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Miette's Bedtime Story Podcast Lay yourself down to sleep with the soothing soporific of Miette's purring voice reading you classic works of short fiction. Sweet dreams. Login to Add this to your Playlist Format : Education PodcastDirectory.com's listings of the Miette's Bedtime Story Podcast Podcasts
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The Sorrel Colt Updated: 2010-02-01 18:50:09 Description: The other day I was walking through a blistering, blustery, blinding-white below-zero snowstorm, cursing the day I decided not to live on a Caribbean island, and doubly cursing the day I decided not to be born with antifreeze for blood. Because if I...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Gregory Updated: 2010-01-13 03:16:21 Description: So, I know very little about the author of tonight's story. He has no Wikipedia page in any language that I can gather, one used copy of an out-of-print collection of stories available in English (that I can cursorily find, anyhow), and a slight dus...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Sin of Jesus Updated: 2005-04-22 07:30:50 Description: Babel: exposition follows drama, form follows function, violence follows funny, and sin is quickly and heartily followed by impossible Russo-Jewish names....more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD DiGrasso Updated: 2010-01-06 14:00:24 Description: Oh, aren't we lucky!? A double-bluffed, double-dipped, double-headed dose of Isaac Babel. When you've had a listen here and discover that you're still running low on your recommended daily serving of Babel, you might head here to find a new recordi...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD On Hope Updated: 2009-12-23 01:15:50 Description: I can think of nothing more apt for the rounding-out of a year than a fleeting little fable on outplaying inevitability. If you're anything like me, Inevitability is one collector you've managed to send off-course at least once this year, and that i...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Emmy Moore’s Journal Updated: 2009-12-19 20:17:43 Description: There was a time when I was little (and I was so cute, and so little!) when I wanted to be Jane Bowles. I was obsessed with the puppet show, unhealthily so, though thinking back now, I can't think of any self-respecting adult who'd have introduced s...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Interior Castle Updated: 2009-12-02 19:34:35 Description: I'm more than a little eager to introduce this bit of Jean Stafford-- in fact, the last time I was this eager, I was about to jump out of an airplane, an activity I was undertaking using age-faked identification, which was, to the best of my memory, ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Bound Man Updated: 2009-11-19 16:40:13 Description: My friends, a confession: I am a sucker. Little stray kittens and musty books and vegetably steamed dumplings.... these things were basically made for me. And stories like this belong on the list of things for which I'm a true sucker, and by "like ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Pool of the Stone God Updated: 2009-10-30 22:35:30 Description: For those of you who will not be spending the weekend dressed scandalously and behaving just as badly, or scaring young children, or throwing personal hygiene product in the trees of your enemies, ......more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Adventure of Prince Florizel and a Detective Updated: 2009-10-21 19:17:33 Description: It was recommended some time ago by a guy named Alex that I read the entire four-story cycle of The Rajah's Diamond, and it is a request I'll perhaps fill someday. I'm in the throes of a mini Stevenson obsession right now, so it seems the proper and...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Trouble at Pow Crash Creek Updated: 2009-10-07 20:53:33 Description: It's probably one of the better things in life -- right up there with creative breakthroughs and lasting love and the slurp of streetside oysters -- to have one's hat tipped to new and great authors. In my case, it doesn't happen often, because I'm ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD I Stand Here Ironing Updated: 2009-09-22 21:27:27 Description: So I have this tendency, as you may have noticed, to take a sharp left at matters of personal divulgences, which is a difficult thing to pull off today, given the severity and somber-ity of a story like this one. But so, okay, here you go, three ver...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Space-Time for Springers Updated: 2009-08-24 16:22:21 Description: Can I tell you something about my speculative fiction habits? Of course I can-- this my barroom restroom wall and the red marker's in my slimy mitt. Here's the thing: I just love stories about sentient animals. I can't get enough of talking dogs ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Doctor’s Heroism Updated: 2009-08-14 17:05:45 Description: Well, I've been reading some unavoidable news about Death Panels and baby killing nazi zombies terrorizing in the Norwegian mountains and all sorts of incessant catfighty nastiness which I suppose our world can take, given that it's really all pretty...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Hollow Updated: 2009-07-01 19:47:20 Description: Breece D'J Pancake was brought to my attention only a couple of years ago, one of those writers who didn't leave a whole lot left behind for us to gluttonously swallow, and one who was willing to grab the short story by the balls of its form and stee...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Feathers Updated: 2009-07-09 21:23:41 Description: Oh ladies! Oh men and oh boys and girls, the sexiest man alive is BACK. Patrick has been threatening to start up Patrick's Bedtime Story Podcast, and with a voice this smooth, he might have to do it, much as I'd miss his occasional guest posts her...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD An Unbeliever Updated: 2009-08-05 21:15:47 Description: The other day I was lying in the woods, on a hammock on a mountaintop, reading aloud to young people, and wondered, for a second, why there was no professional job market for reading aloud on hammocks to young people, why there isn’t a real mar...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD An Encounter Updated: 2009-06-15 17:35:40 Description: I'm so excited about Bloomsday that I'm sharing the love a day early this year. In fact, I was so excited that I almost went ahead and read all the stories from Dubliners that I haven't yet done for you, but then it hit me that I'd have to move forw...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Sailor-Boy’s Tale Updated: 2009-05-31 21:02:27 Description: Twice now I've sat down to read something from Isak Dinesen's Winter's Tales , and twice when pawing through for a good story, I've ended up spending hours re-reading the stories in here, to the point of distracted negligence, but to the point of gre...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Silver Hilt Updated: 2009-05-11 13:04:12 Description: Okay, okay, you all keep asking for me to read writers you know, and I keep dipping into the well of obscurity to pick up writers you've never heard of. I know! I'll read the writers you know, maybe, but you have to tell me which ones you want to h...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD A Game of Catch Updated: 2009-04-20 19:30:07 Description: It's always a little weird to me to read a sports story, with idioms like "burning one in" that are just so far removed from my patois that I can barely even get my mouth to go in that direction. And it's equally odd to try and project teenage boy-...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Burning City Updated: 2009-04-07 19:13:46 Description: Boy, I sure am all kinds of flushed with the Scandinavs these days. Maybe it's my compassion for others plying their way through long cold winters, or maybe it's my assertion that gravlaks is a flawless food, or maybe it's just what they're willing ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Madame de Luzy Updated: 2009-03-25 18:54:41 Description: Tonight’s story came from one of several boxes of books that were recently given to me by a stranger, someone apparently vying for the title of Miette’s Best Friend. And as I mention when reading tonight’s story, this alone makes ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Three Letters… and a Footnote Updated: 2009-03-09 15:11:43 Description: This is on the lighter end of Horacio Quiroga’s stories, which (of those I’ve read) tend to have more to do with death and desolation than the streetcar indiscretions we’ve got here. But it’s March, and I’m springing fo...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? Updated: 2007-11-09 16:23:54 Description: I read in the news yesterday that television writers here in the U.S. have gone on strike, and that because of the strike, everybody's arms are collectively thrown up in a great wide panic, because nobody knows what's going to happen on Charmed and b...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Passion Considered as an Uphill Bicycle Race Updated: 2007-11-28 22:27:04 Description: I hope those of you celebrating All Things Autumnal are settling into it well, the roast fowl and the hot cacao and woodfire smoke for dessert, and, well, you know the picture I'm aiming for here. It does wonders to the general countenance, I think:...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy Considered as a Downhill Motor Race Updated: 2007-12-04 18:19:00 Description: I was thinking about the last story I read to you, and thinking it’d be nice if other events of this variety, the sort of events that are difficult to explain to small children, were similarly reimagined. And not just on a large scale, either....more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Fedya Davidovich Updated: 2007-12-15 02:58:23 Description: HEY, Internet, I want to tell you all about Earideas. Wow, that sounded a little snake-oily- let me try that again:...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Various Miracles Updated: 2009-02-24 19:50:46 Description: More Canadian Short Fiction? You damned well bet– just check the calendar. On that note, I’m starting to think Carol Shields herself is somewhat of a miracle. For starters, look at this, from an interview on Canada as a landscape for wr...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Boat Updated: 2009-02-16 19:32:23 Description: Canadian Short Fiction Month continues, as promised, with a story that seems obviously designed to be delivered from the lips straight to the ears. There’s so much beauty tucked away in here of the sort you wouldn’t necessarily see on th...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Orchard Updated: 2009-02-12 21:34:19 Description: If you’re reading this before listening to the podcast… and you know, I have no idea whether you read or listen first, or if you just read, or just listen, and find yourself lost on those rare occurrences where I can hold a thought long e...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD It Was Updated: 2009-01-28 22:15:11 Description: I was sitting here eating little sugary hearts with terms of endearment printed on them. They’re pretty popular with the young people, and surely you must know them: cheap things, sort of disgusting in the way that totally fructosified food p...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Hyannis Port Story Updated: 2009-01-12 16:17:31 Description: I was talking to the resident genius here about false memories and the publishment thereof, when an idea emerged, an idea with such potential for industry salvation that there’s no choice but to document it here, in the interest of knowledge op...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Raymond’s Run Updated: 2008-12-11 19:13:53 Description: A disclaimer: the Wiki says that tonight’s story is… how to put this… Big in Middle School Circles. But don’t let that put you off (especially if you yourself run in Middle School Circles, or are Big therein). I can be as bi...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD In Dreams Begin Responsibilities Updated: 2008-11-27 02:14:22 Description: Well, pilgrims. It’s that day once again when the poisoned blankets of history are celebrated with turkey and squash. And I want to get all excited with you about Delmore Schwartz, and rave a while about how you should be able to listen to th...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Specialist’s Hat Updated: 2008-11-12 01:34:23 Description: So it was decided that I needed a table, but in thinking about the sort of table I might need, for the purpose the table would serve, it was further decided that the table needed to have certain bench-like properties. A hybrid, as we say in these ti...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Quilt Updated: 2008-10-21 17:17:37 Description: This was going to go up during Banned Books week, but then I got a nasty visit from Uncle Rhinovire, and then there was the trip to the Akvariet and then it hit me that neither a short story nor the oral presentation of one qualify, really, as a R...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Eveline Updated: 2008-06-17 11:20:27 Description: Were I a listmaker, and perhaps I am, you would be the warm recipient of many reasons to be grateful when the internet goes for broke on Bloomsday. This list, were I to make one, would include the subcategories: FOR ME and FOR YOU. Topping the FOR ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Pukey Updated: 2008-06-30 03:34:32 Description: “But when it thinks, I feel like vomiting.” With these words, it is clear that if Nigel Dennis were still around I’d be his groupie. I’d start the FaceBook Club and make mashups on Youtube for him and disguise myself as an ed...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Self-Contained Compartment Updated: 2008-07-16 12:13:25 Description: During a trip by car I noticed a guy on the phone in a parking lot frantically trying to start his car, a kid really, a kid in trouble, just laying into the ignition while the engine was turning halfway over which indicated, to my limited capacity fo...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Fun With Your New Head Updated: 2008-08-01 18:27:57 Description: A couplefew nights ago, catatonic with fatigue after a couple days of travel, I found just the right pace of entertainment watching my cat chase a furry little squeaker all around the place. My conscience wouldn’t let me object– it was n...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Show-and-Tell Updated: 2008-08-11 02:27:52 Description: In the two days since first reading of tonight’s story, I’ve been deeply ensconced with this idea of show-and-tell, to the irrational (read: batshit) point of showing-and-telling the objects comprising the contents of my desk to the vario...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Of Angleworms and Others Updated: 2008-08-22 02:57:02 Description: So it’s summer right now, if you’re with me hemispherically. Although if you were to zoom in a little closer you’d see that in some places, we’re tying up that chapter, it’s cooling down, and that means it’s time ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD When I Was Miss Dow Updated: 2008-09-08 03:54:33 Description: This story was brought to my attention a few months ago, making its way inbox-ward on the anniversorry of my trip down Amniotic Lane, timing not unintentional. Now, I would share with you my thoughts on why this was selected as a Birthday Story, but...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Spring Updated: 2008-09-20 01:25:49 Description: But in order to be mad scientists, first we had to learn how to be normal scientists. It’s funny, imagining John Fahey sitting in a hotel rampantly scrawling. Not because he’s so otherwise voiceless, or should relegate his expressiveness...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD To the Open Water Updated: 2008-09-27 16:22:56 Description: As I noted in the whole wide verbal megillah setting up tonight’s reading, I’m taking great issue with the Wikipedia entry on tonight’s author. Here, again, is the first sentence, with my call to fix it: Jesse Hill Ford (December 2...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Cask of Amontillado Updated: 2008-06-11 12:17:41 Description: So I read in the news today about the Indonesian macaque monkeys who’ve learned to successfully catch fish, and how exciting this is for biology, and how it’s a living and breathing example of the adaptation of a species to its conditions...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD A Rose for Emily Updated: 2008-06-01 12:53:59 Description: So, my "identity" was stolen recently. And not for the sake of sordid members-only internet sites or international travel or a weekend of Spitzering other scandalous activities that, if you're going to have your identity stolen, would constitute The...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD A Note on the Camping Craze That is Currently Sweeping America Updated: 2008-05-03 03:45:15 Description: Fishing season began early this year for your Miette, with the streetside discovery of a freshly abandoned goldfish with wonky telescopic eyes, in its bowl and with a note reading: Free Fish! Please Give Steve Buscemi a good home. And of course I di...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Truth or Consequences Updated: 2008-04-19 01:33:18 Description: After a week of muscle-burning manual work and long long drives, some of us settle in with a nice cold beer. For others-- maybe like me, who's to say -- it takes more that that... way more, maybe, to relax muscles as sore as these and attempt to put...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Last Class Updated: 2008-04-04 17:00:48 Description: All week I've been wanting to read this to you, waking up more excited than the trashman on the day-after-Christmas, and running into my.... uh... recording studio (read: three paces from the bed) to see if it's quiet enough......more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Binoculars Updated: 2008-03-26 01:54:05 Description: A saw a sign the other day while out on a drive, a sign that said this: Frost Heaves. And I almost had to stop and compose myself, because I was so deeply distressed by the fact that frost can't heave in private (and I'm not a histrionic sort of ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD A Handful of Dates Updated: 2008-03-21 01:28:30 Description: The question that's been asked a few times of me now: why don't I read more African writers? Actually, it's been asked more than a few times... enough times, in fact, to warrant the sort of qualifier most accurately described as MANY. ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD In a Hole Updated: 2008-03-13 03:07:48 Description: It's confusing, the name of tonight's author, right? I mean, the better known writer sharing this name didn't bother with a middle pseudonymous initial, and there's a slight tweak to the surname, but we readers would be none the wiser, push-to-shove...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Lonesome Road Updated: 2008-02-29 02:23:18 Description: A mildly embarrassing problem when getting under way with tonight's story, confessed in full in these lines: when I first sat down to read it to you this evening, I got caught on a raft in a sea of lexical continental drift, and over and over I stam...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD A Work of Art by Updated: 2005-03-09 10:13:53 Description: Welcome to this, the humble inaugural edition of Miette's Bedtime Story Podcast, which is really nothing more than my excuse to have a podcast. You see, I'll bet that other people don't read to you enough. I know that people don't read to me enough...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Dreams by Updated: 2005-03-10 11:33:09 Description: Hypnalgiaphobia, the nightly quest for a real OOBE, learning to read more slowly and maybe with no accent, elas, these are the things that make us turn in the wee hours and if ether were the answer I'd be first in line. But maybe a new bed is a fine...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Bookshop Memories by Updated: 2005-03-11 10:01:25 Description: Some days, especially those in which my lack of tolerance for this city is only matched by my impatience with the job, I suffer the wildest joyriding fantasies of working at a used bookshop. To elucidate, the fantasy usually involves moving to small...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD At Night by Updated: 2005-03-13 01:43:11 Description: A personal secret: I, like many, have long succumbed to seemingly endless bouts of insomnia. It's not clinical, and I love sleep very much, but I often have a difficult time performing when called on to do so. Bedtime stories don't help much, beca...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Nadja by Updated: 2005-03-14 04:22:01 Description: I had wanted today to read Philip Lamantia (what was I thinking?), because he understood living more than I (and probably you, Internet, but that might be presumptuous) ever will, and because he's now dead, so a tribute seems fitting. But, th...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Gods by Updated: 2005-03-15 06:39:44 Description: This is both perhaps just-too-long and read by a just-too-tired head; maybe just assume the intent is to separate the yolks from the hen's asses... or something. Kudos to you if you make it... Despite not wanting to overwhelm the Internet(s) with t...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Basta by Updated: 2005-03-16 05:01:03 Description: Here's a nice short one to make up for yesterday's nice long one. From Robert Walser, a master of the short-short story, and the closest anyone's come to Swift since Kipling. Basta is one of those fine Italian words that the Germans have managed to...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD A Beautiful March Day by Updated: 2005-03-17 04:41:56 Description: Crikes, in the haste of a working week I'd completely forgotten that despite not wanting to go straight to Calvino (because let's face it, everyone expects Miette to read Calvino, and when have I ever met something so vile as an expectation?), I had ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD An Ideal Family by Updated: 2005-03-18 05:39:35 Description: Am almost too beat to read this evening, but like dear Mr. Neave, I press on. Enjoy a crackling, hoarse, stammering attempt to clamber through Katherine Mansfield's An Ideal Family, one of the great short stream-of-conscious experiments. Some night...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Second Best by Updated: 2005-03-20 00:53:06 Description: It's a lovely springtime afternoon, and you should be outdoors, at the park lazing about, not cramped inside looking for the cheap thrill of an afternoon bedtime story. Go on, go to the park now, and come back and listen later. But I can only hope ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Something Special by Updated: 2005-03-20 08:36:31 Description: It's true, it is, that Miette has bought something special to aid in her PodCASTing, though in the true ghetto style she so cherishes, she (or rather, I, Miette), didn't do much to prevent the background sounds of discs spinning up, or dogs turning t...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD By The Water by Updated: 2005-03-21 09:45:15 Description: If I were a more professional podCASTresse, I might have added a subliminal background track to this story, and if that were to have happened, you might have finished listening to tonight's bedtime story thinking one thought: Paul Bowles Can Be Touc...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Story of Federigo’s Falcon (Fifth Day, Ninth Tale) by Updated: 2005-03-23 08:13:02 Description: Much as I would love to read the entire Decameron, and one day maybe I will (when the sound quality is improved to the point where I no longer sound like a podcastrati... and yes I am working on it!), for now, here's enough of an excerpt to give you ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Story of an Hour by Updated: 2005-03-24 08:49:28 Description: It was only a matter of time before we get here, deep unsettling irony, psychosexual abandonment, romantic antipathy and just a soupcon of background traffic. A passing bus, a ghetto lowrider, a few dollups of plaster falling from the ceiling, and i...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Betrayal by Updated: 2005-03-25 09:10:00 Description: Is it a revelatory outpour of inner monologue detailing one man's confusion on racial, political, and sociological identity, leading to violence and resignation? Or could it be just another day at the office? We should all listen, briefly, then set...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Saviour John by Updated: 2005-03-27 07:21:15 Description: Nothing says Eve of The Second Coming of Christ like a longish existential short story by a forgotten Swedish Nobel winner (repeat: not nepotism) about a delusional old urchin who lives and preaches as the saviour of man. I don't know where you can ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Little Woman From Lancashire by Updated: 2005-03-28 07:19:23 Description: In my ongoing efforts to impress upon you my unparalleled prowess at podCASTrophilia, I've spent the evening downloading all these applications that allow one to do things like "Normalise" and "Reduce Peak" and "Remove Hiss" and "Shift Frequency," al...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD In a Strange Land by Updated: 2005-03-29 07:36:31 Description: It's so wet here and even upon peeling off my socks I can barely make out where the water ends and the feet begin. And then my olfactories open as the dog greets me with lick-to-nose and it's the same thing: where does the wet-dog smell stop and the...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Twelve Young Men by Updated: 2005-03-31 06:46:32 Description: It is the storms of March that prepare us for the flowers of April and May. The Italians would be so naive. Regardless, the Italians, they know their fairy tales; this from an out-of-print collection, which only means that ultimately they will all ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD What is Litost? (The Book of Laughter and Forgetting) by Updated: 2005-04-03 06:01:34 Description: Miette read a very big book last night, it's true, and after a marathon thirteen hours of podCAST-free oral storytelling, only two thoughts remain in this once-nimble head. One, that why-oh-why didn't we just podCAST all thirteen hours, and how can ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD A Telephone Call by Updated: 2005-04-06 12:46:07 Description: Did you miss me yet? Thanks to all of you for your determined and consistent telephone calls, e-mails, and picket lines to my internet service provider (although to those of you with the eggs and tomatoes, I have to say that while the gesture was ap...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Dream of a Ridiculous Man (1 of 5) by Updated: 2005-04-10 05:36:36 Description: Nothing says hither-springtime quite like the spin cycle of alienation, dispossession, malaise, apathy, and indifference! Perhaps it's best to go for a long stroll in your nearest park, have a couple of classes of wodka, break your own heart and may...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Dream of a Ridiculous Man (2 of 5) by Updated: 2005-04-11 05:39:00 Description: Yes, don't be misled by what you hear in the opening seconds of tonight's bedtime story. This was going to be chapters 2 and 3 (they're short), but then from nowhere appeared a chainsaw, and who can podcast when the sun is out and the chainsaws are ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Dream of a Ridiculous Man (3 of 5) by Updated: 2005-04-11 19:28:15 Description: Still with me? Hope so-- this is the turning point. The Dream. Quite possibly the best dream sequence committed to print, or at least the best committed to ridiculous Russian print. Nothing Ridiculous About It... excuse me while I contain my exci...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Dream of a Ridiculous Man (4 of 5) by Updated: 2005-04-12 19:37:39 Description: We're nearing the end of this little mini-chronicle. Can you handle it? The few I've heard from have been most encouraging, but one must be careful with encomia before this turns quickly to Miette's Bedtime Story Proustcast (and I'm only half kiddi...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Dream of a Ridiculous Man (5 of 5) by Updated: 2005-04-16 06:49:58 Description: Why did Miette stall before posting the final chapter of Dostoevsky? Was she sad to have it end? Having second thoughts about finishing it? Did she lose her voice? Building suspense? No. I, Miette, was too occupied thinking of an excuse for not...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas by Updated: 2005-04-19 06:57:50 Description: In the dystopian fantasy of my days, we would each have our own child in the toolshed. For Ursula, of course, we need only one. Not a bad daydream, if you can prevent yourself from drawing the natural comparisons... oh, I do hope this doesn't cause...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Sin of Jesus by Updated: 2005-04-22 07:30:50 Description: Babel: exposition follows drama, form follows function, violence follows funny, and sin is quickly and heartily followed by impossible Russo-Jewish names....more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Bargain by Updated: 2005-04-26 07:10:13 Description: Reading the story while entertaining the dog with one hand, fumbling with papers of the evening’s podCAST while trying to prevent the disruptive thud of bone-to-floor, then sacrificing my own right hand to the dog’s playful tugowar teeth:...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD A Family Supper by Updated: 2005-05-07 11:47:53 Description: A longish truancy calls for a longish return, so this one clocks in accordingly on the longish side. Given his penchant for regular oxygen-free plunges into plots and thoughts of strained family relations, self-imposed exile, cultural alienation and...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Young Man Who Discovered the Secret of Life by Updated: 2005-05-12 07:45:44 Description: Never you mind the perceived furtive abscondence of Miette these days. I could never leave you in a state of raw list(en)lessness, that just wouldn't be fair, and if there's any fairness at all in this world, you can bet it'd be in the form of Miette...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Fountains in the Rain by Updated: 2005-05-14 04:50:44 Description: For at least the last five or six minutes of this reading, I was stifling an enormous sneeze, which came out promptly the second I rushed to stop recording (there may or may not have left physical evidence of the sneeze's disdain for having been igno...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Never by Updated: 2005-05-16 11:06:14 Description: The source of one character's restless despair is another woman's interlude between the busy minutes of other days. Then again, carried out for too long and it becomes the very same restlessness. A forgotten treasure....more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Mark on the Wall by Updated: 2005-05-19 06:17:43 Description: "Nothing but spaces of light and dark..." these peripatetic obstacles of thought made connected. That's the good stuff, Ginny, that's the stuff that brings respite from daily restiveness and yes Virginia, this is scant a clause....more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Cherry Seed by Updated: 2005-05-24 06:10:59 Description: Here's just one of the many fine things about reading stories into my iPod to be read to you: I can read a story like Olesha, and stop and get all breathy in the middle because I've forgotten that he constructs it that way, or I can catch myself fro...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD A Kiss At The Door by Updated: 2005-05-28 05:07:51 Description: A rare gem at the bookstore after work today: a nice old hardcover copy of Tess D'U for fifty cents. Now, Tess was once on frequent rotation at Miette's Lending Library, until Miette woke up to see that the Library had become not a Library so much ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Fantom of Marseilles by Updated: 2005-05-31 04:57:13 Description: This was recorded from the verdant overgrown idyll overlooked by my fire escape (which, if you can ignore the fact that you have to climb out a window to get to it, and get over the fact that you're squatting on metal bars, and that it's, you know, I...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Shore by Updated: 2005-06-02 07:34:47 Description: 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 c...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Birds by Updated: 2005-06-03 07:38:14 Description: Diabolically brilliant phantasmallegory of what must be a creepily Schulzian sort: it's not necessarily a bedtime story for children. I worry about the children!...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Like a Bad Dream by Updated: 2005-06-08 06:58:36 Description: Days like today you should really be outside. And so, to those listening on lumbering machines, for an optimal podcasting experience I should recommend the following: 1. Put the POD back in your cast. Download it to anything portable (for the byza...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Illusion by Updated: 2005-06-11 07:03:37 Description: From New Scientist's feature 11 Steps to a Better Brain: A DECADE ago Frances Rauscher, a psychologist now at the University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh, and her colleagues made waves with the discovery that listening to Mozart improved people's mathe...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Grave by Updated: 2005-06-14 06:00:31 Description: Big news today, as I'm sure you've all read by now: our Miette has just been found not guilty on charges of committing vainglorious podcasting exercises for the sole purpose of hearing her own voice while increasing the regularity with which she read...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Innocence by Updated: 2005-06-15 10:52:44 Description: a.k.a. John Whelan. Look him up (if I were the type to end an avowal with a "yo," this would be the time, as in "look him up, yo."). Also a worthwhile nonfiction writer if you've a yen for Irish history. That said, it should be well past your bedt...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Boarding House by Updated: 2005-06-16 08:00:50 Description: 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...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD To Hell With Dying by Updated: 2005-06-18 04:00:00 Description: How better to celebrate new clarity in sound than with a bold new header image? What think ye? Sound better? Yea?...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD At The Pit’s Mouth by Updated: 2005-06-21 08:58:37 Description: Despite the fact that someone (Miette, no Man's Wife), is showing evidence of growing fatigue by the stammering end of this, and despite that fact that someone (yes) has rarely rendez-vous'd in a cemetery, and certainly never one in a place such as S...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Hills Like White Elephants by Updated: 2005-06-22 08:10:44 Description: This may be one you remember from your schooldays, maybe one that made you a liberal, or a feminist, or a prolifer, prochoicer, or antichoicer, or the other way around altogether or none of these things at all. But now, I will break from objective n...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Kindling by Updated: 2005-06-28 06:04:36 Description: Is there anything, and I mean anything, italics and all, better than a good fortuitous bookend to a good podcast? Not only does this story have one of the best first lines of all stories ("It was the middle of August and Myers was between lives," th...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Last Lesson by Updated: 2005-07-02 09:52:59 Description: Happy 49th Podcast! The 49th is, of course, a notable one: it's our last perfect square until 64, and even then, both digits won't also be perfect squares. And, of course, it's the last podcast of our extended youth together; next time I post, we ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD My Mother’s Goofy Song by Updated: 2005-07-04 22:19:49 Description: For those not out barbecuing or picnicking or watching cosmic collisions or stealing carbide:...