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July 2008

Old Friends, Old Memories

Sunday, July 27, 2008

”…’Ah, now I understand,’ he said. ‘You are ashamed, is it? Yes, that’s it, Judge Sahib…You feel humiliated. But there is no need for that. These mistakes happen to all of us when we are new to the country.’
--Rishi Reddi, “Justice Shiva Ram Murthy”
”Every story is true, and a lie.”
--Leigh Allison Wilson, “Bullhead”

In one story, self-knowledge and self esteem are hard won in a new land, and in the other the precarious and enduring nature of memory is explored.


Operation Homecoming

Sunday, July 20, 2008

”…I walked across a pitch dark highway. Somebody was wailing in Arabic, hypnotically, repetitiously. A single car headlight was burning, a single shaft of light, beaming across the road, like an accusing finger.
--Sgt. Jack Lewis, “Road Work”
American soldiers fighting in the Middle East recount their experiences in fiction, poems, memoirs, and letters.


'The Eyes' Have It

Sunday, July 13, 2008

”He had been then, and always, essentially a spectator, a humorous, detached observer of the immense, muddled variety show of life, slipping out of his seat now and then for a brief dip into the convivialities at the back of the house, but never as far as one knew showing the least desire to jump on the stage, and do a turn.
- Edith Wharton, “The Eyes”

A classic haunting, in polite society.

One of SELECTED SHORTS most cherished touring venues is The Mount, Edith Wharton’s gracious home in the Berkshire Hills of Massachusetts. And just as she used to host such luminaries as Henry James, coaxing him to read aloud, so she has created, in “The Eyes,” a story within a story. A group of gentlemen has just finished telling ghost stories for their own amusement when their host irrevocably alters things with a personal narrative both gripping and grotesque.

Host Isaiah Sheffer calls reader Charles Keating “a master of the macabre,” and it is apt that he starred in a short-lived television series called "Going to Extremes." Keating played Rex in the celebrated adaptation of "Brideshead Revisited," and had two seasons with the Royal Shakespeare Company. Other theatre credits include "What the Butler Saw," "A Man for All Seasons" and "Pygmalion." Keating spoke with us from his home in Connecticut about what has shaped his approach to drama and language, and how he came to grips with Wharton’s densely layered work.

“The Eyes,” by Edith Wharton, read by Charles Keating.

For additional works featured on SELECTED SHORTS, please visit Symphony Space


Food and fairy tales

Sunday, July 06, 2008

”I am too young to love a dog, at the same I am beginning to realize there isn’t that much love in this world, so when Pauline says, ‘Can it do tricks?’ I try to keep the rush of passion from my eyes; I try to keep my voice down. ‘He can dance,’ I admit.”
--Molly Giles, “Pie Dance”

Three celebrations of food, and a fairy tale.