Day: December 18, 2009

Random 10 12/18

Last week. This week:

  1. “Italian Leather Sofa” by Cake, guessed by Clayton
    She doesn’t care whether or not he’s an island
  2. “Every Time” by Glen Hansard & Colm Maclomaire (orig. Britney Spears)
    Why carry on without me?
  3. “I’m Not in Love” by Tori Amos (orig. 10cc), guessed by Clayton
    That doesn’t mean you mean that much to me
  4. “Love Sick” by Bob Dylan
    I’m walking through streets that are dead
  5. “Add it Up” by Violent Femmes, guessed by Clayton
    Why can’t I get just one kiss?
  6. “Lonely Boy” by Andrew Gold, guessed by Clayton
    We’ll dress him up warmly and we’ll send him to school
  7. “East of Woodstock, West of Vietnam” by Tom Russell
    And on the roads outside Oshogbo, Lord I fell down on my knees
  8. “Didn’t Want to Have to Do it” by Marshall Crenshaw (orig. the Lovin’ Spoonful)
    I kept a-hopin’ there’d be somethin’ to delay it again
  9. “I’m Free” by the Who” guessed by Betty
    And no one had the guts to leave the temple
  10. “Pensacola” by Joan Osborne, guessed by Clayton
    He got all of the transcripts back to 1963

That’s just how it works. Good luck!

The science fiction of cancer itself

I’m currently reading Lorrie Moore’s stunning short story collection, Birds of America. This morning on the train, I read “People Like That Are the Only People Here,” which I’d actually read once before, I think in my freshman fiction writing workshop. It can be a tough story to get through because of its subject matter, pediatric cancer, but it’s a masterful work. (It won the O. Henry Award for Moore in 1998.) Here’s a small bit:

Sifting through the videocassettes, the Mother wonders what science fiction could begin to compete with the science fiction of cancer itself — a tumor with its differentiated muscle and bone cells, a clump of wild nothing and its mad, ambitious desire to be something: something inside you, instead of you, another organism, but with a monster’s architecture, a demon’s sabotage and chaos. Think of leukemia, a tumor diabolically taking liquid form, better to swim about incognito in the blood. George Lucas, direct that!