To the Rescue

Selected Shorts

Symphony Space

Arts, Fiction, Books, Society & Culture

4.4 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 28 December 2023

⏱️ 62 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Host Meg Wolitzer presents three stories about characters who try to prepare for trouble, sometimes doing more harm than good. In Joe Meno’s “Animal Hospital” a well-meaning father is surprised by his kids’ response to a game of doctor. The reader is Becky Anne Baker. An interview with Meno is featured in the show. In “The Silk Handkerchief,” by Sait Faik Abasiyanik, a thief and a night watchman have a moment of rapport. It’s read by Amir Arison. And Margaret Atwood’s recurring couple Nell and Tig try to stave off the inevitable by taking a “First Aid” class. The reader is Maggie Siff. Margaret Atwood introduces the story from the stage.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Prepare yourself. No, you don't have to go on one of those wilderness survival shows, but it's never a bad idea to
0:14.3	expect the unexpected. I'm Meg Walitzer, and this week on selected shorts, writers
0:19.7	including Margaret Atwood help us get ready to save one another and ourselves.
0:24.8	Stay tuned. You're listening to selected shorts where our greatest actors transport us
0:46.7	through the magic of fiction one short story at a time. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail to fail to fail. That quote, often attributed to but probably not originated
0:58.4	by Benjamin Franklin is just one of those old saws that a buzzkill parent or some other boring adult
1:05.1	intoned at you when you had some big test or another challenge looming on the horizon.
1:10.7	And as much as I hate to say those boring adults and Benjamin Franklin and whoever else were right, they kind of were. Maybe the only way to really be prepared is to follow the lead of a great fictional character, Mary Poppins, whose carpet bag seemed
1:25.7	to contain everything.
1:27.8	But I could never be prepared like that.
1:29.8	Clearly, I'm not practically perfect in every way.
1:33.6	It's true that we can't plan for some of life's less than pleasant surprises, but let's
1:38.0	take some direction from the school principal who made us do fire drills, often in winter, and from your mother, who always wanted you to take a
1:45.1	rain bonnet with you. Can I just ask two questions before getting back to the power of literature?
1:51.3	Has anyone anywhere ever voluntarily worn a rain bonnet? And why is it called
1:56.8	a bonnet that little piece of accordion folded plastic with the single metal snap is surely not a
2:02.4	19th century invention.
2:04.7	And yet your mother might tell you that if you have a rain bonnet with you at all times, you will
2:08.9	be able to face obstacles that come your way, at least those of the inclement kind. The stories on this show
2:16.1	all feature characters who see some kind of obstacle up in front of them, and they either
2:21.0	rehearse for that future emergency or at least make sense of the
2:25.3	possibility in order to render it less scary. In one story a father starts a game
	...

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