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Her Lover by Updated: 2005-07-10 18:45:43 Description: In reality, we also are fallen folks, and, so far as I can see, very deeply fallen into the abyss of self-sufficiency and the conviction of our own superiority. But enough of this. It is all as old as the hills--so old that it is a shame to speak of ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Happy Prince by Updated: 2005-07-14 05:57:27 Description: If anybody ever asks you if you're a happy prince or a sparrow, you should be prepared with an answer: I tell you now, you never know when it might be asked of you. And it might. To prepare you for such a day is today's podcast, and in helping you ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD A Carnival Jangle by Updated: 2005-07-18 07:03:38 Description: I don't know much about where you are, but where I am, I can tell you a thing or two about the heat right now. The thing being: it's hot. Mighty hot. The sort of hot where you pile your hair up off your neck and sit in your skivs and wish you pos...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Country Doctor by Updated: 2005-07-23 09:34:11 Description: 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...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Waiting by Updated: 2005-07-26 08:13:08 Description: On occasion, another excruciatingly bleak day will end with a moderately edifying insignia etched onto your nightcap, and on those occasions, you want nothing more than to return home to tranquility and a nice short harmless podcast. And sometimes, ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD A World of Sound by Updated: 2005-08-01 06:55:04 Description: Another short one for another short day, and the beauty here should be evident: how lovely it would be if our physical presences existed as waves of sound, if physical injury were a momentary blip of discord, if your emotional duress a note hit flat,...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Father by Updated: 2005-08-06 19:06:09 Description: Carrying on with the recurring theme of Is It Possible That It's Really This Hot?, we go now to Norway, lovely Norway, land of good design, natural air conditioning in August, symbolist screaming, gabbling Heddas, and oh yes, have I mentioned it's p...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD A Charming Woman by Updated: 2005-08-14 05:29:12 Description: Um, there must be some mistake, I think. Climate Change means that weather systems need to be... well... not the same muggy filthy smoggy dogbreath-upon-shoulders-every-time-you-step-outside. I accept, grudgingly, the current sorry state of the ski...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Good-Bye To The Fruits by Updated: 2005-08-18 12:07:30 Description: This longish-short comedo-tragic bit just about covers everything. And for those things not covered in the "just about" disclaimer, you might have fun over a few spare moments with this Barth reference. Or if you don't, well, I sure did, and do I n...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings by Updated: 2005-08-22 23:49:09 Description: 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......more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD After the Fair by Updated: 2005-08-28 11:07:54 Description: MEMORANDUM To: fair listeners From: Miette Re: the random audible aspiration to be heard in this podcast ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD A Meeting by Updated: 2005-08-31 08:52:02 Description: Oh boy, oh boy, guess who's excited about tonight's podcast? It's me, Miette-- I'm excited, silly listener. You see, in the insuppressible excitement of putting books in boxes for an upcoming move, I found, surprisingly dust-free and hidden behind ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD New York Nite Club by Updated: 2005-09-07 10:23:52 Description: Quite possibly the quietest, most listless, bottomless podcast of Kerouac you've ever experienced, this. Possibly? Quite possibly. But not without due charm on its own, and intent at that! For listen: do you hear the passing buses in the backgrou...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Valiant Woman by Updated: 2005-09-11 06:15:05 Description: On a walk this afternoon, I spotted curbside an abandoned 1972 volume of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, volume 4 (BOTHA TO CARTHAGE!!) which somehow mysteriously made its way from its landfill destiny to my grubby paw and later, to a treasured positio...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Monkey Business by Updated: 2005-09-16 03:43:01 Description: A secret: Endurance Reading is nothing new for Miette. She's participated in marathon readings of epic Greek poetry, she stays up on Bloomsday and reads along, she reads you ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Woman Who Tried To Be Good by Updated: 2005-09-18 20:22:15 Description: I dreamt last night that I was a reluctant part of some Truman Showy podcasting reality television show, forced to read literature into one of those cellphone hands-free microphones round-the-clock from a text that was projected onto the insides of m...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Falling Girl by Updated: 2005-09-24 20:55:55 Description: I wonder if there's anybody who can read into a podcastophone and take dictation of his or her inner monologue simultaneously. I can't, much to my own absolute dismay. If I could, the past half hour would have been written up this way:...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Winter Journey (Le Voyage D’Hiver) by Updated: 2005-10-01 06:15:11 Description: It's been a long week Au Pays De Miette, signified, I suppose, by the fact that we've gone quite a few days without a new podcast. And to complicate things, I've just posted a new one which, like the Fante or the Murdoch or the Dostoevsky, is close...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Smoke by Updated: 2005-10-09 23:44:29 Description: There are times when even the most prepared podcasting events turn to podcatastrophe, when even the most professional podcastress forgets to turn off the phone for a reading, when the most sedulous podcaster leaves pages stuck together entirely under...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD A Tree * A Rock * A Cloud by Updated: 2005-10-13 08:20:34 Description: Remember the early days, when this was entirely scrappy, when you sometimes heard the dog or the bus passing by or the pins drop (for pins do drop in my house of chaos) more than you heard the reading? Those were the days, eh? Then, a couple of mon...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Cruel and Barbarous Treatment by Updated: 2005-10-19 08:11:43 Description: Okay, for those who found the new audio setup too sophisticated (and I agree, to an extent; this is proudly a lowest-of-the-no fi podcast experience, but everyone needs to be heard, you know), a compromise: I adjusted the sound software, I -think- t...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Axolotl by Updated: 2005-10-23 20:15:17 Description: Last night, I did something I thought I'd never do. I went dancing. And not seated dive-barstool dancing when your picks come up on the jukebox, or late-night loftparty dancing, but proper dancing, at a Dance Club....more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD An Adventure in the Upper Sea by Updated: 2005-10-29 17:52:58 Description: Like Miette? Love Jack London? Not getting enough of either today? Don't fear, Librivox is here. ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Judgment by Updated: 2005-11-02 09:06:52 Description: A confession: I've been loath to podcast Kafka, only because I wouldn't know which one would be podcastable, which is to say Kafkaesque enough to be delivered storyhour-style, but not so Kafkaesque as to leave listeners beating themselves with the o...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Wants by Updated: 2005-11-05 23:58:24 Description: Well, I didn't think I'd pull this off. A particularly invidious houseguest in the form of streptococcal has left my coccyx surprisingly unscatched, but the pharynx, well, I don't recall gargling with rusted staples after my razorblade dinner, but g...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD On Reugen Island by Updated: 2005-11-09 05:11:23 Description: If I could read your mind (and how do you know I can't???), after the first few seconds listening to this podcast I'll bet your mind would say something like this: "I know she said she was sick, but a strepped throat doesn't do that to a voice!"...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Dilettante by Updated: 2005-11-13 19:03:36 Description: I dreamt last night that I made a big squash soup for an even bigger party, a party full of people from the past-- people I hadn't seen in years and didn't care about when I did see them. I was nervous; it was a recipe I hadn't tried before and I'd ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Jemima, The Mountain Girl by Updated: 2005-11-19 04:23:13 Description: Okay, someone was a little smartasinine requesting this one, for reasons that most of you will never know, given that this is not one of those soundbiting autobiographic shows and hence most of you don't know that my real name is, in fact, Jemima, an...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Crack-Up by Updated: 2005-11-20 19:21:59 Description: If Miette's Bedtime Story Podcast was a CD**, today's would be the secret bonus track hidden at the very end. If this was called Miette's Bedtime Story TV Miniseries, today's would be the Exciting Second Half that you'd be Staying Tuned for, except ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Chrysanthemums by Updated: 2005-11-25 20:14:17 Description: For years, the only time I've ever been the slightest bit jealous of my carnivorous confreres has been in those moments after a Thanksgiving feast, watching them settle into the tryptofanatical haze of blissful near-slumber. The rest of the year I ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Cruise (Letters From a Young Lady of Leisure) by Updated: 2005-11-29 04:03:17 Description: Darling Listeners Thought Id try an experiment and read something that was obviously designed to be read on the page and not delivered aloud bedtimestorily. But after that bit in Bookforum I'm just so v. curious how all these things sound you see, ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Starvelings by Updated: 2005-12-03 02:13:29 Description: I've had a long meeting with myself just now, myself, who has been thinking for months that I ought to read Mann for you. After all, Mann is nothing if not the one empty corner in the squathouse of growing up, and although my romance with Mann ended...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Cancer by Updated: 2005-12-06 16:41:04 Description: I know, I know. It's morning. Nowhere near your bedtime. You listen now and get all confused, expecting a glass of warm milk and sugarplum dreams, only to discover it's ten in the morning and you've got to drag yourself to work. It's just, well, ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Beggarwoman of Locarno by Updated: 2005-12-10 05:44:56 Description: This morning, as with all mornings, I took She Who Must Bark At The Most Inconvenient Times on an early morning walk, which, given the several feet of snow on the ground (read: a few inches), was less an "early morning walk" than a "mighty difficult ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD On an Experience in a Cornfield by Updated: 2005-12-14 07:55:39 Description: What else is a podcastress to do when a great writer dies? Sheckley wrote hundreds of exceptional stories, hundreds, and though I wouldn't rate this one his best (I See a Man Sitting in a Chair, and the Chair is Biting His Leg rates high on my list,...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Vertical Fields by Updated: 2005-12-18 03:48:24 Description: There's a common Yoruban idiom, "oruko lonro ni," which means, more or less, that your name affects your actions, defines your character, determines your destiny. For instance, if you're named Lady, you're going to end up exceptionally feminine. If...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Which? by Updated: 2005-12-26 06:49:40 Description: Not necessarily a festive mistletoe-and-chestnut sort of story, thus, but for those in need, want, or glimmering hope of a holiday story, this unpodcasted tale from the vaults should suffice. Happy days, holly and otherwise! ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD A Poetics for Bullies by Updated: 2005-12-29 04:33:43 Description: All week I've been in the nether regions, the sticks, the country, the bucolic boonies, the hinterregions of the backwoods, fretting over how much I'd have to read to you upon my return, how many hours I'd have to try my larynx to make it up to you, ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Primer of Love by Updated: 2006-01-01 20:18:27 Description: 8 of Miette's 2006 Predictions for the New Year: -- I will really really do all those things I meant to do in 2005, including those things in 2005 I was really really going to do after neglecting in 2004. -- Ditto 2003. -- When thinking of these pod...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Roses, Rhododendron by Updated: 2006-01-06 17:23:35 Description: The other day, I broke from my own morning convention and fetched my AM coffee from a coffee chain whose name shall not be uttered on this page. It was quite likely the simplest order the coffee-servicer had fulfilled that day: a no-frills “m...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Bill by Updated: 2006-01-09 10:21:50 Description: A few blocks down from my apartment is a utility pole, and on that utility pole someone has graffitoed the following in black marker: "Romanse [sic] is the death of enlightenment" ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Kong at the Seaside by Updated: 2006-01-12 08:00:33 Description: A riddle: What could possibly be better than an unexpected new book of short fiction turning up in your mailbox? The answer: When that new book includes short fiction from Zamiatin, Zweig, Zantner, and Zugsmith....more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD A Private Possession by Updated: 2006-01-15 21:29:28 Description: Questions That Have Been Asked, at Varying Levels of Frequency, of Miette and Her Podcast: How did this get started?...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Foreigner by Updated: 2006-01-21 20:09:49 Description: The other day, I dropped off my laundry on my way to work as I do sometimes (because some things you really should leave to the professionals). This was a different laundrette, one that stays open a half hour later, because sometimes I've bee...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD An Unimportant Affair by Updated: 2006-01-27 04:53:56 Description: Don't let the title of tonight's bedtime story deceive you... this is actually an affair of considerable importance. Consider, for example, the success that is XBox. Or the X-Men. Or X-Treme Sports, for that matters. And the importance of X as a ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Kiss by Updated: 2006-02-02 07:14:48 Description: There are a few things that leave you so exhilarated, enchanted with simultaneous possession and dispossession, blown away punch-in-the-belly style by battles of bliss and bewilderment. It is these moments, precious listeners, that are boiling the ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD A Wedding Dress by Updated: 2006-02-05 20:13:33 Description: So sport seems to be in the air these days. There's something going on tonight involving hundreds of pounds of helmets and costumery, complete with grandiose spectacle and and pretend warriors, and I'm told this has nothing to do with Wagner. We'll...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Why I Transformed Myself Into a Nightingale by Updated: 2006-02-09 07:20:29 Description: There's this new higher-than-hightech device that's now mine, intended to make my podcasts sound better for you, and while I'm not sure of its success rate at doing so, I do know that it's got every kind of tech-sounding hypermegaphonics that should ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Rain Collector by Updated: 2006-02-12 06:34:36 Description: Chances are, you're going to listen to today's podcast and think: "That's it?" Or "maybe the audio file got cut off... I'm missing half the story!" Or "Miette's such a lazy snot to pick such a short story." But the truth is: I am lazy, it's true, b...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD It Had To Be Murder (part 1) by Updated: 2006-02-20 23:21:02 Description: I began scheming for the one hundredth podcast several weeks ago, thinking that I'd gather all the voices that were most important to me, personally and podcastionally, share the wealth and spread the love, and, let's be honest, go soak on a beach in...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD It Had To Be Murder (part 2) by Updated: 2006-02-21 01:11:37 Description: Yes, I have mighty big arms to give myself such a massive self-congratulatory bearhug, but, you know, I'm entitled, it's my special day. And so, here are a couple of things I am considering for my next one hundred podcasts: -- podcast in Estonian -...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD I’m Your Horse in the Night by Updated: 2006-02-26 08:08:27 Description: Ow. It hurts to type this right now, and I'm not talking about the endless afflictions of emotional pain. This is not something I'm especially proud of, no way, but to be entirely honest with you, because I like you: a little too much had been dru...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Camera Obscura by Updated: 2006-03-05 05:58:55 Description: I've just spent the past hour editing down today's podcast while witnessing the almost compulsive bathing, brushing, trimming, grooming, and otherwise torturing my beast by someone who claims to enjoy this sort of thing. ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Charles by Updated: 2006-03-09 18:59:23 Description: In the plot of today's story, you will find mentioned a real-world conversational device that I can't help but love, in a guiltily pleasuristic sort of way. I'm not sure what to call it, though I'm sure the modern linguists have had their way with i...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Zelig by Updated: 2006-03-14 07:05:43 Description: I beg and implore you, dear listener: don’t be misled by the title of today’s podcast. Today’s story features neither the lovely Ms Farrow in her prime –nor- jokes about Hasidim, dental extractions, or polygamy. However, if you can recommend a stor...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Chaser by Updated: 2006-03-18 05:22:47 Description: I have to tell you about a brilliant little moment that happened today. I was on a train, at an hour in which far too many people take the train, leaving us all sardinically resentful of one another's smells, oversized totebags, and inter-seasonal v...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Ghosts by Updated: 2006-03-22 07:50:45 Description: Don’t say I didn’t warn you about today’s story, because admittedly, I didn’t warn you yet, but I’m about to: it’s a scary one. Frightful! It might cause you to go to sleep with all the lights on, and even then,...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD He Swung and He Missed by Updated: 2006-03-30 04:34:57 Description: When you listen today, I will disclaim now, you will hear a boxing story. Not to be confused with the Clint Eastwood boxing story, or the other girlie fight boxing story, or the what's-his-brutish-name-from-New-Zealand-with-the-attitude, not that on...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Yellow Wallpaper by Updated: 2006-04-04 07:49:27 Description: From over here, Evie says: I would like to recommend "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. It has to be my favorite short story... no matter how many times I read it it still gives me the chills! ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Boy Who Drew Cats by Updated: 2006-04-10 02:29:13 Description: I packaged up, compressed, and uploaded today's episode before discovering that I had inadvertently mentioned the brand name of a popular consumer product in the few introductory seconds before the story starts, so I thought it might be wise for me t...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Slipping Beauty by Updated: 2006-04-13 22:23:33 Description: I know that I should be wishing some of you happy Passover, others happy Easter, others the goodliest of Fridays. But more importantly, more important than sweet Haroseth and pastel eggs and chocolate covered matzoh shaped as salty rabbits, let us n...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD How Light Belief Bringeth Damage by Updated: 2006-04-22 06:37:40 Description: A fable! About thieves and liars and moonlit wishes, fair ladies, conjurations and broken bones. Not your mother's fable-- no talking animals here. (This, a short entry for the same reason as short fable, which I'd post invisibly if you could re...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD An Attempt at Reform by Updated: 2006-04-27 07:14:23 Description: We all have those odd things that happen to us more often than we might owe to nature or coincidence. Some people find themselves on their fourth marriage to a fourth guy named Mario*; it happens. For me, that thing is the ceilings. In my apartmen...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Gogol’s Wife by Updated: 2006-05-01 05:06:33 Description: There might be times when you're reading the newspaper and you sit up straight and say to yourself something exuberantly monologic, such as "HOLD THE PHONE, this is ACTUAL news, I need to remember where I was when I read this, which is RIGHT HERE" an...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Jewellery by Updated: 2006-05-05 08:02:24 Description: Maybe I'm obsessing a little over the idea of tissue cultures, but I can't help it - it's my personality. But tissue culture and bedtime stories, of course! It takes me back to when I first discovered I could put the -expensive- mustard on my tofu...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Lost Soul by Updated: 2006-05-10 07:40:35 Description: Do you know about Ben Hecht? I only ask because a lot of people don't, and because as a responsible Purveyor of Fine Information I ought to clue you in, and in the interest of living up to such, I should tell you that Ben Hecht was best known to man...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Prizes by Updated: 2006-05-14 07:03:48 Description: I'm going to keep this one short, because you really ought to be phoning your mothers right about now. And tidying your rooms. And standing up straight. And not talking with your mouths full. And not wasting your money on chewing gum and nosejobs...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Diary of a Madman by Updated: 2006-05-18 08:23:17 Description: Ahh, so you've noticed that I still hadn't read any Gogol, despite a-hundred-some readings including enough of a Russian contingency to keep a stronghold on the world weight-lifting championships for the next few centuries, and despite a story by an ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Pearl of Toledo by Updated: 2006-05-24 07:58:51 Description: True to form here's a nice short one to balance out the more time-demanding Gogol from last time. And let me add that just because it's short doesn't mean it's not gruesome, contentious, vitriolic, or even a little caustic, because when lagged by th...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Shepherd’s Daughter by Updated: 2006-05-26 09:45:47 Description: Perhaps you might use Miette's short sabbatical to catch up on some of the classics that you might have missed the first time around....more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Rain by Updated: 2006-06-09 03:24:53 Description: Yes, I've missed you too and thanks for the well wishes, and yes, you're right: it would have been RAD to podcast from a women's prison passing the mic around my circle of hardened women criminals and reading while taking turns with the tattoo needle...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Absent-Mindedness in a Parish Choir by Updated: 2006-06-14 19:23:29 Description: Have waited nearly a year to read Hardy on his birthday, because I strongly suspect that Hardy’s just the sort of guy who should be birthdayishly feted, and in neither in an ironic nor a pointy-paper-hat way. I missed his birthday, as it happe...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Sisters by Updated: 2006-06-17 05:01:48 Description: When we compare tonight's with last year's Bloomsday podcast, just t' pose a friendly comparison, we see an almost incredible improvement in sound quality, due either to a highly paid audio engineer or a reluctant purchase of a piece of equipment. ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Mr. Andrews by Updated: 2006-06-23 05:07:39 Description: A Warning: it's that time of year where, given the current coordinates of yrs (truly!), you may be exposed to endless nattering about heat exhaust and revelation of podcasts recorded in ice-cubey bathtubs and a relentless boycott of any outergarment...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Life You Save May Be Your Own by Updated: 2006-06-27 18:00:33 Description: WhoAm asks whether Flannery O'Connor can be expected soon. Now, I'd thought of saving O'Connor for a while, for obvious (or perhaps not-so-much-so) reasons: the desire to wait until my face gets older and wrinkles become a more permanent part of it...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Lord Chandos Letter by Updated: 2006-07-07 06:17:07 Description: Allow me now to guide you most gently out of the first week of July: those of you in America, lie on your side and listen quietly, finding pause only to burp out the last taste of your hotdogmatic overindulgences. Just focus on the voice -- the beer...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD His Mother by Updated: 2006-07-10 21:03:03 Description: In general, I don't like to use these few pre-sound-bytes of Web page space to be topical for reasons that I hope are obvious (I'm not here to depress you), but I can't help but make note of the talking chimps who've gabbed their way back to the new...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Do Stay, Giraffe by Updated: 2006-07-18 18:45:37 Description: Okay, adventure seekers, listen up! For reasons that need not be enumerated here, I should warn you that tonight's story was recorded in a hushed whisper, late at night, and I didn't dare play it back to sample the condign commission of my own bedti...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Lottery Ticket by Updated: 2006-07-25 17:56:46 Description: Is there anybody out there who has a cure for acute compulsion? The thought had entered my mind that I had very little knowledge of tonight's author, and that, further, I was quite curious to know what he looked like. And, given the tendency toward...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD XXII by Updated: 2006-07-28 23:42:00 Description: For your bonus bedtime track this week, I've decided to double up on (I suppose?) relative abstrusity, author-wise. But this time, I'm in the fortunate position of already knowing and loving and potentially endlessly blathering about today's subject...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Riddle by Updated: 2006-08-05 18:03:44 Description: The plot of tonight's story involves a gaggle of young children who go to stay with their frail old grandmother, and who, more or less, are swallowed up by a house that I imagine to be uniformly mothballish and denture-gluey in nature. And I'm discl...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD How the Devil Lost His Poncho by Updated: 2006-08-09 17:33:44 Description: A question too often asked of me: how is a specific story or specific author on a specific day selected? Rather than answer the question directly (because what's the use of renting one's own outdoor space if not to desultorily blather around or plan...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Five Boons of Life by Updated: 2006-08-15 18:33:52 Description: My friends and compeers and heroes at Librivox are celebrating their first birthday right now, and so I felt it necessary to add my kudos to their basic first-year achivements:...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Sophistication by Updated: 2006-08-20 07:59:16 Description: Today's bedtime story has been requested by Patrick (as for the O'Connor, I will do, yes, but for now, have you heard this one?), and I looked all over town but couldn't find a more appropriate selection for today, so you should all join me now in th...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Dark Lantern by Updated: 2006-08-24 09:29:41 Description: As you know, there's not much room on these pages for political soapboxing, both because there are already plenty of internet playgrounds for that sort of thing, and because I'd rather freestyle on such endlessly gripping topics as the weather or thi...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Fard by Updated: 2006-08-30 04:28:14 Description: Because I am a good, supportive, helpful sort, I took a friend recently to purchase a new pair of running trainers. Which isn't a very exciting way to begin a pre-podcastal anecdote, but don't go away yet! You see, it wasn't at all what I'd come to...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Conjurer Made Off with the Dish by Updated: 2006-09-04 18:16:55 Description: If this podcast was Miette's Themetime Story Podcast, the theme of today's story might be 'coming-of-age,' or it might be 'how to make beans in Egypt,' or maybe it's 'reverence,' or perhaps it might be nothing more than 'how to charm the socks right ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Señor Payroll by Updated: 2006-09-12 02:19:48 Description: There is a bottling facility close to where I live, and while "bottling facility" might look like elusive high-security stuff to the random passerby, between you and I, it's best described as a warehouse for bottled beers....more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Joke by Updated: 2006-09-25 09:00:14 Description: Does the title of today's story affect you in such a way that the person nearest you is now asking what you're sighing about? Or maybe you rolled your eyes so far to the side that you now have a stress headache and need to refocus before reading the...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Scarlet Ibis by Updated: 2006-09-30 23:13:29 Description: A Listener (you know who you are) wrote to me recently requesting that I laugh hysterically for fifteen minutes into my microphone and post this as a short story for you. Now, while I agree that this would be a particularly amusing johncagey experim...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Scarlet Ibis (Unabridged) by Updated: 2006-10-06 18:16:21 Description: I know the great controvery of the Scarlet Ibis has bothered you, and I confess to great shame at using this controversy to draw attention away from the various corporate scandals, celebrity affairs, and political horrors that are sucking the steam o...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Talpa by Updated: 2006-10-15 21:21:26 Description: Another Listener has asked whether I might be kind enough to share a few words about my reading process for aspiring podcasters and podcastresses. I am, of course, always glad to share secrets, although in this case I don't think there's anything il...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD On a Grand Scale by Updated: 2006-10-23 01:50:50 Description: So, Ilf and Petrov met while working on a newspaper for railway workers, which is intriguing to me. For starters, where's the podcastresses' newspaper, and why have I not been invited to participate? My life's literary collaborator could be waiting...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD My Bludjeon and the Bobbed White by Updated: 2006-11-10 03:47:20 Description: But would you believe that I spent the last couple of weeks dedicated to trying mightily and hard to uncover the identity of tonight's author before hurling the fruits of these findings to splat on your walls. Maybe I spent the week after mired in s...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Picnic of Mores the Cat by Updated: 2006-11-13 01:42:22 Description: Today's is another story by an author of whom I know very little, which I've plucked from a collection of Big Guns German fiction including Thomas Mann's Death in Venice, Kafka's Metamorphosis, Hoffmansthall, Hermann Broch, ad krautium, ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Except for the Sickness I’m Quite Healthy Now. You Can Believe That. by Updated: 2006-11-21 08:42:35 Description: Nice title, right? In my efforts to knock your socks to obscurantist skies, I'm willing to offer a dollar to the first listener who can prove he or she already knows of this story (currently in the running (BY THE WAY) for Miette's Top Short Fiction...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Texts for Nothing (VIII) by Updated: 2006-11-28 20:33:11 Description: Because nothing says Hither Holiday Season like the Kris Kringle of Krabby, and because as you will soon hear, your Miette has learnt that nothing says Hither Holidays like a Headcold, tonight's story speaks for its self....more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD A Letter to A.A. (Almost Anybody) by Updated: 2006-12-09 17:42:14 Description: In the interest of spitting a sluicy cobwebbed thread to tie together the conversations in and around this corner of the infoweb and its earbound counterpart, I wanted to offer up one more chance to allow our space to double as the hotbed of informat...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Mr. Blue by Updated: 2006-12-20 20:48:12 Description: To offset or maybe just counterpoise the thin slice of news conveyed in the audio introduction to today's story, which, as has recently been pointed out to this podcastress, might be the most poetic science headline ever: ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Necrophil by Updated: 2006-12-31 20:37:59 Description: While I suspect that some of you might be nursing a yen for happy wishful and firmly resolved pick-me-up for annus novus, be warned that it's not going to happen with today's story, with which you should prepared. If, on the other hand, you need a s...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Some of Us Had Been Threatening Our Friend Colby by Updated: 2008-02-20 01:43:07 Description: As I lay writhing on my sickbed I was catching up on my milehigh stack of unread periodicals, and made my way to an article about one of the leading competitors for an upcoming race for a high position of public office in the country in which I'm liv...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Westinghouse Brake Updated: 2007-01-06 20:28:24 Description: Plenty of you (because I'm supposing you're all geniuses) are aware of the arguably unattributable (King Solomon? Buddha? Lincoln? Miette?) aphorism, idiom, and, notably, universally applicable phrase "This Too Shall Pass....more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Deal Updated: 2007-01-17 06:08:21 Description: Listening to this one earlier, I noticed something. A noise, behind the entire story, not unpleasant, entirely, but a nuisance, distracting, and not unfamiliar. And then it hits: The dog, oft noted in these recordings, had used the moments of stor...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Haile Selassie Funeral Train Updated: 2007-01-31 20:45:06 Description: NOTA BENE This podcast is published with permission of the Guy Davenport estate. To further enjoy the works of Mr. Davenport, please see amazon.com or abebooks....more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Tobermory Updated: 2007-02-09 16:37:49 Description: At times, this little podcast of ours is thought of not unlike a nice helping of ice milk-- not bad for you, tasty even, in the right circumstances, but of questionable nutritional value. Not harmful, necessarily, but nothing that might be considere...