CastRoller

Presenting the first somniloquent entry to this Our Podcast, and if only I were kidding! Regular aural peekers might know Miette as a determined and faithful insomniac, and I wouldn't dare disappoint. Upon waking this morning I found...

Not long ago, I found myself in the unfortunate position of being deeply ensconced in a marvelous book while on a crowded public transportation system. “Nothing unfortunate about that, Miette,” you’ve said. I heard you. The unfortunate thing was that the title of the book, when viewed from across a subway car, [...]

Too. Hot. To. Type. But I leave you a nice. Long. One. Triviatum: This from a college short story anthology, with notations, footnotes, the works. There's one worth noting-- when the doctor reveals his Christian name, 'Trifon,' we see footnote #10, which reads:

It's that time of year, my dears, where I'm about to head off to foreign parts for what's known in various circles as "vacation," "holidays," or "days spent without LCD bathing." I can't believe it, either, actually, and am not sure I'll be able to pull off things like "relaxing" and "not having much of anything to do," which have only existed as very high level concepts in my foggy head. And there are so many things lined up when I return that I'll probably never ever take time off again, which...

For those not out barbecuing or picnicking or watching cosmic collisions or stealing carbide:

I know; this is two posts in a row that make direct mention of ladies' underthings. I have three very good reasons for this:

Happy Bloomsday! If your house is at all like mine (and let's hope it's not, let's hope it's, in fact, very little like mine, with the tangerine walls and the petting zoo and the flora and god knows what sort of fauna hidden in the balls of hair BUT), tonight you will not sleep at all, as you lie awake waiting up watching the clock tick down to Bloomsday morning and what might be waiting for you in your stockings.

Looking at the Bloomsday readings I've done to date, it's evident that my written prefaces have become some absurd equivalent of squealing fangirlish bra-tossing. I may (OR MAY NOT) be an excellent bra-tosser with perfect aim and pitch, and we all know that Joyce wouldn't be one to have a problem with women's undergarments tossed his way. But my first exposure to Joyce was in a sleepy little black shoebox theatre, where a troupe of mild-mannered turtlenecked barnstormers read from Dubliners from...

This might be best remembered as Modern Experimental Fiction (MEF) or Possibly Obvious Catholic Allegory (POCA), but when I think of it, I think only of Impending Sneeze Preventing Absolute Clarify (IS-PAC), except when, in this recording anyway, a cough is stifled, at which point it reminds me to Clear Throat Before I Read (CLEAR-T-BIR).

A disclaimer for you on this happy June that will become self-evident soon enough: I love this story. I could read it a thousand times over and give you a thousand different insights. I love it in the peepish and borderline obsessive way its narratrice experiences love. Love it, in its own words, "as a mouse might love the hand that cleans the cage, and as uncomprehendingly, too, for surely I see only a part of him here." ...