Beaut Commute

Vinyl Cafe

 

Technology is a wonderful thing that connects us to the people in our lives.

And the spiders in our lives.

I am currently house sitting for a good friend. After a very satisfying evening watching The Bill followed by Taggart, I got into bed and happily sighed with contentment as I had that magic moment when you appreciate how soft the pillows are as you drift into sleep. Mid sigh – I happened to spot a very large and hairy spider on the ceiling above my head. My laptop was gently slumbering in the corner so I whipped out my digital camera, took a photo, zoomed in close, picked up my mobile and googled “Australian spider striped legs’. This bought up all sorts of frightening specimens but I finally identified my friend as a 'Huntsman'. It was kind of cheering to discover that though these spiders do bite, their bites only result in pain and swelling. Not death. However, as I read on, I also discovered they liked to run really fast and jump.

I did debate whether the spider and I could share the room but the thought of turning off the light knowing there was a fast running, jumping, stripy legged, biting spider on the ceiling meant that eventually I decamped into the spare room.

And even then I couldn’t sleep, I keep imagining I heard scuttling, so I started listening to Stuart McLean's stories from the Vinyl Cafe, recommended to me by the talented novelist, Rachael King. He is very funny and he had me so compelled that very soon all thoughts of the spider were gone.

Indeed, in the morning, the spider was also gone. I like to think it went out the window I kindly left open for it but chances are it has relocated to somewhere around the clothes basket, ready to ambush me in a fast running, jumpy, bitey sort of way when I next go to wash my socks. Stuart would have made a meal of the situation...

New Yorker Fiction

 

So I've been desperately on the hunt for a good book review podcast... to little avail so far. BBC is worthy but a bit boring (although the interview complete with reader's Q&A with Gunter Grass on The Tin Drum was good). NY Times is a bit smug and clever. I'm struggling to find that sense of excited passionate enthusiasm in a book review. 

While I continue on this hunt I suggest all book lovers listen to The New Yorker Fiction podcast (free from iTunes). The New Yorker's fiction editor, Deborah Treisman gives an introduction and a brief interview with a well known writer who then reads a short story by another writer that they have chosen from the magazine's archive. 

 

These are some of my favourites:

• Jeffrey Eugenides reads Harold Brodkey’s short story “Spring Fugue.”
• Paul Theroux reads Jorge Luis Borges’s short story “The Gospel According to Mark.”
• Joyce Carol Oates reads Eudora Welty’s “Where Is the Voice Coming From?”

It's a bit like being in your own secret nerdy book club.

The News From Lake Woebegone

 
"Well, it's been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon, Minnesota, my hometown, out on the edge of the prairie."

 Garrison Keillor, the legendary host of American Public Radio’s ‘Prairie Home Companion’ recently suffered a stroke, poor bloke.

 He has, of course, effortlessly referenced it into his shows and his tales from Lake Woebegone seem even more humanised by it.  Men may be from Mars, and Women from Venus but Keillor’s men and women from Lake Woebegone have offered me far more insight into human relationships than any self help book.

Lake Woebegone is a fictional town in Minnesota and on his radio show every week, Keillor tells their stories of love, humiliation and the smallest things. Small happenings by ordinary people – tales that reach into our minds and hearts and make us shake with laughter and recognition.

You can download them for free off iTunes by searching for American Public Media and clicking on 'APM: A Prairie Home Companion's News From Lake Woebegone'. 

May possibly cause you to laugh on the bus and is also good for car trips I’ve found.