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Hour of Letdown Updated: 2007-02-23 07:43:36 Description: What we’ve got going on here, for those assiduous enough to parse their eyes over these words (and I suspect that I’m not speaking about many of you, that most of you just download the listening bits, which is quite all right) — but...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD One’s Ship Updated: 2007-03-08 03:04:19 Description: The news today tells us that a respected literary journal (not to be named here) has just released a list of names they consider to be The Best Young American Novelists, and among them, a full third of these names have not yet had a novel published. ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Love in the Winter Updated: 2007-03-15 04:03:27 Description: Given that Tonight's Story invokes the Mann Act, and given that the Mann Act is bar-none the best Congressional Act of 1910 (and I dare you to find a better one. I mean, Chuck Berry was charged with violating the Mann Act. Frank Lloyd Wright too.) ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Two Gentle People Updated: 2007-04-03 06:23:50 Description: Riding the big train today and started to daydream, in the daydreamy style of reductive logic unique to the accompaniment of a train horn, the subject which was What I Might Read to the Internet Tonight. ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD A Literary Adventure Updated: 2007-04-26 07:09:39 Description: Never having been one for bandwagonry (after all, the bumper's too high for me to jump, and I don't have much in the way of carnival skills from which is allegedly derived the phrase), but it can't be helped: if everybody and their thrice-removed st...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Dancing Bear Updated: 2007-05-09 21:34:07 Description: As a rule, yours (very) truly takes a big dollop of pleasure in knowing just a little something about the authors I'm reading to you. Where there are exceptions, they are serious exceptions, resuscitated from beyond the brink and leaving their snot ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Everything Updated: 2007-05-23 21:42:52 Description: A caveat for you listeners. Hell, a full-out warning: this is a long one, today's story, long and, dare I say it, a little dark, and not in the "change the bulb" sort of way. Which is just my way of saying to you:...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Inflexible Logic Updated: 2007-06-14 00:23:01 Description: Dearest listeners of the internet, I know. I've been gone. Many of you have pointed this out to me, though by the time I returned to read your pleas and queries, I was back, relieved of goneness, and racked with guilt over how abandoned you'd all b...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Araby Updated: 2007-06-16 09:00:04 Description: Happy Bloomsday to you, and happy third Bloomsday podcast from your Miette, an event which many of you will remember is dear to me....more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Sarah Cole Updated: 2007-06-30 06:09:43 Description: Some days, as a podcastress, you find that it's about a billion and two degrees of sour sunshined degrees outside, measured by the scales of Daniel or Anders either/or, and while the last thing you feel like doing might involve heavy lifting dressed ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD How the World Was Saved Updated: 2007-07-11 21:06:38 Description: A delivery truck pulled out in front of me the other day, freshly deflowered by a graffiti artist who chose to express him- or herself by relaying the following, in big blue caps: I LOVE SARAH, KINDA? ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Virtuoso Updated: 2007-07-21 22:24:09 Description: Herbert Goldstone, what are you going to tell me about him? Writes crazy sci-fi about thinking machines more human than man. This story in dozens of brilliant anthologia. Very little else to be found. The wiki draws a blank. This story is not a ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Fear Updated: 2007-08-09 06:12:22 Description: Where I am, dear listeners, it's hot. And for reasons which terrify some, confound others, and lead to the sort of mass collective eye-rolling that I'd rather avoid (because the energy produced therein would raise the outside temperature another hal...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD I See You Never Updated: 2007-08-27 16:51:23 Description: Last night, I was thinking of what to write to you today while starting to doze off just prior to handing over the wheel. I woke up with one of those Holy Mother I'm Dozing Off kind of starts, and, as I was now more alert than usual during this leg ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Fly Updated: 2007-09-17 18:07:11 Description: While settling in and to avoid the appearance of mothballs, here's another Mansfield. And while this isn't the first time we've rocked her boat, she's a voice so nice I'll read her unspliced....more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Red Room Updated: 2007-09-28 01:36:58 Description: So listen, about today's story, well, as you'll know when you listen to the first minute, I'm running low on resources at the moment, tapped, so to speak, at least, until things are nice and orderlied again. ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Lady of the House of Love Updated: 2007-10-12 18:25:37 Description: Andrea was kind enough to suggest and supply a sufficiently Halloweeny bit of ghoulishness to reconcile the setback of temporary lack of access to mine own troves. In the hopes of exponentially increasing the sympathy factor, let it be known that i...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Bell Tone Updated: 2007-10-26 03:52:07 Description: At times during my podcastressing career, I have stumbled upon authors about whom I know very little, and have been fortunate to find that you, resourceful mariners of the Internet's belly, have proven yourselves well worth your collective avoirdupoi...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? Updated: 2007-11-09 16:23:54 Description: I read in the news yesterday that television writers here in the U.S. have gone on strike, and that because of the strike, everybody's arms are collectively thrown up in a great wide panic, because nobody knows what's going to happen on Charmed and b...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Passion Considered as an Uphill Bicycle Race Updated: 2007-11-28 22:27:04 Description: I hope those of you celebrating All Things Autumnal are settling into it well, the roast fowl and the hot cacao and woodfire smoke for dessert, and, well, you know the picture I'm aiming for here. It does wonders to the general countenance, I think:...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy Considered as a Downhill Motor Race Updated: 2007-12-04 18:19:00 Description: I was thinking about the last story I read to you, and thinking it’d be nice if other events of this variety, the sort of events that are difficult to explain to small children, were similarly reimagined. And not just on a large scale, either....more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Fedya Davidovich Updated: 2007-12-15 02:58:23 Description: HEY, Internet, I want to tell you all about Earideas. Wow, that sounded a little snake-oily- let me try that again: ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Youth, Beautiful Youth Updated: 2008-01-08 03:27:52 Description: Returning soon with a much-awaited all-new MBSP. Leaving you with a mightylong one to hold you till (the longest yet in one sitting, I think). For Dream, remembered always, and loved even longer....more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD From the Mouths of Buildings Updated: 2008-01-29 20:35:27 Description: A message from the author of today's story: Do you ever wonder as you are reading a story, or hearing one, such as on a podcast, for example, what or whom has inspired a particular story? Picture this: imaginary "directions" or "instructions" for ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Lawyer Kraykowski’s Dancer Updated: 2008-02-05 02:16:04 Description: A few days ago I was driving down the street behind a car which, as was warned by prominent display of rooftop sign, was being operated by a Student Driver... a sign which really wasn't necessary, given the stammering mid-intersection braking and sid...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Shirley Jackson: Charles Updated: 2006-03-09 16:00:14 Description: In the plot of today's story, you will find mentioned a real-world conversational device that I can't help but love, in a guiltily pleasuristic sort of way. I'm not sure what to call it, though I'm sure the modern linguists have had their way with ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Hermann Hesse: Youth, Beautiful Youth Updated: 2008-01-08 00:35:53 Description: Returning soon with a much-awaited all-new MBSP. Leaving you with a mightylong one to hold you till (the longest yet in one sitting, I think). For Dream, remembered always, and loved even longer....more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Fedya Davidovich Updated: 2007-12-14 23:46:26 Description: HEY, Internet, I want to tell you all about Earideas. Wow, that sounded a little snake-oily- let me try that again: Step right up folks and have a look at the one, the only, the world's finest, most discriminating, most hyperventilating-inducing ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Charles Willeford: A Letter to A.A. (Almost Anybody) Updated: 2006-12-09 22:49:15 Description: In the interest of spitting a sluicy cobwebbed thread to tie together the conversations in and around this corner of the infoweb and its earbound counterpart, I wanted to offer up one more chance to allow our space to double as the hotbed of informa...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD J.G. Ballard: The Assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy Considered as a Downhill Motor Race Updated: 2007-12-04 15:30:08 Description: I was thinking about the last story I read to you, and thinking it'd be nice if other events of this variety, the sort of events that are difficult to explain to small children, were similarly reimagined. And not just on a large scale, either. I'm ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Alfred Jarry: The Passion Considered as an Uphill Bicycle Race Updated: 2007-11-28 19:57:54 Description: I hope those of you celebrating All Things Autumnal are settling into it well, the roast fowl and the hot cacao and woodfire smoke for dessert, and, well, you know the picture I'm aiming for here. It does wonders to the general countenance, I think:...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Joyce Carol Oates: Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? Updated: 2007-11-09 13:35:58 Description: I read in the news yesterday that television writers here in the U.S. have gone on strike, and that because of the strike, everybody's arms are collectively thrown up in a great wide panic, because nobody knows what's going to happen on Charmed and b...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD The Bell Tone Updated: 2007-10-25 23:57:35 Description: At times during my podcastressing career, I have stumbled upon authors about whom I know very little, and have been fortunate to find that you, resourceful mariners of the Internet's belly, have proven yourselves well worth your collective avoirdupoi...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Angela Carter: The Lady of the House of Love Updated: 2007-10-12 14:36:34 Description: Andrea was kind enough to suggest and supply a sufficiently Halloweeny bit of ghoulishness to reconcile the setback of temporary lack of access to mine own troves. In the hopes of exponentially increasing the sympathy factor, let it be known that i...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Katherine Mansfield: The Fly Updated: 2007-09-17 14:11:44 Description: While settling in and to avoid the appearance of mothballs, here's another Mansfield. And while this isn't the first time we've rocked her boat, she's a voice so nice I'll read her unspliced....more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD H. G. Wells: The Red Room Updated: 2007-09-27 21:11:44 Description: So listen, about today's story, well, as you'll know when you listen to the first minute, I'm running low on resources at the moment, tapped, so to speak, at least, until things are nice and orderlied again. And so those willing to share might send ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Ray Bradbury: I See You Never Updated: 2007-08-27 12:11:44 Description: Last night, I was thinking of what to write to you today while starting to doze off just prior to handing over the wheel. I woke up with one of those Holy Mother I'm Dozing Off kind of starts, and, as I was now more alert than usual during this leg ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Rhys Davies: Fear Updated: 2007-08-08 22:10:50 Description: Where I am, dear listeners, it's hot. And for reasons which terrify some, confound others, and lead to the sort of mass collective eye-rolling that I'd rather avoid (because the energy produced therein would raise the outside temperature another hal...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Virtuoso Updated: 2007-07-21 14:53:28 Description: Herbert Goldstone, what are you going to tell me about him? Writes crazy sci-fi about thinking machines more human than man. This story in dozens of brilliant anthologia. Very little else to be found. The wiki draws a blank. This story is not a ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Stanislaw Lem: How the World Was Saved Updated: 2007-07-11 17:16:16 Description: A delivery truck pulled out in front of me the other day, freshly deflowered by a graffiti artist who chose to express him- or herself by relaying the following, in big blue caps: I LOVE SARAH, KINDA? Which is nice, but only kinda. And some advice...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Russell Banks: Sarah Cole Updated: 2007-06-30 02:31:45 Description: Some days, as a podcastress, you find that it's about a billion and two degrees of sour sunshined degrees outside, measured by the scales of Daniel or Anders either/or, and while the last thing you feel like doing might involve heavy lifting dressed ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD James Joyce: Araby Updated: 2007-06-16 05:01:41 Description: Happy Bloomsday to you, and happy third Bloomsday podcast from your Miette, an event which many of you will remember is dear to me. And I can hear you now: "Oh, that's nice Miette, but Bloomsday is about Ulysses. When are you going to read Ulysses...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Russell Maloney: Inflexible Logic Updated: 2007-06-13 20:29:41 Description: Dearest listeners of the internet, I know. I've been gone. Many of you have pointed this out to me, though by the time I returned to read your pleas and queries, I was back, relieved of goneness, and racked with guilt over how abandoned you'd all b...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Ingeborg Bachmann: Everything Updated: 2007-05-23 17:06:23 Description: A caveat for you listeners. Hell, a full-out warning: this is a long one, today's story, long and, dare I say it, a little dark, and not in the "change the bulb" sort of way. Which is just my way of saying to you: this is not a first-date sort of ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Etienne Barsony: The Dancing Bear Updated: 2007-05-09 17:55:00 Description: As a rule, yours (very) truly takes a big dollop of pleasure in knowing just a little something about the authors I'm reading to you. Where there are exceptions, they are serious exceptions, resuscitated from beyond the brink and leaving their snot ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Roberto Bolano: A Literary Adventure Updated: 2007-04-26 03:15:13 Description: Never having been one for bandwagonry (after all, the bumper's too high for me to jump, and I don't have much in the way of carnival skills from which is allegedly derived the phrase), but it can't be helped: if everybody and their thrice-removed st...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Richard Bausch: Nobody in Hollywood Updated: 2007-04-10 04:00:00 Description: If I were a state fair judge offering blue ribbons after thoroughly scrutinizing the stories that have been read to you to-date, tonight's would be a heavy competitor for Most Gut-Bursting Opener in American Short Fiction, specifics of which, there...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Graham Greene: Two Gentle People Updated: 2007-04-03 02:39:42 Description: Riding the big train today and started to daydream, in the daydreamy style of reductive logic unique to the accompaniment of a train horn, the subject which was What I Might Read to the Internet Tonight. And so, in the comparatively confined space o...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Daniel Curley: Love in the Winter Updated: 2007-03-22 23:25:40 Description: Given that Tonight's Story invokes the Mann Act, and given that the Mann Act is bar-none the best Congressional Act of 1910 (and I dare you to find a better one. I mean, Chuck Berry was charged with violating the Mann Act. Frank Lloyd Wright too.) No...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Barton Midwood: One's Ship Updated: 2007-03-22 23:25:40 Description: The news today tells us that a respected literary journal (not to be named here) has just released a list of names they consider to be The Best Young American Novelists, and among them, a full third of these names have not yet had a novel published. ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD E. B. White: The Hour of Letdown Updated: 2007-02-09 03:48:52 Description: What we've got going on here, for those assiduous enough to parse their eyes over these words (and I suspect that I'm not speaking about many of you, that most of you just download the listening bits, which is quite all right) -- but for those of you...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Saki: Tobermory Updated: 2007-02-09 13:35:06 Description: At times, this little podcast of ours is thought of not unlike a nice helping of ice milk-- not bad for you, tasty even, in the right circumstances, but of questionable nutritional value. Not harmful, necessarily, but nothing that might be considere...