Sunday, Sunday.
This is our summer read edition and, along with Dallas, the following worked on this edition:
The Third Estate Sunday Review's Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, and Ava,
Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude,
Betty of Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man,
C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review,
Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills),
Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix,
Mike of Mikey Likes It!,
Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz),
Ruth of Ruth's Report,
Wally of The Daily Jot,
Trina of Trina's Kitchen
Marcia of SICKOFITRDLZ,
Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends,
Isaiah of The World Today Just Nuts,
and Ann of Ann's Mega Dub.
And all drawings and paintings are by Betty's kids (sometimes with Kat's help). We thank everyone.
If you're new to the site -- or if you drop by frequently like Sharon Smith but are too stupid (like Sharon Smith) to grasp what you have read -- we do the summer read every summer. Have been, in fact, doing it since our first year. So this is our sixth annual summer read.
For those late to the party, let's recap.
The June 26, 2005 edition was our first summer read. Those who worked on that edition were:
Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess and Ava of The Third Estate Sunday Review;
Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude;
Betty of Thomas Friedman is a Great Man;
Kat of Kat's Korner;
and C.I. of The Common Ills
You can also be sure Dallas worked on it as well. The short story content was:
A Fractured Life (the Wally Lamb style book) K-Boy Tries To Get Back Home (a horrific parable) The Gleeful Boy (the Sue Miller type read) Summer poetry: "Filling the Well" Peek (the summer page turner) Kooky Cokie Roberts offers up advice
and rounding out that summer read edition:
Five Books, Five Minutes, Editorial: Mainstream Press Do Your Homework on the pre-invasion bombings and TV Review OC: The arm pit of body wash operettas
The June 4, 2006 edition was our second summer read. Working on that edition (along with Dallas) were:
The Third Estate Sunday Review's Dona, Jess, Ty, Ava and Jim;
Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude;
Betty of Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man;
C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review;
Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills);
Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix;
Mike of Mikey Likes It!;
Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz;
and Wally of The Daily Jot.
The fiction offered:
Song of the War Hawks Super Laura?
Once upon a time there were plenty of Baby Dumbasses
Sherman's Story
From a diary found in the Mayflower Hotel
The ones we never know
TV: TESR Investigates
June 24, 2007 was our third edition. Along with Dallas, the following helped:
The Third Estate Sunday Review's Dona, Jess, Ty, Ava and Jim,
Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude,
Betty of Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man,
C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review,
Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills),
Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix,
Mike of Mikey Likes It!,
Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz,
and Wally of The Daily Jot
And we produced:
TV: Hidden Yawns
Base Is Hell
The Tired Tryst
The Asbury Park Murder
Creation Theory
Samantha Power Between Her Knees
Cut The Fat! Newt Takes It Off!
June 22, 2008 was our fourth edition and along with Dallas, the following worked on it:
The Third Estate Sunday Review's Dona, Jess, Ty, Ava and Jim,
Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude,
Betty of Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man,
C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review,
Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills),
Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix,
Mike of Mikey Likes It!,
Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz,
Ruth of Ruth's Report,
Wally of The Daily Jot,
and Marcia SICKOFITRDLZ.
And our summer reads included:
TV: Breaking what?
New York Times, Early Edition
Clouds
The non-whistle blower
Bee-bees and cockle bugs
Circling
June 21, 2009 was our summer read last year, worked on by Dallas and:
The Third Estate Sunday Review's Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, and Ava,
Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude,
Betty of Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man,
C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review,
Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills),
Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix,
Mike of Mikey Likes It!,
Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz,
Ann who's filling in for Ruth at Ruth's Report,
Wally of The Daily Jot,
Marcia of SICKOFITRDLZ
and Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends.
And our efforts were:
TV: Fiction
The curse
Hey there! Marilyn Monroe is using Twitter.
Clooney's Dark Secrets
Summer reads
The Dumb Ass Hour every Saturday morning
The wedding day
The house
The literary ranter
Summer reads?
We don't fancy ourselves literary giants. We are, however, familiar that short stories -- and poems -- used to abound in many magazines -- some of which still exist today but offer no fiction, no poems, no fiction reviews. Rolling Stone, for example, when it actually did album reviews, used to run little poems on those pages.
