Selected Shorts: Epics

Last Friday, One Story hosted our annual benefit at The Invisible Dog Art Center in Brooklyn. About 500 people came, and to get upstairs to the party, our guests took a ride on this amazing freight elevator, designed by the artist Giuseppe Stampone. Stampone turned the space into a unique art piece, using quotes from Dante’s Divine Comedy, which is written on the walls of the shaft. Starting out in Hell on the first floor, the elevator lifts you up through Purgatory, up to Paradise on the third floor (where our party was). This work was commisioned by No Longer Empty for the Grand Opening of The Invisible Dog in October 2009 and is part of their permanent collection.

This week on Selected Shorts, we will be getting our Classics on, with performances of three epic tales: Cantos from Dante’s “Inferno” read by Phylicia Rashad; “The Death of Hector,” (from Homer’s The Iliad) read by Stephen Lang; and “Captain Ahab, A Novel by the White Whale,” by Paul West (based on Melville’s Moby Dick), read by Diane Venora. For your time or station, go here, or to listen to this episode on podcast, go here. To see Selected Shorts spanking great new website, go here!