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Guy Davenport: The Haile Selassie Funeral Train Updated: 2007-02-09 03:48:52 Description: Okay, so with this one your loyal Miette may be accused once again of the instigation of mind-bleeding ear pops, which is not minded, but in answer to which we may turn to today's author himself for further elucidation:The earliest indication of a me...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Leonard Michaels: The Deal Updated: 2007-02-09 03:48:52 Description: Listening to this one earlier, I noticed something. A noise, behind the entire story, not unpleasant, entirely, but a nuisance, distracting, and not unfamiliar. And then it hits: The dog, oft noted in these recordings, had used the moments of stor...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Mikhail Zoshchenko: The Westinghouse Brake Updated: 2006-12-21 00:00:00 Description: Plenty of you (because I'm supposing you're all geniuses) are aware of the arguably unattributable (King Solomon? Buddha? Lincoln? Miette?) aphorism, idiom, and, notably, universally applicable phrase "This Too Shall Pass." Well, it's been an un...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Felipe Alfau: The Necrophil Updated: 2006-12-31 17:10:14 Description: While I suspect that some of you might be nursing a yen for happy wishful and firmly resolved pick-me-up for annus novus, be warned that it's not going to happen with today's story, with which you should prepared. If, on the other hand, you need a s...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Robert Creeley: Mr. Blue Updated: 2006-12-20 17:10:14 Description: To offset or maybe just counterpoise the thin slice of news conveyed in the audio introduction to today's story, which, as has recently been pointed out to this podcastress, might be the most poetic science headline ever:Moths drink the tears of slee...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Thomas Glynn: Except for the Sickness I'm Quite Healthy Now. You Can Believe That. Updated: 2006-11-21 05:59:14 Description: Nice title, right? In my efforts to knock your socks to obscurantist skies, I'm willing to offer a dollar to the first listener who can prove he or she already knows of this story (currently in the running (BY THE WAY) for Miette's Top Short Fiction...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Samuel Beckett: Texts for Nothing (VIII) Updated: 2006-11-28 04:59:14 Description: Because nothing says Hither Holiday Season like the Kris Kringle of Krabby, and because as you will soon hear, your Miette has learnt that nothing says Hither Holidays like a Headcold, tonight's story speaks for its self.Miette's Bedtime Story Podcas...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Clemens Brentano: The Picnic of Mores the Cat Updated: 2006-11-12 00:00:00 Description: Today's is another story by an author of whom I know very little, which I've plucked from a collection of Big Guns German fiction including Thomas Mann's Death in Venice, Kafka's Metamorphosis, Hoffmansthall, Hermann Broch, ad krautium, serious big-...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Carl Krampf: My Bludjeon and the Bobbed White Updated: 2006-11-09 00:59:14 Description: But would you believe that I spent the last couple of weeks dedicated to trying mightily and hard to uncover the identity of tonight's author before hurling the fruits of these findings to splat on your walls. Maybe I spent the week after mired in ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Ilf and Petrov: On a Grand Scale Updated: 2006-10-22 20:38:14 Description: So, Ilf and Petrov met while working on a newspaper for railway workers, which is intriguing to me. For starters, where's the podcastresses' newspaper, and why have I not been invited to participate? My life's literary collaborator could be waitin...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Juan Rulfo: Talpa Updated: 2006-09-15 18:38:14 Description: Another Listener has asked whether I might be kind enough to share a few words about my reading process for aspiring podcasters and podcastresses. I am, of course, always glad to share secrets, although in this case I don't think there's anything i...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD James Hurst: The Scarlet Ibis Updated: 2006-09-30 20:38:14 Description: A Listener (you know who you are) wrote to me recently requesting that I laugh hysterically for fifteen minutes into my microphone and post this as a short story for you. Now, while I agree that this would be a particularly amusing johncagey experi...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Paul Goodman: The Joke Updated: 2006-09-25 06:38:14 Description: Does the title of today's story affect you in such a way that the person nearest you is now asking what you're sighing about? Or maybe you rolled your eyes so far to the side that you now have a stress headache and need to refocus before reading the...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD William E. Barrett: Senor Payroll Updated: 2006-09-11 23:38:14 Description: There is a bottling facility close to where I live, and while "bottling facility" might look like elusive high-security stuff to the random passerby, between you and I, it's best described as a warehouse for bottled beers. This morning, while wal...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Aldous Huxley: Fard Updated: 2006-08-30 01:38:14 Description: Because I am a good, supportive, helpful sort, I took a friend recently to purchase a new pair of running trainers. Which isn't a very exciting way to begin a pre-podcastal anecdote, but don't go away yet! You see, it wasn't at all what I'd come t...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Julse Renard: The Dark Lantern Updated: 2006-08-24 06:59:14 Description: As you know, there's not much room on these pages for political soapboxing, both because there are already plenty of internet playgrounds for that sort of thing, and because I'd rather freestyle on such endlessly gripping topics as the weather or th...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Sherwood Anderson: Sophistication Updated: 2006-08-20 04:59:14 Description: Today's bedtime story has been requested by Patrick (as for the O'Connor, I will do, yes, but for now, have you heard this one?), and I looked all over town but couldn't find a more appropriate selection for today, so you should all join me now in t...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Mark Twain: The Five Boons of Life Updated: 2006-08-15 15:30:14 Description: My friends and compeers and heroes at Librivox are celebrating their first birthday right now, and so I felt it necessary to add my kudos to their basic first-year achivements:-- cutting teeth on Conrad and Dostoevsky-- picking up the necessities of ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Ricardo Palma: How the Devil Lost His Poncho Updated: 2006-08-09 14:30:14 Description: A question too often asked of me: how is a specific story or specific author on a specific day selected? Rather than answer the question directly (because what's the use of renting one's own outdoor space if not to desultorily blather around or p...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Walter De La Mare: The Riddle Updated: 2006-08-05 13:04:14 Description: The plot of tonight's story involves a gaggle of young children who go to stay with their frail old grandmother, and who, more or less, are swallowed up by a house that I imagine to be uniformly mothballish and denture-gluey in nature. And I'm disc...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Nathalie Sarraute: XXII Updated: 2006-07-28 21:04:14 Description: For your bonus bedtime track this week, I've decided to double up on (I suppose?) relative abstrusity, author-wise. But this time, I'm in the fortunate position of already knowing and loving and potentially endlessly blathering about today's subjec...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Ventura Garcia Calderon: The Lottery Ticket Updated: 2006-07-25 00:00:00 Description: Is there anybody out there who has a cure for acute compulsion? The thought had entered my mind that I had very little knowledge of tonight's author, and that, further, I was quite curious to know what he looked like. And, given the tendency towar...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Wolfgang Borchert:Do Stay, Giraffe Updated: 2006-07-18 15:13:14 Description: Okay, adventure seekers, listen up! For reasons that need not be enumerated here, I should warn you that tonight's story was recorded in a hushed whisper, late at night, and I didn't dare play it back to sample the condign commission of my own bedt...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Mavis Gallant:His Mother Updated: 2006-07-10 18:13:14 Description: In general, I don't like to use these few pre-sound-bytes of Web page space to be topical for reasons that I hope are obvious (I'm not here to depress you), but I can't help but make note of the talking chimps who've gabbed their way back to the ne...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Hugo von Hofmannsthal: The Lord Chandos Letter Updated: 2006-07-07 03:13:14 Description: Allow me now to guide you most gently out of the first week of July: those of you in America, lie on your side and listen quietly, finding pause only to burp out the last taste of your hotdogmatic overindulgences. Just focus on the voice -- the bee...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Flannery O'Connor: The Life You Save May Be Your Own Updated: 2006-06-27 15:03:14 Description: WhoAm asks whether Flannery O'Connor can be expected soon. Now, I'd thought of saving O'Connor for a while, for obvious (or perhaps not-so-much-so) reasons: the desire to wait until my face gets older and wrinkles become a more permanent part of i...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD E.M. Forster: Mr. Andrews Updated: 2006-06-23 03:03:14 Description: A Warning: it's that time of year where, given the current coordinates of yrs (truly!), you may be exposed to endless nattering about heat exhaust and revelation of podcasts recorded in ice-cubey bathtubs and a relentless boycott of any outergarmen...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD James Joyce: The Sisters Updated: 2006-06-17 02:13:14 Description: When we compare tonight's with last year's Bloomsday podcast, just t' pose a friendly comparison, we see an almost incredible improvement in sound quality, due either to a highly paid audio engineer or a reluctant purchase of a piece of equipment. ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Thomas Hardy: Absent-Mindedness in a Parish Choir Updated: 2006-06-14 16:32:14 Description: Have waited nearly a year to read Hardy on his birthday, because I strongly suspect that Hardy's just the sort of guy who should be birthdayishly feted, and in neither in an ironic nor a pointy-paper-hat way. I missed his birthday, as it happens, b...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Merce Rodoreda: Rain Updated: 2006-06-09 00:45:14 Description: Yes, I've missed you too and thanks for the well wishes, and yes, you're right: it would have been RAD to podcast from a women's prison passing the mic around my circle of hardened women criminals and reading while taking turns with the tattoo needl...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD William Saroyan: The Shepherd's Daughter Updated: 2006-05-26 06:45:14 Description: Perhaps you might use Miette's short sabbatical to catch up on some of the classics that you might have missed the first time around. Or, maybe this will hold you over? You'll hear from me soon... Miette's Bedtime Story Podcast: William Saroyan: ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Prosper Merimee: The Pearl of Toledo Updated: 2006-05-24 04:23:14 Description: True to form here's a nice short one to balance out the more time-demanding Gogol from last time. And let me add that just because it's short doesn't mean it's not gruesome, contentious, vitriolic, or even a little caustic, because when lagged by th...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Nikolai Gogol: The Diary of a Madman Updated: 2006-05-18 05:23:14 Description: Ahh, so you've noticed that I still hadn't read any Gogol, despite a-hundred-some readings including enough of a Russian contingency to keep a stronghold on the world weight-lifting championships for the next few centuries, and despite a story by an...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Janet Frame: Prizes Updated: 2006-05-14 04:44:14 Description: I'm going to keep this one short, because you really ought to be phoning your mothers right about now. And tidying your rooms. And standing up straight. And not talking with your mouths full. And not wasting your money on chewing gum and nosejob...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Ben Hecht: The Lost Soul Updated: 2006-05-10 04:44:14 Description: Do you know about Ben Hecht? I only ask because a lot of people don't, and because as a responsible Purveyor of Fine Information I ought to clue you in, and in the interest of living up to such, I should tell you that Ben Hecht was best known to man...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Alberto Moravia: Jewellery Updated: 2006-04-05 05:03:14 Description: Maybe I'm obsessing a little over the idea of tissue cultures, but I can't help it - it's my personality. But tissue culture and bedtime stories, of course! It takes me back to when I first discovered I could put the -expensive- mustard on my tofu...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Tommaso Landolfi: Gogol's Wife Updated: 2006-05-01 02:24:14 Description: There might be times when you're reading the newspaper and you sit up straight and say to yourself something exuberantly monologic, such as "HOLD THE PHONE, this is ACTUAL news, I need to remember where I was when I read this, which is RIGHT HERE" a...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD August Strindberg: An Attempt at Reform Updated: 2006-04-27 04:47:14 Description: We all have those odd things that happen to us more often than we might owe to nature or coincidence. Some people find themselves on their fourth marriage to a fourth guy named Mario*; it happens. For me, that thing is the ceilings. In my apartme...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Bidpai: How Light Bringeth Damage Updated: 2006-04-21 03:47:14 Description: A fable! About thieves and liars and moonlit wishes, fair ladies, conjurations and broken bones. Not your mother's fable-- no talking animals here. (This, a short entry for the same reason as short fable, which I'd post invisibly if you all cou...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Jerome Weidman:Slipping Beauty Updated: 2006-04-13 19:28:14 Description: I know that I should be wishing some of you happy Passover, others happy Easter, others the goodliest of Fridays. But more importantly, more important than sweet Haroseth and pastel eggs and chocolate covered matzoh shaped as salty rabbits, let us ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Lafcadio Hearn: The Boy Who Drew Cats Updated: 2006-04-09 18:55:14 Description: I packaged up, compressed, and uploaded today's episode before discovering that I had inadvertently mentioned the brand name of a popular consumer product in the few introductory seconds before the story starts, so I thought it might be wise for me ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Charlotte Perkins Gilman: The Yellow Wallpaper Updated: 2006-04-04 04:55:14 Description: From over here, Edie says: I would like to recommend "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. It has to be my favorite short story... no matter how many times I read it it still gives me the chills! To which Miette replies: your wish,...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Nelson Algren: He Swung and He Missed Updated: 2006-03-30 01:39:14 Description: When you listen today, I will disclaim now, you will hear a boxing story. Not to be confused with the Clint Eastwood boxing story, or the other girlie fight boxing story, or the what's-his-brutish-name-from-New-Zealand-with-the-attitude, not that on...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Lord Dunsany: The Ghosts Updated: 2006-03-22 04:09:14 Description: Don't say I didn't warn you about today's story, because admittedly, I didn't warn you yet, but I'm about to: it's a scary one. Frightful! It might cause you to go to sleep with all the lights on, and even then, you might suffer nightmares. You...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD John Collier: The Chaser Updated: 2006-03-18 02:09:14 Description: I have to tell you about a brilliant little moment that happened today. I was on a train, at an hour in which far too many people take the train, leaving us all sardinically resentful of one another's smells, oversized totebags, and inter-seasonal ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Benjamin Rosenblatt: Zelig Updated: 2006-03-14 04:09:14 Description: I beg and implore you, dear listener: don’t be misled by the title of today’s podcast. Today’s story features neither the lovely Ms Farrow in her prime –nor- jokes about Hasidim, dental extractions, or polygamy. However, if you can recommend a story...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Angelica Gorodischer: Camera Obscura Updated: 2006-03-04 22:00:14 Description: I've just spent the past hour editing down today's podcast while witnessing the almost compulsive bathing, brushing, trimming, grooming, and otherwise torturing my beast by someone who claims to enjoy this sort of thing. Really, it was a sort of day...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Luisa Valenzuela: I'm Your Horse in the Night Updated: 2006-02-26 05:30:14 Description: Ow. It hurts to type this right now, and I'm not talking about the endless afflictions of emotional pain. This is not something I'm especially proud of, no way, but to be entirely honest with you, because I like you: a little too much had been dr...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Cornell Woolrich: It Had To Be Murder (Part 1 of 2) Updated: 2006-02-20 20:02:14 Description: I began scheming for the one hundredth podcast several weeks ago, thinking that I'd gather all the voices that were most important to me, personally and podcastionally, share the wealth and spread the love, and, let's be honest, go soak on a beach in...