Rolling Stone, in fact, is why we do a fiction review. One of our (Dona, Jess, Ava, Ty and me -- Jim) college professors came into class with a group of magazines one day (this is probably 2003 or 2004) and dumped them around various groups. Our group got a Rolling Stone from the eighties. We don't remember the cover. But the issue boasted it was a summer read.
It contained the first of the Bonfire of the Vanities excerpts. It also contained a short story by Stephen King and one by Jackie Collins ("Rock Star," Dona thinks was the name of Collins' short story). It contained many other things as well.
But with each magazine, the professor wanted the class to figure out what was different from that issue and today. We rightly guessed that Rolling Stone doesn't do a summer fiction edition anymore.
So each summer, we've done it. We haven't rocked the literary world by any means, but we have demonstrated it is possible to do one. Others may offer excuses, but we know it's possible. And we wish everyone would consider doing a piece of summer fiction at their sites. Forget whether it's 'good' or 'bad,' just attempt something, just break the pattern and try to create.
Even when we have an awful session (2008 or 2007 was our worst by our judgment), it helps the next edition in ways we'd never have guessed.
It's always good to try to stretch.
Which explains this writing edition. But we'll get to it.
First what are we offering?
As usual we offer a truest (two in fact). This is Hillary Is 44. Were we not doing a fiction edition, we would have done a piece just on this catch. We hope you will add water and expand.
Cindy Sheehan and she's back in DC taking on the War Machine.
Our editorial. Credit to Wally and Ann for the theme because we had none. We wrote this right after stuff started going up. "Highlights" for example, had just been posted.
And so begins the fiction edition, with this piece by Ava and C.I. Due to a number of problems, we (Dona and I) suggested killing the fiction edition, doing it next weekend. Ava and C.I. were insistent that they'd already written this piece, it needed to run today and there was no way they could do another like it next week. And they reminded us of the last year when they wrote a piece for the summer edition and then I killed the edition (but their piece still ran).
Our devoted reader Sharon Smith writes in. Which allows us to roundtable on parody, on reading and oh-so much more. Sharon, I'm glad your one of our biggest fans. When I think of you, I'll always picture Kathy Bates.
Ava and C.I. had written their TV commentary. We'd done the Sharon Smith roundtable. There was some talk of truests (though they weren't picked) and we'd written this when we hit a wall. All the ideas were the same idea. And it wasn't working. Not at all. Jess, Ava, C.I., Elaine and I went for a walk. We didn't know what to do. It was now too late to scrap the edition unless people had news topics at the ready. But the edition wasn't working. The five of us were the most awake (before the walk, but surely during the walk) and we spit balled ideas. Finally, the ladies proposed Collages. An Anais Nin book of interlocking stories (not unlike her Cites of the Interior but on a smaller scale). What if, they suggested, we do write what people are suggesting but from different angles. What if, instead of telling several different stories in our summer read, we carry one story all the way through. "Like Nashville," Jess said (referring to the movie), "and we just focus on different aspects in each short story." So that's what we decided to do. This one had taken us into a 'creative class' neighborhood as Mia and Chance moved in. Neighbors Kimberly, Sylvia, Mark, Jim and Susan were introduced and, at the end, Mia dies. It's 2007.
So Mia's sister hires a private detective. Who's not very smart but is intuitive at times. This revolves around him and Mark and Chance as well as new character Sharon Smith. It's 2008.
And taking us to after the election. 2009. Sharon, still infected, writes in the manner that only she can. Humor.
We get the backstory on what happened. SciFi. Or SciFy as the channel now calls itself.
And what of those legion of volunteers infected. We see them before the election and after.
Beautiful friend, the end.
The regular feature that Mike and the gang do and we thank them for it.
We thank you -- yes, even you, Sharon Smith -- for reading. We'll be back with a regular edition next week. If we're around in 2011 (Elaine, Ava and C.I. hope we've closed shop by then), we'll have another summer read. Hopefully, something makes you laugh, groan or angry. Makes you feel alive.
Peace.
-- Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava and C.I.
