← Selected Shorts
Selected Shorts
The Stories We Tell Ourselves
01:00:14
On the Media’s Brooke Gladstone was our guest for a live Selected Shorts event, and this week, host Meg Wolitzer presents some of the stories Gladstone chose. They all explore the theme of tales we tell ourselves—and others. The title says it all in Mary Gordon’s “My Podiatrist Tells Me a Story about a Boy and a Dog” read by Bebe Neuwirth and Richard Masur. Two imaginative cooks reinvent themselves in a new country in Meron Hadero’s “A Down Home Meal for These Difficult Times,” read by Chinasa Ogbuagu. And a child imagines an absent parent through her postcards in “Love, Your Only Mother” by David Michael Kaplan, read by Bebe Neuwirth.
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- [00:01]
Adobe Representative
Creativity is at the heart of everything you do, and Adobe Creative Cloud helps you take your projects to the next level no matter what you're working on this semester. Build pro level skills and create your best work with Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere Pro and over 20 other powerful creative apps. Students save over 65% on Adobe Creative Cloud. The Go to toolkit for everything from class projects to standout portfolios. Make your ideas shine in and out of the classroom. Visit adobe.comstudents to save big today.
- [00:31]
Discover Representative
Are you still quoting 30 year old movies? Have you said cool beans in the past 90 days? Do you think Discover isn't widely accepted? If this sounds like you, you're stuck in the past. Discover is accepted at 99% of places that take credit cards nationwide, and every time you make a purchase with your card, you automatically earn cash back. Welcome to the now it pays to Discover. Learn more@discover.com credit card based on the February 2024 Nelson report.
- [01:07]
Meg Wolitzer
On this selected shorts WNYC's on the media host Brooke Gladstone presents short fiction that illuminates the hilarious, profound and inspiring ways we seek to understand the human condition. I'm Meg Wolitzer. Stay with me. You're listening to Selected Shorts where our greatest actors transport us through the magic of fiction, one short story at a time. On this show, we're sharing some stories chosen by Brooke Gladstone for an evening she hosted at Symphony Space. Gladstone is the longtime producer and host of WNYC's radio show and podcast on the Media, and here she is from the stage at Symphony Space.
- [01:55]
Brooke Gladstone
Good evening everyone, and welcome to Selected Shorts. I'm your host for the evening, Brooke Gladstone. If you know me, it's probably from the radio show now. When the producers of Selected Shorts approached me about curating this evening, I thought, please don't let this be about the media. Please. Let's focus instead on the stories we tell ourselves. The favorite part of my day job and they said, sure. So each of these stories are, in a way, about stories and the particular ways these characters, some familiar, some less so, use them to define, shape and remember who it is they and we think we are.
- [02:45]
Meg Wolitzer
That was Brooke Gladstone. In response to her theme, we found three works that explore the idea of stories we tell ourselves from very different perspectives. There's a funny tale in which a doctor patient relationship leads to story hour, another in which an adult child tries to make sense of her relationship with her mother, and an emotionally resonant narrative about becoming American with the help of some classic recipes. Our first story by Mary Gordon who, by the way, was my creative writing teacher in college and is now my great friend, has the ear catching title. My Podiatrist tells me a story about a boy and a dog. Mary Gordon is an elegant shaper of brilliant observant books like Final Payments, the Company of Women and Payback and collections including the Stories of Mary Gordon. She's an essayist and a critic, too. From time to time we find that a story really needs two readers. We've even created some shows that explore this idea. Gordon's story called out for a dialogue, and we got a stylish duo to bring out the best in it, Bebe Neuwirth and Richard Massaro. Neuwirth is a Broadway film and television powerhouse whose many credits include Sweet Charity, for which she won a Tony Award, and Cheers. Recently she was in the cast of the audio adaptation of Neil Gaiman's the Sandman. Richard Massar's resume is equally rich and includes the television shows Cheers, Girls and Transparent and Broadway and Off Broadway appearances in shows such as the Changing Room. Here are Neuwirth and Massar to deliver. Mary Gordon's My Podiatrist tells me a story about a boy and a dog.
- [04:20]
Bebe Neuwirth
He says things to me like, there's no reason why you should feel any pain and I'll take care of everything. Why wouldn't I like seeing him? I first went when I had something called a planter wart beneath my big left toe. I thought it was called a planter's wart.
- [04:39]
Richard Massar
A lot of people think that and they're wrong. But you're a writer, you're interested in words, so you should know the truth.
- [04:50]
Bebe Neuwirth
He draws me a diagram of the part of the foot called the planta.
- [04:55]
Richard Massar
I don't want you to imagine people walking around with shovels in their hands putting plants in the soil, because it's not the truth.
- [05:04]
Bebe Neuwirth
I was glad to learn what he had to tell me. Now I correct other people for his sake and in his name. His daughter plays the French horn in a symphony orchestra. But she's decided she wants to be a vet, to get into veterinary school.