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Cornell Woolrich: It Had To Be Murder (Part 2 of 2) Updated: 2006-02-20 22:30:14 Description: Yes, I have mighty big arms to give myself such a massive self-congratulatory bearhug, but, you know, I'm entitled, it's my special day. And so, here are a couple of things I am considering for my next one hundred podcasts:-- podcast in Estonian-- s...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD K. Ungeheuer: The Rain Collector Updated: 2006-02-12 04:02:14 Description: Chances are, you're going to listen to today's podcast and think: "That's it?" Or "maybe the audio file got cut off... I'm missing half the story!" Or "Miette's such a lazy snot to pick such a short story." But the truth is: I am lazy, it's true, ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Wolfgang Hildesheimer: Why I Transformed Myself Into a Nightingale Updated: 2006-02-09 04:02:14 Description: There's this new higher-than-hightech device that's now mine, intended to make my podcasts sound better for you, and while I'm not sure of its success rate at doing so, I do know that it's got every kind of tech-sounding hypermegaphonics that should...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Morley Callaghan: A Wedding Dress Updated: 2006-02-05 17:01:14 Description: So sport seems to be in the air these days. There's something going on tonight involving hundreds of pounds of helmets and costumery, complete with grandiose spectacle and and pretend warriors, and I'm told this has nothing to do with Wagner. We'l...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD William Sansom: The Kiss Updated: 2006-02-02 04:01:14 Description: There are a few things that leave you so exhilarated, enchanted with simultaneous possession and dispossession, blown away punch-in-the-belly style by battles of bliss and bewilderment. It is these moments, precious listeners, that are boiling the...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Lu Xun: An Unimportant Affair Updated: 2006-01-26 21:01:14 Description: Don't let the title of tonight's bedtime story deceive you... this is actually an affair of considerable importance. Consider, for example, the success that is XBox. Or the X-Men. Or X-Treme Sports, for that matters. And the importance of X as a...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Gabriel Garcia Marquez: A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings Updated: 2005-08-22 08:49:14 Description: 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 this file on my ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Francis Steegmuller: The Foreigner Updated: 2006-01-21 17:01:14 Description: The other day, I dropped off my laundry on my way to work as I do sometimes (because some things you really should LEAVE TO THE PROFESSIONALS). This was a different laundrette, one that stays open a half hour later, because sometimes I've been unfor...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Richard Yates: A Private Possession Updated: 2006-01-15 20:40:14 Description: Questions That Have Been Asked, at Varying Levels of Frequency, of Miette and Her Podcast: How did this get started? It was supposed to be a joke; I published the first episode in Movable Type without knowing what I was doing, and of course...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Arnold Zweig: Kong at the Sea Updated: 2006-01-12 05:01:14 Description: A riddle: What could possibly be better than an unexpected new book of short fiction turning up in your mailbox? The answer: When that new book includes short fiction from Zamiatin, Zweig, Zantner, and Zugsmith. The explanation: As Miette's B...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Bernard Malamud: The Bill Updated: 2006-01-09 07:45:14 Description: A few blocks down from my apartment is a utility pole, and on that utility pole someone has graffitoed the following in black marker: "Romanse [sic] is the death of enlightenment" And I walk by this utility pole every day, and have made all sorts ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Alice Adams: Roses, Rhododendron Updated: 2006-01-06 14:45:14 Description: The other day, I broke from my own morning convention and fetched my AM coffee from a coffee chain whose name shall not be uttered on this page. It was quite likely the simplest order the coffee-servicer had fulfilled that day: a no-frills "medium ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Ivan Bunin: The Primer of Love Updated: 2006-01-01 17:39:14 Description: 8 of Miette's 2006 Predictions for the New Year: -- I will really really do all those things I meant to do in 2005, including those things in 2005 I was really really going to do after neglecting in 2004. -- Ditto 2003. -- When thinking of these po...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Stanley Elkin: A Poetics for Bullies Updated: 2005-12-28 20:58:14 Description: All week I've been in the nether regions, the sticks, the country, the bucolic boonies, the hinterregions of the backwoods, fretting over how much I'd have to read to you upon my return, how many hours I'd have to try my larynx to make it up to you,...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Arthur Quiller-Couch: Which? Updated: 2005-12-26 03:48:14 Description: Not necessarily a festive mistletoe-and-chestnut sort of story, thus, but for those in need, want, or glimmering hope of a holiday story, this unpodcasted tale from the vaults should suffice. Happy days, holly and otherwise! Miette's Bedtime Story...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Fielding Dawson: The Vertical Fields Updated: 2005-12-18 00:10:14 Description: There's a common Yoruban idiom, "oruko lonro ni," which means, more or less, that your name affects your actions, defines your character, determines your destiny. For instance, if you're named Lady, you're going to end up exceptionally feminine. If...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Robert Sheckley: On an Experience in a Cornfield Updated: 2005-12-14 04:15:14 Description: What else is a podcastress to do when a great writer dies? Sheckley wrote hundreds of exceptional stories, hundreds, and though I wouldn't rate this one his best (I See a Man Sitting in a Chair, and the Chair is Biting His Leg rates high on my list,...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Heinrich von Kleist: The Beggarwoman of Locarno Updated: 2005-12-10 02:15:14 Description: This morning, as with all mornings, I took She Who Must Bark At The Most Inconvenient Times on an early morning walk, which, given the several feet of snow on the ground (read: a few inches), was less an "early morning walk" than a "mighty difficult ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Boris Vian: Cancer Updated: 2005-12-06 13:45:14 Description: I know, I know. It's morning. Nowhere near your bedtime. You listen now and get all confused, expecting a glass of warm milk and sugarplum dreams, only to discover it's ten in the morning and you've got to drag yourself to work. It's just, well, ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Thomas Mann: The Starvelings Updated: 2005-12-02 23:15:14 Description: I've had a long meeting with myself just now, myself, who has been thinking for months that I ought to read Mann for you. After all, Mann is nothing if not the one empty corner in the squathouse of growing up, and although my romance with Mann ended...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Evelyn Waugh: Cruise (Letters From a Young Lady of Leisure) Updated: 2005-11-29 01:15:14 Description: S.S. Dignity of New YorkDarling ListenersThought Id try an experiment and read something that was obviously designed to be read on the page and not delivered aloud bedtimestorily. But after that bit in Bookforum I'm just so v. curious how all these ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD John Steinbeck: The Chrysanthemums Updated: 2005-11-25 16:22:14 Description: For years, the only time I've ever been the slightest bit jealous of my carnivorous confreres has been in those moments after a Thanksgiving feast, watching them settle into the tryptofanatical haze of blissful near-slumber. The rest of the year I ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Crack Up Updated: 2005-11-20 16:22:14 Description: If Miette's Bedtime Story Podcast was a CD**, today's would be the secret bonus track hidden at the very end. If this was called Miette's Bedtime Story TV Miniseries, today's would be the Exciting Second Half that you'd be Staying Tuned for, except ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD F. Scott Fitzgerald: Jemima, The Mountain Girl Updated: 2005-11-19 01:31:14 Description: Okay, someone was a little smartasinine requesting this one, for reasons that most of you will never know, given that this is not one of those soundbiting autobiographic shows and hence most of you don't know that my real name is, in fact, Jemima, an...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Christopher Isherwood: On Reugen Island Updated: 2005-11-10 03:09:14 Description: If I could read your mind (and how do you know I can't???), after the first few seconds listening to this podcast I'll bet your mind would say something like this: "I know she said she was sick, but a strepped throat doesn't do that to a voice!"And ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Edith Wharton: The Dilettante Updated: 2005-11-13 16:31:14 Description: I dreamt last night that I made a big squash soup for an even bigger party, a party full of people from the past-- people I hadn't seen in years and didn't care about when I did see them. I was nervous; it was a recipe I hadn't tried before and I'd ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Christopher Isherwood: On Reugen Island Updated: 2005-11-09 22:09:14 Description: If I could read your mind (and how do you know I can't???), after the first few seconds listening to this podcast I'll bet your mind would say something like this: "I know she said she was sick, but a strepped throat doesn't do that to a voice!"And ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Grace Paley: Wants Updated: 2005-11-05 20:09:14 Description: Well, I didn't think I'd pull this off. A particularly invidious houseguest in the form of streptococcal has left my coccyx surprisingly unscatched, but the pharynx, well, I don't recall gargling with rusted staples after my razorblade dinner, but g...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Franz Kafka: The Judgment Updated: 2005-11-02 06:09:14 Description: A confession: I've been loath to podcast Kafka, only because I wouldn't know which one would be podcastable, which is to say Kafkaesque enough to be delivered storyhour-style, but not so Kafkaesque as to leave listeners beating themselves with the o...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Jack London: An Adventure in the Upper Sea Updated: 2005-10-29 10:22:14 Description: Like Miette?Love Jack London?Not getting enough of either today?Don't fear, Librivox is here.(Which is just a plug for the fine goings on there, among which just might be your own Miette, with a few other fine folk, reading the full text of London's ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Julio Cortazar: Axolotl Updated: 2005-10-23 17:22:14 Description: Last night, I did something I thought I'd never do. I went dancing. And not seated dive-barstool dancing when your picks come up on the jukebox, or late-night loftparty dancing, but proper dancing, at a Dance Club. I've never done anything quite l...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Mary McCarthy: Cruel and Barbarous Treatment Updated: 2005-10-19 05:22:14 Description: Okay, for those who found the new audio setup too sophisticated (and I agree, to an extent; this is proudly a lowest-of-the-no fi podcast experience, but everyone needs to be heard, you know), a compromise: I adjusted the sound software, I -think- t...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Carson McCullers: A Tree * A Rock * A Cloud Updated: 2005-10-13 05:22:14 Description: Remember the early days, when this was entirely scrappy, when you sometimes heard the dog or the bus passing by or the pins drop (for pins do drop in my house of chaos) more than you heard the reading? Those were the days, eh? Then, a couple of mon...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Djuna Barnes: Smoke Updated: 2005-10-09 16:58:14 Description: There are times when even the most prepared podcasting events turn to podcatastrophe, when even the most professional podcastress forgets to turn off the phone for a reading, when the most sedulous podcaster leaves pages stuck together entirely under...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Georges Perec: The Winter Journey (Le Voyage D'Hiver) Updated: 2005-09-30 23:22:14 Description: It's been a long week Au Pays De Miette, signified, I suppose, by the fact that we've gone quite a few days without a new podcast. And to complicate things, I've just posted a new one which, like the Fante or the Murdoch or the Dostoevsky, is close...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Dino Buzzati: The Falling Girl Updated: 2005-09-24 14:13:14 Description: I wonder if there's anybody who can read into a podcastophone and take dictation of his or her inner monologue simultaneously. I can't, much to my own absolute dismay. If I could, the past half hour would have been written up this way:Woo! Two fres...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Anton Chekhov: A Work Of Art Updated: 2005-03-10 20:22:39 Description: A Work of ArtWelcome to this, the humble inaugural edition of Miette's Bedtime Story Podcast, which is really nothing more than my excuse to have a podcast.You see, I'll bet that other people don't read to you enough. I know that people don't read to...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Guy De Maupassant: Dreams Updated: 2005-03-10 20:21:07 Description: Hypnalgiaphobia, the nightly quest for a real OOBE, learning to read more slowly and maybe with no accent, elas, these are the things that make us turn in the wee hours and if ether were the answer I'd be first in line. But maybe a new bed is a fine ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD George Orwell: Bookshop Memories Updated: 2005-03-10 21:06:42 Description: Bookshop MemoriesSome days, especially those in which my lack of tolerance for this city is only matched by my impatience with the job, I suffer the wildest joyriding fantasies of working at a used bookshop. To elucidate, the fantasy usually involves...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Anna Kavan: At Night Updated: 2005-03-12 12:48:28 Description: A personal secret: I, like many, have long succumbed to seemingly endless bouts of insomnia. It's not clinical, and I love sleep very much, but I often have a difficult time performing when called on to do so. Bedtime stories don't help much, beca...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Andre Breton: Nadja Updated: 2005-03-13 17:43:51 Description: I had wanted today to read Philip Lamarkin, because he understood living more than I (and probably you, Internet, but that might be presumptuous) ever will, and because he's now dead, so a tribute seems fitting. But, that said, I don't think I can re...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Vladimir Nabokov: Gods Updated: 2005-03-14 22:44:40 Description: This is both perhaps just-too-long and read by a just-too-tired head; maybe just assume the intent is to separate the yolks from the hen's asses... or something. Kudos to you if you make it...Despite not wanting to overwhelm the Internet(s) with too...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Robert Walser: Basta Updated: 2005-03-15 21:14:25 Description: Here's a nice short one to make up for yesterday's nice long one. From Robert Walser, a master of the short-short story, and the closest anyone's come to Swift since Kipling. Basta is one of those fine Italian words that the Germans have managed to a...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Italo Calvino: A Beautiful March Day Updated: 2005-03-16 20:46:26 Description: Crikes, in the haste of a working week I'd completely forgotten that despite not wanting to go straight to Calvino (because let's face it, everyone expects Miette to read Calvino, and when have I ever met something so vile as an expectation?), I had ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Katherine Mansfield: An Ideal Family Updated: 2005-03-17 21:43:31 Description: Am almost too beat to read this evening, but like dear Mr. Neave, I press on. Enjoy a crackling, hoarse, stammering attempt to clamber through Katherine Mansfield's An Ideal Family, one of the great short stream-of-conscious experiments. Some night...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD D.H. Lawrence: Second Best Updated: 2005-03-19 11:56:00 Description: It's a lovely springtime afternoon, and you should be outdoors, at the park lazing about, not cramped inside looking for the cheap thrill of an afternoon bedtime story. Go on, go to the park now, and come back and listen later.But I can only hope you...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Iris Murdoch: Something Special Updated: 2005-03-20 00:41:08 Description: It's true, it is, that Miette has bought something special to aid in her PodCASTing, though in the true ghetto style she so cherishes, she (or rather, I, Miette), didn't do much to prevent the background sounds of discs spinning up, or dogs turning t...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Paul Bowles: By The Water Updated: 2005-03-20 22:03:25 Description: If I were a more professional podCASTresse, I might have added a subliminal background track to this story, and if that were to have happened, you might have finished listening to tonight's bedtime story thinking one thought: Paul Bowles Can Be Touc...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Giovanni Boccaccio: The Story of Federigo's Falcon (Fifth Day, Ninth Tale) Updated: 2005-03-23 00:19:03 Description: Much as I would love to read the entire Decameron, and one day maybe I will (when the sound quality is improved to the point where I no longer sound like a podcastrati... and yes I am working on it!), for now, here's enough of an excerpt to give you ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Kate Chopin: The Story of an Hour Updated: 2005-03-23 23:52:03 Description: It was only a matter of time before we get here, deep unsettling irony, psychosexual abandonment, romantic antipathy and just a soupcon of background traffic. A passing bus, a ghetto lowrider, a few dollups of plaster falling from the ceiling, and if...