shoe tree, ladies of the WNBA, transitory Venus, & etc.

A few little news stories worth a peek today...

The NYTimes has a nice short piece on a shoe tree, out in the middle of nowhere, Utah. It's a tree hung all over with shoes, which is far, far cooler than the way people chuck shoes over all the power lines in our town. The origin story:

And so goes the reason for the Shoe Tree. Mr. Stevenson's wife, Fredda, said the first pair of shoes was thrown into the branches about 20 years ago. It seems that a couple who had just gotten married in Reno stopped to camp under the cottonwood. The husband was angry with his bride for having blown their money in the slot machines. "He said it was her fault they didn't have any money," Mrs. Stevenson said.

The young wife grew annoyed with the henpecking and threatened to walk back to Utah. The groom told her that if she was walking back to Utah she was going to walk in her bare feet and threw her shoes into the tree. He left his wife standing there and drove to the bar for a beer.
"He was here for two or three hours," Mrs. Stevenson said. "I told him, 'With an attitude like that, you'll be fighting for the rest of your lives. Go back there and tell her it was all your fault.' "

The man did as he was told. The couple patched things up and the groom threw his own shoes into the tree as a sign of solidarity. A year later, Mrs. Stevenson said, the couple returned with their baby and threw his shoes into the tree as well.

Even though the WNBA season will be interrupted, we can all look forward to cheering on our favorite WNBA players during the Athens, Olympics. Go, team.

There'll be a transit of Venus on June 8, though most of us won't have too great a view.

Likewise, the Sun rises with the transit in progress over eastern North America, the Caribbean, western Africa and most of South America, allowing observers a brief view before the event ends. How much early risers see will depend on the weather and how high the Sun rises above the horizons before Venus moves out of view.

In New York, sunrise will be at 5:25 a.m., and Venus is to begin exiting the solar disc at 7:06, when the Sun is 17 degrees above the horizon. The planet's final contact with the edge of the Sun should occur at 7:26 a.m., when the Sun is 20 degrees high. Times are similar for most cities in the Eastern time zone and one hour earlier in the Central time zone. But moving West means that the Sun is lower on the horizon.

And finally (and I can't remember where I first saw this so thanks in absentia of by-name thanks), Kelly Jane Torrance has a nice examination of where the short story is, quoting its admirers and forecasting its renaissance. (Possibly.)

On the contrary, says Greg Hollingshead, author and professor at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. “TV and the Internet have easily consumed those short timespans that formerly might have been devoted to reading short stories.” Maud Newton agrees: “It's easier to watch a half-hour TV show than to read a short story. I'm sure the rise of TV had something to do with the demise of the Saturday Evening Post back in 1969 and has continued to affect the demand for short fiction.”

McGarry goes so far as to argue that television is the reason magazines have replaced fiction with non-fiction. “I think fiction upsets people more; it takes them out of their world; it entangles them in other lives in a very intimate way,” she says. “Readers of slick magazines may be trying to resist this. They want diversion but they don't want to leave the safety and familiarity of their own lives and minds.”

And while short stories may be short, they are concentrated . “A reader loses himself in a novel, but can stay there for a longer time, until the novel's world becomes familiar, comfortable,” says McGarry. “A short story takes you in, but spits you right back out again.” Hollingshead notes, “This was Frank O'Connor's argument in The Lonely Voice : Short fiction is about people at the margins, the novel addresses the mainstream middle class.”

It's worth a look for all youse short story lovers out there. You know, youse guys.

That's all for now.

worm: "Army of Me," Bjork
check out: SUNSET AND SAWDUST, Joe R. Lansdale
namecheck: Tim "Sold a Book and How You Like That?" Pratt (YAY!!!!)