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Sandy,
Sarah has no chance of winning any election, anywhere.

Had I known The Pushcart Prize XXXIV (2010) was 500 pages long, I never would've bought it. And now that I know that, I strongly suspect it will never make it to the unread-book shelf again. Not that all of it was bad. I found a few things to comment on before my evaluation at the end

Stuff

1) Take the first story (Take it, please), "Modulation" by Richard Powers. Its subject was synthesizing music, war and social strife so that everyone heard the same thing. At least I think that's what its subject was. (I'm not taking any bets on this one.) But while muddling through the story itself, I came across two quotes that really intrigued me either by their thought or the expression of that thought. A) "What kind of person would want to punish music traffickers? There were the geek hacker athletes, virtuosi like Tashi had been, simply giving their own kind of concert on their own astonishing instruments, regardless of the effect on the audience. There were always the terrorists, of course. Once you hated freedom, it was just a matter of time before you hated two-part harmony." (page 21) Sounds great, doesn't it? And I'm sure there's something profound about the terrorists and two-part harmony, but I really have no idea what it's talking about—even if I still liked the words. B) "Words were as effective at holding music as smoke was at holding borders." (page 23) I like the analogy; I even think I understand it.

2) "Rae-Jean had worked for twenty years as a copy editor at a university press, publishing mostly esoteric and incoherent textbooks that it then was sold for exorbitant amounts of money to destitute student who wouldl have no choice but to use their student-loan money to buy these books. Rae-Jean had edited such arcane manuscripts as The Postmodern Beowulf, Homosexuality and Deuternaopity in Squirrels, The Synthesis and Antithesis of Polypeptotes, [i]Freemason for Dummies[/i], and Whether the Witch Hazel: Piles-Driven Imagery in the Poetry of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Alfred Lord Tennyson." (page 212) At least that story, "How the World Will Look When All the Water Leaves Us," demonstrates a sense of humor. Actually that quote may have been the highpoint of all the collected winners.

3) "… terror a blue vowel that kisses the hurt." (page 232) I have no idea what a blue vowel might be, but I like the phrase. (What? You're not looking for meaning? Setting the bar kind of low for this book, aren't you?)

4) "The nerve of fathering is woven through the moment…" (page 331)| The opening sentence of "The Points of Sail." At least it made me want to keep reading, a much-improved opening sentence, IMHO. Many stories did not even reach that level. Of courses, even if they didn't, I forced myself to read at least a page.


Words
1) Epithalamium. The title of a poem. The World English Dictionary: "poem or song, written to celebrate a marriage; nuptial ode." That is one I never heard. Strange as I was an English major. I thought all English majors learned every possible name for every possible type of poem or ode. But apparently not.

2) Animist. "And there was gathering of evidence that that bringing trees into homes and decorating them, he said. began with animist religions." Www.dictionary.com: "noun, the belief that natural objects, natural phenomena and the universe itself possess souls." A belief.in which I indulge, although I never knew there was a name for it.

3) Duchenne's. "'It could be worse, Mom,' I said 'those kids with Duchene's.'" (page 406) dictionary.com: adj: relating to or being Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Kind of figured it was something neuro/muscular. (BTW, the text misspelled it, spelling it with only one N. Talk about making it harder.)


Final evaluation: More and more I am reminded of Alice in Wonderland, "…she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, and what is the use of a book,' thought Alice, `without pictures or conversation?'" (Page 1) Except for the occasional short story this year's Pushcart winners pretty much fit her complaint.

Just finished These Children Who Come at You With Knives and Other Fairy Tales by Jim Knipfel. Reversing the usual order, I'll start with my overall evaluation: Catchy title, downhill from there, managing mostly to be depressing. And gross. But I did finish the book and, along the way, noticed a few things. (SPOILER ALERT: BTW, the most amusing thing was that after I read the last short story, the whole book worked, and I'm going to describe why. Thus, SPOILER ALERT!)