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Ahmed Essop: The Betrayal Updated: 2005-03-24 01:52:03 Description: Is it a revelatory outpour of inner monologue detailing one man's confusion on racial, political, and sociological identity, leading to violence and abandonment? Or could it be just another day at the office? We should all listen, briefly, then set...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Par Lagerkvist: Saviour John Updated: 2005-03-26 23:31:03 Description: Nothing says Eve of The Second Coming of Christ like a longish existential short story by a forgotten Swedish Nobel winner (repeat: not nepotism) about a delusional old urchin who lives and preaches as the saviour of man.I don't know where you can fi...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD George Gissing: The Little Woman from Lancashire Updated: 2005-03-27 23:31:03 Description: In my ongoing efforts to impress upon you my unparalleled prowess at podCASTrophilia, I've spent the evening downloading all these applications that allow one to do things like "Normalise" and "Reduce Peak" and "Remove Hiss" and "Shift Frequency," al...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD William Somerset Maugham: In a Strange Land Updated: 2005-03-28 23:34:13 Description: It's so wet here and even upon peeling off my socks I can barely make out where the water ends and the feet begin. And then my olfactories open as the dog greets me with lick-to-nose and it's the same thing: where does the wet-dog smell stop and the...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Italian Fairy Tales: The Twelve Young Men Updated: 2005-03-30 23:34:13 Description: It is the storms of March that prepare us for the flowers of April and May. The Italians would be so naive. Regardless, the Italians, they know their fairy tales; this from an out-of-print collection, which only means that ultimately they will all ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Milan Kundera: The Book of Laughter and Forgetting Updated: 2005-04-02 22:34:13 Description: Miette read a very big book last night, it's true, and after a marathon thirteen hours of podCAST-free oral storytelling, only two thoughts remain in this once-nimble head. One, that why-oh-why didn't we just podCAST all thirteen hours, and how can ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Dorothy Parker: A Telephone Call Updated: 2005-04-06 00:34:13 Description: Did you miss me yet? Thanks to all of you for your determined and consistent telephone calls, e-mails, and picket lines to my internet service provider (although to those of you with the eggs and tomatoes, I have to say that while the gesture was ap...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Fyodor Dostoevsky: Dream of a Ridiculous Man (Chapter 1) Updated: 2005-04-09 19:34:13 Description: Nothing says hither-springtime quite like the spincycle of alienation, dispossession, malaise, apathy, and indifference! Perhaps it's best to go for a long stroll in your nearest park, have a couple of classes of wodka, break your own heart and mayb...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Fyodor Dostoevsky: Dream of a Ridiculous Man (Chapter 2) Updated: 2005-04-09 17:43:13 Description: Yes, don't be misled by what you hear in the opening seconds of tonight's bedtime story. This was going to be chapters 2 and 3 (they're short), but then from nowhere appeared a chainsaw, and who can podcast when the sun is out and the chainsaws are ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Fyodor Dostoevsky: Dream of a Ridiculous Man (Chapter 3) Updated: 2005-04-11 22:43:13 Description: Still with me? Hope so-- this is the turning point. The Dream. Quite possibly the best dream sequence committed to print, or at least the best committed to ridiculous Russian print. Nothing Ridiculous About It... excuse me while I contain my exci...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Fyodor Dostoevsky: Dream of a Ridiculous Man (Chapter 4) Updated: 2005-04-12 22:43:13 Description: We're nearing the end of this little mini-chronicle. Can you handle it? The few I've heard from have been most encouraging, but one must be careful with encomia before this turns quickly to Miette's Bedtime Story Proustcast (and I'm only half kiddi...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Fyodor Dostoevsky: Dream of a Ridiculous Man (Chapter 5) Updated: 2005-04-15 22:43:13 Description: Why did Miette stall before posting the final chapter of Dostoevsky? Was she sad to have it end? Having second thoughts about finishing it? Did she lose her voice? Building suspense? No. I, Miette, was too occupied thinking of an excuse for not...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Ursula K. LeGuin: The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas Updated: 2005-04-18 23:43:13 Description: In the dystopian fantasy of my days, we would each have our own child in the toolshed. For Ursula, of course, we need only one. Not a bad daydream, if you can prevent yourself from drawing the natural comparisons... oh, I do hope this doesn't cause...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Isaac Babel: The Sin of Jesus Updated: 2005-04-19 00:43:13 Description: Babel: exposition follows drama, form follows function, violence follows funny, and sin is quickly and heartily followed by impossible Russo-Jewish names.Miette's Bedtime Story Podcast: Isaac Babel: The Sin of Jesus...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Truman Capote: The Bargain Updated: 2005-04-26 00:43:13 Description: Reading the story while entertaining the dog with one hand, fumbling with papers of the evening's podCAST while trying to prevent the disruptive thud of bone-to-floor, then sacrificing my own right hand to the dog's playful tugowar teeth: this, podC...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Kazuo Ishiguro: A FamilySupper Updated: 2005-05-07 00:43:13 Description: A longish truancy calls for a longish return, so this one clocks in accordingly on the longish side. Given his penchant for regular oxygen-free plunges into plots and thoughts of strained family relations, self-imposed exile, cultural alienation and...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Muriel Spark: The Young Man Who Discovered The Secret of Life Updated: 2005-05-12 00:43:13 Description: Never you mind the perceived furtive abscondence of Miette these days. I could never leave you in a state of raw list(en)lessness, that just wouldn't be fair, and if there's any fairness at all in this world, you can bet it'd be in the form of Miette...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Yukio Mishima: Fountains in the Rain Updated: 2005-05-14 00:43:13 Description: For at least the last five or six minutes of this reading, I was stifling an enormous sneeze, which came out promptly the second I rushed to stop recording (there may or may not have left physical evidence of the sneeze's disdain for having been igno...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD H.E. Bates: Never Updated: 2005-05-16 00:43:13 Description: The source of one character's restless despair is another woman's interlude between the busy minutes of other days. Then again, carried out for too long and it becomes the very same restlessness. A forgotten treasure.Miette's Bedtime Story Podcast:...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Virginia Woolf: The Mark on the Wall Updated: 2005-05-18 23:39:13 Description: "Nothing but spaces of light and dark..." these peripatetic obstacles of thought made connected. That's the good stuff, Ginny, that's the stuff that brings respite from daily restiveness and yes Virginia, this is scant a clause.Mein Gott but after r...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Yuri Olesha: The Cherry Seed Updated: 2005-05-23 23:39:13 Description: Here's just one of the many fine things about reading stories into my iPod to be read to you: I can read a story like Olesha, and stop and get all breathy in the middle because I've forgotten that he constructs it that way, or I can catch myself fro...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Elizabeth Spencer: A Kiss At The Door Updated: 2005-05-27 22:09:13 Description: A rare gem at the bookstore after work today: a nice old hardcover copy of Tess D'U for fifty cents. Now, Tess was once on frequent rotation at Miette's Lending Library, until Miette woke up to see that the Library had become not a Library so much ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Jean Cocteau: The Fantom of Marseilles Updated: 2005-05-30 17:19:13 Description: This was recorded from the verdant overgrown idyll overlooked by my fire escape (which, if you can ignore the fact that you have to climb out a window to get to it, andget over the fact that you're squatting on metal bars, and that it's, you know, IL...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Alain Robbe-Grillet: The Shore Updated: 2005-06-02 00:22:13 Description: 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 c...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Bruno Schulz: The Birds Updated: 2005-06-03 00:26:13 Description: Diabolically brilliant phantasmallegory of what must be a creepily Schulzian sort: it's not necessarily a bedtime story for children. I worry about the children!Bruno Schulz: The Birds...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Heinrich Boll: Like a Bad Dream Updated: 2005-06-07 19:21:13 Description: Days like today you should really be outside. And so, to those listening on lumbering machines, for an optimal podcasting experience I should recommend the following:1. Put the POD back in your cast. Download it to anything portable (for the byzant...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Katherine Ann Porter: The Grave Updated: 2005-06-13 23:00:13 Description: Big news today, as I'm sure you've all read by now: our Miette has just been found not guilty on charges of committing vainglorious podcasting exercises for the sole purpose of hearing her own voice while increasing the regularity with which she read...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Sean O'Faolain: Innocence Updated: 2005-06-15 03:54:13 Description: a.k.a. John Whelan. Look him up (if I were the type to end an avowal with a "yo," this would be the time, as in "look him up, yo."). Also a worthwhile nonfiction writer if you've a yen for Irish history.That said, it should be well past your bedtim...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD James Joyce: The Boarding House Updated: 2005-06-16 01:00:13 Description: 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),...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Alice Walker: To Hell With Dying Updated: 2005-06-17 21:04:13 Description: How better to celebrate new clarity in sound than with a bold new header image? What think ye? Sound better? Yea?Miette's Bedtime Story Bettercast: Alice Walker: To Hell With Dying...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Rudyard Kipling: At The Pit's Mouth Updated: 2005-06-21 00:04:13 Description: Despite the fact that someone (Miette, no Man's Wife), is showing evidence of growing fatigue by the stammering end of this, and despite that fact that someone (yes) has rarely rendez-vous'd in a cemetery, and certainly never one in a place such as S...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Ernest Hemingway: Hills Like White Elephants Updated: 2005-06-21 22:20:13 Description: This may be one you remember from your schooldays, maybe one that made you a liberal, or a feminist, or a prolifer, prochoicer, or antichoicer, or the other way around altogether or none of these things at all. But now, I will break from objective n...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Raymond Carver: Kindling Updated: 2005-06-27 23:20:13 Description: Is there anything, and I mean anything, italics and all, better than a good fortuitous bookend to a good podcast? Not only does this story have one of the best first lines of all stories ("It was the middle of August and Myers was between lives," th...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Alphone Daudet: The Last Lesson Updated: 2005-06-27 23:20:13 Description: Happy 49th Podcast!The 49th is, of course, a notable one: it's our last perfect square until 64, and even then, both digits won't also be perfect squares. And, of course, it's the last podcast of our extended youth together; next time I post, we sh...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD John Fante: My Mother's Goofy Song Updated: 2005-07-04 15:22:13 Description: For those not out barbecuing or picnicking or watching cosmic collisions or stealing carbide:John Fante: My Mother's Goofy Song...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Maxim Gorky: Her Lover Updated: 2005-07-10 11:50:13 Description: In reality, we also are fallen folks, and, so far as I can see, very deeply fallen into the abyss of self-sufficiency and the conviction of our own superiority. But enough of this. It is all as old as the hills--so old that it is a shame to speak of ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Oscar Wilde: The Happy Prince Updated: 2005-07-13 22:50:13 Description: If anybody ever asks you if you're a happy prince or a sparrow, you should be prepared with an answer: I tell you now, you never know when it might be asked of you. And it might. To prepare you for such a day is today's podcast, and in helping you ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Alice Dunbar: A Carnival Jangle Updated: 2005-07-18 00:17:13 Description: I don't know much about where you are, but where I am, I can tell you a thing or two about the heat right now. The thing being: it's hot. Mighty hot. The sort of hot where you pile your hair up off your neck and sit in your skivs and wish you pos...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Ivan Turgenev: The Country Doctor Updated: 2005-07-23 00:43:13 Description: 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 #...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Jorge Luis Borges: The Waiting Updated: 2005-07-26 01:16:14 Description: On occasion, another excruciatingly bleak day will end with a moderately edifying insignia etched onto your nightcap, and on those occasions, you want nothing more than to return home to tranquility and a nice short harmless podcast. And sometimes, ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Olaf Stapledon: A World of Sound Updated: 2005-07-31 21:16:14 Description: Another short one for another short day, and the beauty here should be evident: how lovely it would be if our physical presences existed as waves of sound, if physical injury were a momentary blip of discord, if your emotional duress a note hit flat,...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Bjornstjerne Bjornson: The Father Updated: 2005-08-06 12:22:14 Description: Carrying on with the recurring theme of Is It Possible That It's Really This Hot?, we go now to Norway, lovely Norway, land of good design, natural air conditioning in August, symbolist screaming, gabbling Heddas, and oh yes, have I mentioned it's pr...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Jerome K. Jerome: A Charming Woman Updated: 2005-08-12 22:22:14 Description: Um, there must be some mistake, I think. Climate Change means that weather systems need to be... well... not the same muggy filthy smoggy dogbreath-upon-shoulders shoulders every time you step outside. I accept, grudgingly, the current sorry state ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD John Barth: Good-Bye To The Fruits Updated: 2005-08-17 00:22:14 Description: This longish-short comedo-tragic bit just about covers everything. And for those things not covered in the "just about" disclaimer, you might have fun over a few spare moments with this Barth reference. Or if you don't, well, I sure did, and do I n...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Dylan Thomas: After the Fair Updated: 2005-08-28 00:22:14 Description: MEMORANDUMTo: fair listenersFrom: MietteRe: the random audible aspiration to be heard in this podcastPlease do excuse the random audible aspiration to be heard in this podcast full stop Some stories do excite me so, and sometimes I find myself nearly...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Rainer Maria Rilke: A Meeting Updated: 2005-08-31 00:08:14 Description: Oh boy, oh boy, guess who's excited about tonight's podcast?It's me, Miette-- I'm excited, silly listener. You see, in the insuppressible excitement of putting books in boxes for an upcoming move, I found, surprisingly dust-free and hidden behind a ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Jack Kerouac: New York Nite Club Updated: 2005-09-07 22:30:14 Description: Quite possibly the quietest, most listless, bottomless podcast of Kerouac you've ever experienced, this. Possibly? Quite possibly. But not without due charm on its own, and intent at that! For listen: do you hear the passing buses in the backgrou...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD J.F. Powers: A Valiant Woman Updated: 2005-09-10 23:30:14 Description: On a walk this afternoon, I spotted curbside an abandoned 1972 volume of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, volume 4 (BOTHA TO CARTHAGE!!) which somehow mysteriously made its way from its landfill destiny to my grubby paw and later, to a treasured positio...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD P.G. Wodehouse: Monkey Business Updated: 2005-09-15 20:13:14 Description: A secret: Endurance Reading is nothing new for Miette. She's participated in marathon readings of epic Greek poetry, she stays up on Bloomsday and reads along, she reads you ...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD Edna Ferber: The Woman Who Tried to Be Good Updated: 2005-09-18 13:13:14 Description: I dreamt last night that I was a reluctant part of some Truman Showy podcasting reality television show, forced to read literature into one of those cellphone hands-free microphones round-the-clock from a text that was projected onto the insides of m...more... LISTEN NOW | VIEW CACHE | DOWNLOAD |
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