trilling
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ldpj_5JNFoA] Discuss Lolita.
nabokov and trilling, part 2
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-wcB4RPasE]