Things:

1) In the very first short story, "Preface: World Without End, Amen," the set-up begins. Of course, the reader—in this case yours truly—doesn't realize that the set-up has begun. Therein, Satan is busy creating the universe and "took the materials left over from the creation of the universe and made some animals, which he then set loose across the planet. He made ocelots and platypuses and otters and …

"The animals were awfully cute and amusing at first, but again in time he found his need for uproarious, slam-bang entertainment remained unfulfilled. The animals he had created were too perfect. … There are only so many times you can watch a cheetah chase down a crippled antelope before your mind starts to wander and you decide to check in on the Weather Channels again. …

"Having at this point exhausted the last of his lead building materials, Satan created these creatures out of the s*** his animals have left on the ground. … He decided to call these new creatures Man, for some reason. … Being made of s***, you see,— they weren't very bright—though they were undeniably hilarious. (pages xi to xiii) And so it begins. BTW, it turns out the prototype of Man is a gnome—with an attitude—named Gerald.

2) "Soon, Stench (a malformed snowman who illustrates the properties of animist—{Can't remember? Look it up!) had collapsed and now that all three boys were on top of him with their boots, bumping him into the earth, making the larger pieces into smaller and smaller ones. In a brief, pointless explosion of cheating and drunken cruelty, they reduced the miserable snowman to the diffuse elements that, just a few weeks earlier, had been used to create him.

"'And that,' Stench thought with his final degree of consciousness, 'was just about the nicest thing anyone had ever done for him.'" (page 192) Like I said, a lot of the stories were depressing.

3) We (the readers) meet Gerard again in a short story entitled "The Gnome Who Would Be King." "Once there was a gnome named Gerard and he was pissed off. He was shorter than everyone else, his skin was a sickly pale green, he had a long, crooked nose and pointed ears, and you don't even want to hear about his wardrobe. Worse, even within the gnome community, he was considered kind of a jackass.

"The ironic thing about that last bit was that Gerard considered himself a tireless crusader for gnome rights." (page 41)

Eventually Gerard does become king, only to be done in by a professional retard named Mickey. "Half way across the bridge Mickey stopped. Then he swung the bag once, twice, three times above his head before casting it, with the gnome still inside, to the cold and dark waters below.

4) "Being a professional retard, he was unfamiliar with the various behavioral tics and phobias, common to all gnomes. He wasn't aware, for instance, that gnomes in general were deathly afraid of water and, as a result, never bothered learning how to swim. He was just trying to get the little f----r as far away from him as possible.

5|) "As the story goes, Gerard kicked and flailed and gurgled in fear, but the bag sank like a rock to the very bottom of the river, where the gnome presumably drowned and, over time, was eaten by small fish." (page 57) And that's the end of Gerard. Or is it? (Of course, it isn't, or I wouldn't have posted SPOILER ALERT above.)

Occasionally a bit of unexpected humor reached up and smacked me. In a short story entitled "Schotzie:" "Then, many long and happy years after acquiring Schotzie for twenty-five bucks and a coffee pot, Krapwell—who by this time had become a very wealthy man—died in a freak Ferris wheel accident . No one knew those things could roll that far." (page 109) I found humor in the jump in subjects


6) "One day Chuck wandered alone through the desert and back into Happyland. Everonce in a while he liked to take a peek at the places where his services had been requested, just to see how honest the people who hired him had been. They promised that they were a peaceful, a kind and giving people and that the kids were screwing all that up for them. They would certainly, they assured him, immediately revert to their peaceful and kind and giving ways as soon as those damn Creepy Crawlers (or whenever folks called them) were out of the picture.

"The thing is they had gotten even worse in Happyland than they had in those other towns. An awful lot of Happylanders (had been forced to keep their nasty tendencies of old in the past) and add a file that they secretly enjoyed being mean to the Creepy Crawlies. Now with the Creepy Crawlers gone, they needed some sort of outlet. As always, without a collective external enemy to be nasty toward, a population that's tasted hatred and bloodlust will turn on itself….

"It didn't take the Happyland Police Department all that long to figure out who was behind the two nights of unspeakable terror the town had experienced. Scream-filled nights during which seven innocent people felt Chuck's wrath. Seven peace-loving Happylanders trying to have a relaxing evening at home made the simple mistake of going to the front door after hearing the doorbell ring. Opening the door and finding the one they are, all seven victims stepped out onto their porches, trying to figure out what the deal was.

