This is Just to Say

Some time ago, This American Life (“Mistakes Were Made“) had some regular contributors give a rendition of William Carlos Williams’ “This is Just to Say.” Here are our friends:

This Is Just To Say
by
Jonathan Goldstein

This is just to say
I have eaten the Fruit of Knowledge
but nothing happened

not a word
no lightning or volcanoes
not even a drop of rain

So I was just wondering
Are you there?

This Is Just To Say
by
Heather O’Neill

Dear Mom,
This is just to say
I forgive you for eating all the plums
the apples the pears
and even drinking the last of the orange juice

I forgive you for emptying Dad’s bank account
and for painting stars on our station wagon
right before you got in and drove away
I forgive you for leaving us without even saying goodbye

Your plans were always
so sweet, so delicious
and so cold

This is just to say b

At our wedding
I disappeared briefly
To have sex with your sister
Up against the back of the port-o-sans

What can I say
The chardonnay was so fresh and cold
And I so full of love and a sense of family

And I said, I’m sure
One day we’ll laugh about this
Well, by one day
I meant that day
And by we
I meant me
And by laugh
I meant laugh

his is just to say by Starlee Kine
1
I chose the other girl
I’m sorry
It’s not just that I’m more attracted to her
It’s also that she’s more interesting

2
I used your dog as an excuse
To pick up girls at the dog park
Which is especially tacky
Since I am your boyfriend

Please forgive me
I’m really bad at being
In a relationship
But I’m pretty sure
I told you that
When we first got together

This is just to say by Shalom Auslander
1
I’m sorry you’re overweight
And drinking
And feeling like everything
In your life
Is doomed to failure
But this is probably why
Mom said
I was her favorite

2
It sucks, little doe
That I hit you
with my car

But at least
You weren’t alive
To watch the hunters
Shoot your children

3
He was a troublemaker, okay
And didn’t know when
To shut up

Still
We never would have killed him
If we’d known he was the Lord

Guilt and Pleasure

At the end of Private Life; Public Performance JG mentions that the first act was a collaboration between him and Mireille Silcoff and appears in Guilt and Pleasure. For the life of me, I can’t find it but I did find some other delectable goodies:

• Gregor Ehrlich essay: A Life in Chickens
• Jonathan Goldstein: Messiah in a Bottle (print version of the episode Messiah ‘83)
• Jonathan Goldstein: Man Not Superman (as read by Rob Corddry in We Are Not Supermen, also heard on This American Life)
• David Rakoff: Oh The Trouble I’ve Heard
• Shalom Auslander: Plagued
• Gregor Ehrlich: To Life
• Shalom Auslander: Mahmoud, Mom; Mom, Mahmoud
• Mireille Silcoff: Chez l’arabe

Oh and pictures:

I think you should all go to Guilt and Pleasure and read/buy every issue. David Rakoff has a piece in the newest issue, too.

I think this is an all-Jewish publication. Though it doesn’t mention that any where in its about. Maybe it just so happens that all my favorite authors are Canadian Jews.

Guilt & Pleasure is a quarterly magazine that’s making you talk more . Guilt & Pleasure is based on the belief that a good argument – especially on issues of community and identity in America – has become too rare a thing. We hope our magazine and the DIY section of this website will be used as raw material to spark conversation – be it around the dinner table, a coffee shop, or a bar. Guilt & Pleasure encourages you to talk amongst yourselves.

UPDATE: I emailed the magazine seeking the piece, and apparently it doesn’t exist?:

I’m not sure which article you are referring to. Jonathan and Mireille have both written for the magazine (and Mireille was the editor-in-chief) but I don’t believe they ever did an article together. And the hypnotist doesn’t sound familiar to me although I wasn’t working here for the first four issues so I could be wrong. It sounds like it would be in the Magic issue- there is an article about Hitler’s psychic/hypnotist by Mel Gordon in there- could that be what they were talking about?

Hmm, Guess I’ll ask CBC.

ReRuns: A Secret History of Famous Friends

EDIT: I just noticed that this page has been getting an inordinate amount of hits, which means either you guys are all suddenly into Wiretap or everyone’s going to be Fred Flintstone for Halloween. At any rate, I’ve moved this website to Yourelisteningtowiretap.net.

Well looks like Wiretap is running reruns for the summer – not only that, this week’s episode is a repeat containing a repeat: the Barney Rubble and Fred Flintstone piece appeared on This American Life episode 345, “Ties that Bind.” What’s more interesting, a live version in of this bit showed up on “Love Thy Neighbor,” on April 4, 2007, which was drastically different, though I think it used the same phone clips. I think I prefer the new version more – it is truer to the Wiretap format and tells as much of a story without any narration. But then again, the Jonathan Goldstein monologue style gives you more of the trademark JG storytelling. I guess its interesting to see the same story approached form two distinct Wiretap-styles and have both be successful.

Anyway, that was in Act II. Give both versions a listen and enjoy.

What else happens in this episode? Well there’s the story of the Penguin meeting Mary Poppins. And then there’s a bit where Jonathan Goldstein calls up Josh Karpati who begins ribbing him for his unusually high telephone bill by pretending to be a Bell employee deflecting a customer complaint. I’ll make a summary page later.

