Storyological 2.17 - THAT CHILDHOOD ACHE

In which we discuss "Pop Art" by Joe Hill and "Walkdog" by Sofia Samatar. Also. Pity, compassion, and footnotes.

In which we discuss,

1. Pop Art by Joe Hill, 20th Century Ghosts, 2005.

Tomas Brunsdon

2. Walkdog by Sofia Samatar, Kaleidoscope: Diverse YA Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories, 2014.

Along with, among other things...

Joe Hill

On the twitter, @joe_hill.
Pop Art, a (short) film adaptation.

Sofia Samatar

A review of Tender: Stories by Sofia Samatar (where we first encountered “Walkdog”) at NPR.
Some thoughts on “Walkdog” and SFF from Lady Business.
On “Walkdog”, in an interview with Wired:

The story’s in the form of a school paper that is written by a girl who’s a high school student, and she’s writing to her teacher—really in the footnotes and kind of in the corners of this essay—and she’s saying, ‘You’re the grown-up. Why don’t you help us? High school is terrible and hard, and really awful things are happening, and you’re just up there teaching class like everything’s normal.’ And yeah, that’s a feeling that I often have as a teacher. It’s hard to balance ‘What’s the material that I need to cover and the stuff that I need to get through in order to do my job correctly?’ and then ‘When is it time to just drop that material because there’s something going on that my students want to talk about?’ There are things that are happening in life that are so much more important than me getting them to do this curriculum.”

Some Other Inflatables

Air Doll
Lars and the Real Girl

Decorating the frames of stories

Howard Hodgkin
“On the fine art of the footnote” by Jonathan Russell Clark
“Do you write in the margins?” by Jonathan H. Liu, writing in Wired.

The Power of Pity

George Saunders
“Al Roosten”
Writing in the Guardian about pathos.
From The Awl, “The Joys of the George Saunders Style Sheet.”

Jack Pendarvis
“Sex Devil”
John Hodgman says: “I like all of the yearning weirdos who wander through the work of Jack Pendarvis. You will like them too, because he reminds us we are all yearning weirdos, looking to the stars, movie and otherwise, for some fate and guidance. These stories are true ha ha funny, courageously strange, humane and affecting, and really, really good."

Joseph Campbell* - [The Power of Myth* ](http://billmoyers.com/content/ep-1-joseph-campbell-and-the-power-of-myth-the-hero%E2%80%99s-adventure-audio/)
The Hero with a Thousand Faces

Also. Also.

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Thanks for listening.

Happy reading.