- [05:20]
Richard Massar
Which is already, you understand, very difficult in itself.
- [05:24]
Bebe Neuwirth
She has to take more science courses. She lives in Boston. She told him she would take the courses in the local community college.
- [05:32]
Richard Massar
Darling, I said to her, veterinary school is very hard to get into. True or not true? She had to say what she had to say. True. So what's the best, and I mean the very best place in Boston to take courses? She said what she had to say Harvard. So I said to her, you're my daughter and I want the very best for you, and I can give you the best. So, Harvard. She thanked me profusely. I cannot tell you how profusely she thanked me. She's enjoying her courses very much, though, of course they're a challenge.
- [06:13]
Bebe Neuwirth
On the bus home, I tried to imagine what it would have been like to have a father who said, I want the very best for you and I can give you the best. My life would have been wholly different. It's not well known that subspecialist most consulted by women over 40 is the podiatrist. Over the years, many of us have done terrible things to our feet. High heels, pointy shoes, damaging ourselves for vanity, for sex, from fear or from desire. A desire to please whom? When I went to see him because of the plantar wart, he shaved my calluses, which he said were painful in places because of my gait.
- [06:59]
Richard Massar
Now everybody has a gate. Everybody's gait means something. In your case, problems, I can take care of them.
- [07:12]
Bebe Neuwirth
He shaved the bad calluses with a very sharp knife, A knife that looked as if it would have to hurt. I stiffened, thinking of my feet, those tender loaves. I've always liked my feet. Sometimes I think of them as my best feature. My second toe is longer than my first. For the Greeks, this is a sign of beauty. Also, my toes make on the top a fan like shape that I never look at without pleasure. So I didn't want anything happening to my nice feet.
- [07:46]
Richard Massar
But he said, you can trust me. I won't hurt you.
- [07:51]
Bebe Neuwirth
I didn't believe him. I was looking at that knife. I waited for the shock of pain, which did not come more than that. Over the next days I noticed that I was free from, if not pain, then a discomfort that had been so habitual I had assumed it was part of life. So, of course I agreed to come back every three months to keep myself in the state to which he'd brought me. Besides, he told me stories. It began when I asked him how he became a podiatrist.
- [08:24]
Richard Massar
Long story.
- [08:25]
Bebe Neuwirth
Short.
- [08:29]
Richard Massar
Interesting story. Or at least I think it's interesting. Since you're a writer, maybe you'll think it's interesting too.
- [08:36]
Bebe Neuwirth
As he began to speak, his eyebrows, which always had a tendency toward verticality, stood upright like two fuzzy letter eyes. His small mouth, which I had seen in two positions, cheerfully amused in conversation or concerned while holding an afflicted foot, became neutral, a vessel of information. Only.
- [09:00]
Richard Massar
It goes back to when I was A child. You'll be surprised to hear it. But it goes back to an accident. So I can give you a background so you can understand. You have to know something about my family. My father was a successful doctor. We were what you might call wealthy. Definitely wealthy. We lived in New York. Now it's not like it is now. One day in my father's office, I was playing and by accident a beaker of acid tripped over and burned my leg right through to the bone. I became a cripple. And I'd been quite an athletic boy. So you can imagine I grew down hearted. And my father was very guilty because he'd failed to cover the beaker of acid. So he devoted himself to me. He did everything. Built a gym in the basement. We had a brownstone. As I told you, we were wealthy and hired all kinds of teachers. For me, physical education, it was a struggle, but I persevered and he was with me, urging me on. The thing about him, he was firm but kind. He took me to a podiatrist who took excellent care of me. So I became interested in this subject. Starting, of course, with my own case. The rest of my family became doctors, but studies were hard for me. If I were young now, I'd be called dyslexic. But I found the work I love. So you see how everything works out.
- [10:43]
Bebe Neuwirth
I think of his quizzical, cheerful face, but a boy's version, the shock of burning acid and his poor father, of all fates, one of the worst. To be implicated in the pain of your own child. I think of the phys. Ed teachers with slicked back hair, mustaches, sleeveless T shirts, tights, lace up shoes. I think of the Tudors and the cheerful quizzical boy struggling to keep up. I think of the brownstone, its shining floors, the hanging chandeliers, the smell of coal and laundry in the basement turned into a gym. On one of my visits, the patient before me has come with a standard poodle. I try to understand what's behind the decision to bring your dog with you to the podiatrist. The dog, Doug, unleashed, walks around the waiting room, nosing the magazine rack. I hear his master's voice, the voice of Yankee privilege, but suggesting the Maine woods. Summers with no running water, bilberries for breakfast, a view from the porch of daddy's camp of half the state. The owner of the dog is a foot taller than the doctor. He tells her he hopes she'll be comfortable and she says she will be, of course, thanks to your very good, good work. My friend. I'm sure they aren't friends. Not like he and I are. I'm sure he doesn't tell her stories. Nice animal, he says when I sit in the chair.
