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.
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Raymonds Run
A disclaimer: the Wiki says that tonights story is how to put this Big in Middle School Circles. But dont let that put you off (especially if you yourself run in Middle School Circles, or are Big therein). I can be as big of an arrogant elitist as the next lady when it comes to my own sometimes ob …
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In Dreams Begin Responsibilities
Well, pilgrims. Its 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 the rhythm of his narrative with an almost painful wistfuln …
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The Specialists Hat
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 times. The problem is, as you may have heard, money …
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The Quilt
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 Banned Book, although for reasons that will become evi …
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To the Open Water
As I noted in the whole wide verbal megillah setting up tonights reading, Im taking great issue with the Wikipedia entry on tonights author. Here, again, is the first sentence, with my call to fix it: Jesse Hill Ford (December 28, 1928 - June 1, 1996) was an American writer of Southern literature w …
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The Spring
But in order to be mad scientists, first we had to learn how to be normal scientists. Its funny, imagining John Fahey sitting in a hotel rampantly scrawling. Not because hes so otherwise voiceless, or should relegate his expressiveness to the steel-stringed style, or other reasons fascistic or idio …
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When I Was Miss Dow
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 that would involve psychographic profiling of the …
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Of Angleworms and Others
So its summer right now, if youre with me hemispherically. Although if you were to zoom in a little closer youd see that in some places, were tying up that chapter, its cooling down, and that means its time to read you some Tove Jansson. Now, I was going to read you something from the Moomins, b …
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Show-and-Tell
In the two days since first reading of tonights story, Ive 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 various beasts kicking about the place, or showing-and-telling one ru …
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Fun With Your New Head
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 wouldnt let me object it was natures way and the mouse deserved whatever was coming to it, aft …
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The Self-Contained Compartment
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 for automotive troubleshooting, that maybe his vehic …
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The Pukey
But when it thinks, I feel like vomiting. With these words, it is clear that if Nigel Dennis were still around Id be his groupie. Id start the FaceBook Club and make mashups on Youtube for him and disguise myself as an editor at Rolling Stone Magazine to obtain his personal email address, which I w …
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Eveline
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 YOU list, were such a thing to exist, might be an …
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The Cask of Amontillado
So I read in the news today about the Indonesian macaque monkeys whove learned to successfully catch fish, and how exciting this is for biology, and how its a living and breathing example of the adaptation of a species to its conditions and environment, and really it was all astonishing stuff to rea …
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A Rose for Emily
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 youre going to have your identity stolen, would constitute Theft in Style. No, my identity was used to buy clip ar …
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Señor Payroll
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, its best described as a warehouse for bottled beers. This morning, while walking my dog past the top-secret bottling facility, a man …
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A Note on the Camping Craze That is Currently Sweeping America
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 did. I found an exceptional home for him, a home wh …
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Truth or Consequences
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, whos to say it takes more that that way more, maybe, to relax muscles as sore as these and attempt to put together nerves which have been plucked to the bone. For …
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Last Class
All week Ive 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 its quiet enough. But it hasnt been quiet enough. All week thereve been people, russian sailors doi …
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Binoculars
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 cant heave in private (and Im not a histrionic sort of girl), and saddened that a frosts heave has to be ann …
Miette's Bedtime Story Podcast
