Hannah Tinti

The days between Christmas and New Year’s are full of memories–memories that settle down on the couch like a flock of house guests waiting to be served. It is wonderful to see them again, and they are entertaining for a while, but by the end of the week, we’re ready for them to leave, and they do, the whole weight of the past year falling off our shoulders when the clock strikes twelve. This week, Selected Shorts has four great stories to help you navigate your way from the 25th to the 31st:  Something to make you laugh with “The Night the Ghost Got In,” by James Thurber, performed by our own Isaiah Sheffer. A tale of bad luck turning good with “Examining the Evidence,” by Alice Hoffman, performed by Joanna Gleason. An angel who carries away aches and pains in “It Had Wings,” by Allan Gurganus, performed by Marian Seldes. And a love story full of second chances in “Secondhand Man,” by Rita Dove, performed by Audra McDonald. Listen in by podcast or on your local public radio station. Here’s to angels and second chances. I’ll see you all in 2012.

We’ve got some great stories this week on Selected Shorts. The first is “Troll Bridge,” by the wonderful and multi-talented Neil Gaiman, performed by the man himself.  This was part of a special night Gaiman hosted at Selected Shorts on stage, which featured his work as well as writers who have influenced him, including the master of magic realism Jorge Luis Borges, whose story “The Circular Ruins,” is performed by Boyd Gaines. Go here to watch a great video of Neil Gaiman answering questions from fans about his writing, music, dance moves, and eating caterpillars vs. eating beetles. Our final story is the winner of the Selected Shorts annual short story contest: “Tender” by Carly Sachs, performed by Mary Brienza. Listen in on your local Public Radio station or download a podcast for free!

From Thanksgiving to New Year’s, there is a whole lot of eating going on. But people are also hungering for something else: love. This week on Selected Shorts we’ve got two stories that use food as a tool for finding romance. Christina Pickles reads “But the One on the Right,” by Dorothy Parker, where a witty heroine discovers dinner  parties are like life–it’s all about who you get seated next to.  Heather Goldenhersh reads Lara Vapnyar’s “A Bunch of Broccoli on the Third Shelf,” about a young Russian émigré who cures her heartache by learning to cook. Both these tales should leave you feeling full and satisfied, whether you listen on our free podcast or tune into your local public radio station. Isaiah and I joked that we should include recipes with this episode. So here goes: for all of you who feel the same tearing I do when faced with a  pile of apples and can’t decide between a crumble or a pie: a few years ago, while reading The Boston Globe, I found the answer to this terrible dilemma:  AN APPLE CRUMBLE PIE. Now, I make it every Christmas. Enjoy!

This week on Selected Shorts, we bring you two darkly comic and touching stories about Bad Dads. “More Life,” by Mark Strand, performed by our own Isaiah Sheffer, features a father who comes back from the dead to haunt his son, while “Creeping,” by Maxine Swann, performed by Christine Ebersole, is about a hippie Dad gone wrong. Neither one of these men is probably in Darth Vader territory, but from Oedipus to Star Wars, fathers will forever be in conflict with their children. So why not have a few laughs along the way? Listen to our free podcast, or on your local Public Radio station. You never know when you might end up clinging to an antenna underneath Cloud City.

The Good Thief goes to Brazil! Thanks to Editora Rocco for taking a chance on Ren.

I waited tables and bartended for years, working at night after my low-paying publishing jobs in order to make rent. I’d be on my feet for 8-10 hours shifts, constantly moving and lifting heavy trays, keeping the orders of 8 or 9 tables straight in my head and negotiating with the chef, the dishwashers, the bartender, the manager and the hostess, all while handling the customers–who were sometimes wonderful and fun and interesting, other times awful, grabbing for my ass or skipping out on the check. You never knew who was going to sit down at your table. But waiting taught me how to multi-task, how to listen, how to smile in the face of someone cursing me out, and how to make mistakes and clean up after them. It was the hardest work I’ve ever done, but it was a good job–and I liked my fellow waiters. By the end of the night, when the place was closed and we were cashing out, exhausted and sweaty and lined up with our after-hour drinks at the bar, we were like soldiers after battle, a quiet camaraderie falling over the group. We’d made it through the night, we had cash in our pockets, and none of us had been fired. If you’ve never personally waited tables, we’ve got two stories on Selected Shorts this week that will give you a small taste: “Bayonne,” by John Cheever, performed by Mary Kay Place, which follows a waitress in a diner, jealously guarding her turf. The other story is “Fjord of Killary,” by Kevin Barry, performed by James Naughton, and focuses on the owner/bartender of a local tavern, trying to keep his staff and his customers happy as the waters literally rise around them. You can listen on your local public radio station, or download our podcast. Until then, remember to tip your servers well–20 or even 30%. They are working harder than you think. They are also the people who stop the chef from putting that steak that fell on the kitchen floor back onto your plate.

As everyone heads home for Thanksgiving, Selected Shorts is packing two great stories for you to listen to on your trip, either as a free podcast or on your local public radio station. The first is David Schickler’s “Jamaica,” performed by our very own Isaiah Sheffer, and features a domestic situation gone horribly and hilariously wrong, when a husband gets his head stuck in the bannisters overlooking the family living room. The second is Ron Carlson’s whimsical “On the U.S.S. Fortitude,” performed by Laura Esterman, which imagines home as an aircraft carrier, with the mother gamely flagging her children in for a landing. Hope everyone has a great time off with their families this week. And if you’re going to be in New York next February, be sure to get tickets for a very special stage performance of Selected Shorts to celebrate One Story’s 10th anniversary on February 22, 2012.

This week’s edition of Selected Shorts is dedicated to one author and one story: “Wildwood” by Junot Díaz. This story originally appeared in The New Yorker, and later became a part of Díaz’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, which tells of a fukú (curse) that follows Oscar and his family from the Dominican Republic to New Jersey and back again. I could go on and on about this book, which I read in practically one sitting–the heartache tempered with humor, the dexterous use of footnotes and literary touchstones, from Tolkien to Marquez, to the single best use of an m-dash I have ever seen (p.322) that, after my eyes fell upon it, made me well up and start crying (I still think about that m-dash). Or I could talk about Díaz’s previous book, a razor-sharp collection of stories called Drown, which includes “Fiesta, 1980″ (a story on just about every undergraduate English major’s reading list) and “Ysrael” (which I first read when it appeared in  Story magazine in 1995–it was my introduction to Díaz’s work, and it both intimidated the hell out of me [in a good way] and knocked my socks off–sealing my fate as an extreme fan of his work–not quite stalker-y, but close). In any case folks, my point here is: if you are a fan like me, or if you are one of the few readers out there who haven’t experienced Junot Díaz yet, tune in to this week’s show. The amazing actress Sonia Manzano (Maria from Sesame Street!) brings “Wildwood” to life, and you will thank me when it’s over. Go here to find your time/station, go here for podcasts.