"In Happyland, as Chuck had discovered that like every other town, this wasn't exactly the truth. Even if they had smiles plastered on their faces all day long, the Happylanders kept doing whatever was necessary to get the money. They ate meat and drove pollution-belching automobiles. They were happy, but they were happy with themselves for the wrong reasons, and happy about things that made Chuck want to claw his eyes out." (page 221).

7) The last story in the book, entitled "These Children Who Come at You with Knives," is a version of the Pied Piper. "During the sermons, he (Chuck, the Pied Piper) told the Creepy Crawlies (rats, kids) gathered from all across their land that they were outcast children. Children, he told them, the word love or wanted by their parents or their schools or their churches they were garbage in the eyes of those people (he called them 'pigs') …

"An awful lot of Happylanders (who had been forced to keep their more beastly tendencies bottled up in the past) had found that they secretly enjoyed being mean to the Creepy Crawlies. Now with the Creepy Crawlies gone, they went right on being mean to one another, having decided they needed some sort of outlet. As always, without a collective external enemy to be nasty toward, a population that's tasted hatreds and bloodlust will turn on itself. …

"As the hangman raised in his hand to slip it around Chuck's neck, he noticed something peculiar. It was a scar, or increase for a paper cut or something, that seemed to go all the way around Chuck's neck. He reached out absently and, picking at it, saw that it seemed to be loose. In fact, with a little fiddling, he was able to wriggle three fingers up under Chuck's throat.

"Chuck said nothing. He simply stood there quietly, staring into the crowd. He was smiling a patient smile.

"That's when a group of drugs-crazed Crazy Crawlies jumped out from the bushes are from behind the door and blew really loud whistles while waving knives and pieces of world in the air before running away. …

"Gerard, the gnome—who, as it happens, had no real fear of water after all and could hold his breath for an q outrageously long time—stood on his platform shoes, grinning out at the bewildered, bloodthirsty crowd. (Can you imagine that? It may sound cheap and contrived, but that's what really and truly happened. It was Gérard all along. Honest.) …

"'I thought he was just speaking metaphorically!' One man was heard to scream at no one in particular, moments before a Creepy Crowley caught him across the throat with they a rusty machete.

"As the streets of Happyland grew slick and dark with the blood of townsfolk, Gérard snickered, chewed through the ropes that bound his hands, removed the platform shoes, and descended the wooden stairs of the gallows.

"He strolled calmly through the ongoing savagery and carnage, dodging the occasional severed hand, flying kidney, and bouncing eyeball. He figured his first stop would be the mayor's mansion, just to see if he'd need to replace the wallpaper.

"'Yes,' he thought, 'it sure is good to be King.'

"And you better believe that he lived happily ever after. …

"Not too many other people did, though.

"THE END" (pages 221 – 227)

Word:
1) Microcephalic. "Because of this, it took Rodney… and Margaret … a few years to finally come to accept the fact that Miguel (their son) was not only a sock monkey but a microcephalic monkey to boot." (page 104) Dictionary.com: "adjective, having a head with a small braincase." Whoda thunk it? I know. Many of you out there who are a lot smarter than I am.

Summing up: catchy title, down hill from there—unless you're willing to read it through to the final: "THE END." (page 227)

Truth be told, I didn't spend enough time with Corrections by Jonathan Franzen for it to make it onto the "Currently reading signature line. " On the cover appears a quote from The New York Times Review of Books. It says, "That you will laugh, wince, weep, leave the table and maybe the country, promise never to go home again, and be reminded why you read serious fiction in the first place." Note that said: "serious fiction." The last thing I want to do right now is tackle another book labeled "serious fiction."

So now I'll mention a third shelf of unread books. These are books that someone has convinced me I should read. The shelf now holds three books, Corrections, Up in the Old Hotel, and The Stones of Summer. Eventually, I will get around to reading them.