Oh, and Wendy Dorr (This American Life producer and regular help on Wiretap) is the voice of Betty on the Rubble’s answering machine.

Image grifted from 80s Tees, meaning, yeah I guess you can buy that.

Heather O’Neill – Lullabies for Little Criminals

I just received Lullabies for Little Criminals in the mail today. I’ll provide updates on my thoughts later.

From the backcover:

A gritty, heart-wrenching novel about bruised innocence on the city’s feral streets– the remarkable debut of a stunning literary talent. Heather O’Neill dazzles with a first novel of extraordinary prescience and power, a subtly understated yet searingly effective story of a young life on the streets–and the strength, wits and luck necessary for survival.

At thirteen, Baby vacillates between childhood comforts and adult temptation: still young enough to drag her dolls around in a vinyl suitcase yet old enough to know more than she should about urban cruelties. Motherless, she lives with her father, Jules, who takes better care of his heroin habit than he does of his daughter. Baby’s gift is a genius for spinning stories and for cherishing the small crumbs of happiness that fall into her lap. But her blossoming beauty has captured the attention of a charismatic and dangerous local pimp who runs an army of sad, slavishly devoted girls–a volatile situation even the normally oblivious Jules cannot ignore. And when an escape disguised as betrayal threatens to crush Baby’s spirit, she will ultimately realize that the power of salvation rests in her hands alone.

Sounds interesting. I’ve always preferred “heart-wrenching” over “heart-warming.” I read somewhere else that this novel is “semi-autobiographical,” which, I guess is unsurprising: I’ve always viewed Heather O’Neill that way in my mind–rough and forlorn with the child/adult vacillation and all. The back also has mad props from our friend David Rakoff ["This is a beautiful book, all the more remarkable beacuse its harrowing tale is (vitruosically) told without a trace of self-pity or bathos..."] and a brief bio:

Heather O’Neill is a contributor to This American Life, and her work has appeared in New York Times Magazine. She lives in Montreal, Canada.

Hm, they left out her most sterling accomplishment (in my eyes): contributor to Wiretap and “long-time partner” of Jonathan Goldstein! No worries, our hero gets mentioned in the dedication:

“I would especially like to thank . . . Jonathan Goldstein for love and squalor.”

Squalor? Hm. I guess I do remember him noting that he (or a character?) looks like he has a five o’clock shadow even when clean-shaven. Here’s how Transom.org displays him:

Anyway, that’s all for now.

UPDATE: Turns out there’s an audio podcast excerpt of this from HarperCollins  Canada Prosecast.  Check it. It’s read by Miriam McDonald, “one of the stars of Degrassi: The Next Generation.”  Here’s what else they said:

This podcast is the second in our series of excerpts from terrific new AudioBooks. This time, we’ll be listening to the beginning of Heather O’Neill’s debut novel, Lullabies for Little Criminals. This book was a finalist for the Governor General’s Award, as well as winning CBC Radio’s prestigious Canada Reads. It’s no wonder all of Canada was reading it.

Best of Season Four

Hello,

So looks like Wiretap has wrapped up a season and released another “best of.” This week’s: The Lives of Bugs and Men. This theme really illuminates Wiretaps strange propensity for insect related themes. Specifically:

• Howard Chackowicz becomes a beekeeper.
• Dr. Seuss consults a patient, Mr. Samsa, who, appears to have had a bit of a metamorphosis.
• Jonathan Goldstein calls his parents to talk about the afterlife.

Let’s run these down to their sources:

Howard’s beekeeper stint was first stinted on April 13, 2008 in the episode “Man is a Rope Between the Ordinary and the Extraordinary.”

“Herr Doktor” by David Rakoff first appeared on Help Me Doctor on March 16, 2008. In this bit, David Rakoff reprises his role as a doc, first explored in his collection Fraud, in which he plays Freud. Oh, and if you’re unfamiliar, Kafka is evoked here.

JG’s talk with his parents Buzz and Dyna Goldstein, about their thoughts on the afterlife comes from . . . I don’t know where. Hmm… I’ll get back to you all on that one. In the meantime, here’s a picture of Jonathan Goldstein getting saved.

On another note, I’d say that the bits they picked for this were pretty funny, but if I had to make my own best of season 4, it might go something like this:

• A former Wiretap employee creates a tell-all website describing the horrors of being JG’s intern.  Noted for being the origin of the official Wiretap ring tone. From the episode “Protect Yourself.”
• From “Mending the Past,” Gregor takes JG on a play date in the park where he forces him to confront his fear of carousels and his lactose intolerance. Features the rarely heard Jonathan Goldstein giggle.
• From “Fake It Until You Make It,” JG’s nephew Zack needs help with a speech he’s giving on Radiohead. Hilarious and also mentions Radiohead.
• From “The Quick Fix,” Maria Bamford’s teleconference with JG on team-building. Jonathan seems particularly glum in this episode, plus there’s a part involving trust falls that I think is pretty hilarious.

OKay, that’s it? That’s it. Nerd out.