Hello Friends! It’s easy to link author Annie Proulx with quintessential American Realism. She’s writing about Wyoming for Pete’s sake, and regular, if not downright poor people. You can’t get much realistic-er than that. Or can you? Proulx’s writing is dense, elegiac, funny, perverse, and strange. I've discussed the notion of the queer in my … Continue reading Annie Proulx’s queer wyomingans and the non-realistic
Tag: Magically Real
Storytime Sunday, 03/04/12 —
A little story about a gorilla. Appropriate for children of all ages. One slightly bad word towards the end. The adventures of Johannes Once upon a time there was a Mexican gorilla. He was kind and fierce and loyal to his adopted mother who had found him in a steamer trunk that had washed up … Continue reading Storytime Sunday, 03/04/12 —
Got dystopia? The history of our hunger for the nightmare society
Dear Magically Real: I have some questions for you. What’s a dystopia and where does the first one show up? What do you think of the Hunger Games? Are you excited about the movie? I love the way those people look in the trailer they are showing! They remind me a little of the Marie … Continue reading Got dystopia? The history of our hunger for the nightmare society
Storytime Sunday @ Magically Real 02/19/12
Maccabee and Maccabee Maccabee and Maccabee are a father and daughter team that make and wear magical masks. Monsters and mermaids. The sun. The moon. Animals and objects that have never been. Philosophical concepts like phenomena and noumena. The categorical imperative and the will to power. Maccabee masks give faces to the impossible. It started … Continue reading Storytime Sunday @ Magically Real 02/19/12
Storytime Sunday @ Magically Real, 02/12/12
Somehow the death of Whitney Houston makes me want to share this story, that I wrote originally for my mother in law, Charlotte Behrendt. The story appeared in Square Lake, and is one of my favorites. Enjoy. Small Stars A woman who lived in a beautiful suburb became very sick. Your lungs, said the doctors … Continue reading Storytime Sunday @ Magically Real, 02/12/12
Unreal Valentine: Revisiting Carnations #1: Pina Bausch and the dance of words
In the 1990's, I was invited at the last moment to see a performance of a dance called "Carnations" to be performed by Pina Bausch's Tanztheater Wuppertal. I hesitated. I had seen the company's brutal peat-moss strewn interpretation of the RITES OF SPRING in the 80's in Brooklyn, and was still recovering from the experience. … Continue reading Unreal Valentine: Revisiting Carnations #1: Pina Bausch and the dance of words
Magnificent Monday Story @ Magically Real (make-up for Super Bowl Snow Day), 02/06/12
A story about 3 beings beginning with the letter "M." Appropriate for silly people of all ages. Never before appearing in public..... it's: Mongolian, Mongrel, and Mongoose Together they are the three. The holy hot heads of Monterey forest, Woodland Hills, the Schwarzwald, the Bois de Boulogne, the Cedars of Lebanon, Zambesi National Park or … Continue reading Magnificent Monday Story @ Magically Real (make-up for Super Bowl Snow Day), 02/06/12
Kathleen Alcalá explains Magical Realism!
Dear Magically Real: What the heck IS Magical Realism anyway? Please advise. An admiring but confused reader. -------------------- Dear confused: No worries! Noted Seattle-7 fiction writer and essayist Kathleen Alcalá explains the term with 6 easy-to-understand criteria. Characteristics of Magic Realism by Kathleen Alcalá There are some general ideas that I think most people will … Continue reading Kathleen Alcalá explains Magical Realism!
Storytime Sunday @ Magically Real, 01/29/12
A slightly sexy story about the power of reading, that originally appeared in the wonderful NYCBigCityLit online journal. Read on..... Cockeresque Never read Kafka when you are in love. There can be outcomes. I read In the Penal Colony with him, and The Metamorphosis with her. I shouldn't have shared the same author with the … Continue reading Storytime Sunday @ Magically Real, 01/29/12
Reading SEVEN GOTHIC TALES: Transformation, Transvestism, and “feminine” desire
Like many women writers of the 19th Century, 20tth Century author Karen Blixen decided to use a male pseudonym, when she decided to give up working her ex-husband's coffee plantation in Africa, and try being a writer instead. Her pen name, Isaac, (Laughter) signals that she wants to laugh at the masquerade she has created … Continue reading Reading SEVEN GOTHIC TALES: Transformation, Transvestism, and “feminine” desire
Stephanie Barbé Hammer Writing (Un) Real 