I think I was a little disappointed with Roald Dahl's The Missing Golden Ticket and Other Splendiferous Secrets. Maybe I just like his short stories for adults better than his short stories for chilldren. "Lamb to the Slaughter", of Barbara Bel Gettes fame, comes immediately to mind. I did, however, find a couple things to be noted.

Thing:

1) In the days proceeding chocolate: "Consequently, in those days we small boys and girls were much more inclined to spend our money either on sweets and toffees and on some of them of the very cheap and fairly disgusting things … sherbet-suckers and gobstoppers and licorice bootlaces and anise seed balls, and we did not mind the licorice was made from a rat's breath and the sherbet from sawdust. They were cheap and to us they tasted good. So on the whole, we made do with eating sweets and toffees and junk instead of chocolate." (page 71) Poor substitutes indeed.

Word:

1) Conker. "I have also loved this month (September). As a schoolboy I loved it because it is the Month of the Conker. (page 86) Www.dictionary.com: "noun British Informal . 1. a horse chestnut. 2. the hollowed-out shell of a horse chestnut. 3. conkers, a game in which a child swings a horse chestnut on a string in an attempt to break that of another player." Surprise. I figured it was like a helmet worn in soccer or football.

Overall: Now I know what to look for, I'll be more careful in selecting Roald Dahl's short stories.

'
I am sure that you are familiar with many epithalamia but just not under that name.

"Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters", the title of a novella by J. D. Salinger. A direct translation from a line in one of the epithalamia of Sappho.

A. E. Housman wrote this, from fragments of epithalamia by Sappho:

Happy bridegroom, Hesper brings
All desired and timely things.
All whom morning sends to roam,
Hesper* loves to lead them home.
Home return who him behold,
Child to mother, sheep to fold,
Bird to nest from wandering wide:
Happy bridegroom, seek your bride!

And this fragment from an epithalamium of Sappho, describing a bride---which alone would justify her high standing as one of the world's greatest poets :

Oîon tò glukúmalon ereúthetai ákroi ep' úsdoi,
ákron ep' akrotátoi, leláthonto dè malodrópeës,
ou màn ekleláthont', all' ouk edúnant' epíkesthai.

"Like the honey-apple that reddens at the top of a branch,
At the top of the top-most bough, the apple-pickers forgot it ---
No, they did not forget it, they could not reach so far."
_________________________________

* Hesperus is, of course, Venus---seen as the Evening Star in the western twilight.

Judy Blume's Forever is the story Kathryn Danziger, a high school senior who's about to experience her first sexual relationship with her "forever" boyfriend. The last thing I expected was for such a book to be boring. But it was. Boring. Right down to Kath's visit to the New York offices of Planned Parenthood, where she was asked and answered a perfectly predictable litany of questions.

Overall: why bother? I've read other books by Judy Blume and had far more positive reactons.

Regarding Best American Short Stories, 2010, edited by Richard Russo and Heide Pitlor: I gave up. Seven stories from the end, and I gave up. I can't say I wasn't warned. Heidi Pitlor, in her introduction, stated that "This year was a slow burner, and at the start Richard Russo and I wondered whether we would find enough stories to fill this book." (page xi) I should have stopped reading right there, but I forged ahead through 18 short stories. I wish I could say something really good about at least one of them, but I can't. I think my love affair with literary short stories has reached its end. I have one more collection left on the unread shelf, specifically Best American Mystery Stories 2010, and I'll give it a try. But I don't hold out a lot of hope. And there's a collection of short stories by Jill McCorkle. It will also get a try. But I think my "best of" selections will now be based on whether I like the guest editor or not. I loved the Steven-King-as-Guest-Editor year and hated this year's Richard-Russo-as-Guest-Editor selections. So it's now based on like-the-editor, buy the book, and dislike-the-editor and don't buy. How simple it sounds.

I like short stories.

I like Charles deLint

He writes a lot of them, but our tastes may differ.

I just ordered an ebook reader. None of the local stores had the one I wanted in stock. A Velocity Micro Cruz. I'm pretty excited about it. The town library will soon have ebooks to loan.

I've tried a few of his--mostly based on your recommendation. Liked elements but not whole thing.