- [12:23]
Richard Massar
Very nice animal. I don't do surgery anymore, so I'm glad to have dogs around as long as they're well behaved. And that one is a real prize. I didn't even know he was there.
- [12:35]
Bebe Neuwirth
He says that everything I'm doing for my feet is exactly right and that the orthotics he made to be inserted into my shoes are working perfectly.
- [12:44]
Richard Massar
Funny story about a dog. You want to hear a funny story about a dog?
- [12:48]
Bebe Neuwirth
I say, yes, I would, very much.
- [12:52]
Richard Massar
Okay. Every summer, my family went and stayed in a hotel in the Catskills. My father was in New York, except. Except for the weekends. And the rest of the family stayed there all the time. It was an excellent arrangement. Suited everyone very well, of course, all meals included. And the kitchen was top drawer. Every day, the chef would pack a lunch for me. Always the same thing. A chicken sandwich. He had a way of preparing chicken that I happened to like very much. I would take my lunch in my fishing pole and go down to the dock and fish for hours. Well, one day I'm sitting on the dock, and suddenly at the other end of the dock, there's this very big dog. I mean, she was big. I saw her looking at me, and I looked at her and she didn't look dangerous, although she was so big I wasn't afraid. I broke off a piece of my sandwich. She takes it and goes away. After a week of this, one day, after she takes the piece of sandwich, she lies down next to me on the dock. Then she starts walking me back to the hotel every day. One day we run into the owner's dog, a German shepherd. Not a nice animal, a vicious animal. She takes one look at Brownie, puts her tail between her legs and runs into the kitchen. I called the dog Brownie because she was brown. Even at that time, I had a terrific imagination. Well, the end of the summer came, and I begged my father to take Brownie home. But he said no. She was a country dog, a woods dog. She'd be miserable in the city. She'd pine away. Well, I was miserable, but what can I do? I get in the car and put my head against the seat and cry my heart out. Now, in those days, they didn't have the superhighways of today. So the fastest my father could go was 45 miles an hour. After we'd been traveling about an hour and a half. My father yells out, oh, my God. We didn't know what happened. Look out the back, he says, and there's Brownie running alongside of the road, keeping up with the car. So, of course, my father opened the door. The dog got in. She was so big, she had to lie full length on the floor, and still there wasn't room for her. She threw up. Then she slept all the way home. Fortunately, we had a townhouse with a backyard so she could sleep outside. We just left the back window open, and she came and went as she pleased. It wasn't like now with the crime, which is why I live in Westchester. My mother used to worry about me with my lame leg, but she knew she had to give me independence. You have to do that with a boy. And she knew it, so she let me walk to school. If Brownie was with me, it was only two blocks away, and she watched me out the window. One day she's looking out the window and she sees me walking into the school street, not paying attention. And the next thing, she sees a truck careening around the corner, and she sees Brownie grab me by the waist and pull me to safety. I still have scars from the tease marks, but I wouldn't be here to tell you about those scars if it weren't for that dog. She saved my life. Another time I was back at the hotel fishing, but not on the dock by a creek. This time I was wearing waders, and again, not paying attention because, let's face it, that was the kind of kid I was. I walk into the water to get the fish. I walk in too deep and the mud is very soft on the bottom. And I don't have the strength in my lame leg to lift myself up because the boots are full of water. I started to be pulled under. The dog comes in and pulls me out. So that was two times my life was saved by that dog. Now I'm going to tell you something you didn't know. Until the 1930s, dogs were not licensed in the city of New York. So one day the notice comes, and my father, who always did things very properly, makes an appointment with our vet, who is a patient of his, to have the dog examined for a license. Well, we go into the office, and the vet takes one look at Brownie and gets a strange look on his face, calls my father into the private office. He says, who does the dog respond to the most? My father says, it's me. The vet says, we have to put a muzzle on the dog. I have to take some blood.
- [17:42]
Bebe Neuwirth
I don't want to hear any more of this story. I can tell what's coming next. Rabies. And this miraculous dog will have to be put down. I think of the little boy with his lame leg in his too big room in the townhouse where everyone's heels clatter too loudly on the wooden floors.
- [17:58]
Richard Massar
So I put the muzzle on the dog. She doesn't give any trouble. She'd do anything for me. But she gives me this terrible look when the doctor sticks the needle into her. My father and I sit in the waiting room. We don't know what's happening. Our hearts are in our mouths. Then the doctor comes in and calls my father into his private room. Doctor, he says to my father, I don't know how to tell you this, but this animal you have isn't a dog. It's a wolf. A gray wolf.
- [18:37]
Bebe Neuwirth
Immediately I hear howls. See wild eyes, enormous teeth, huge paws prowling in the moonlight on hard packed snow that glistens blue and silver. Wolf danger and magic. Poverty and chaos, too. The wolf at the door. Wolf in sheep's clothing, crying wolf. Life lived at night, remotely, inexplicably.
- [19:02]
Richard Massar
My father asks if he's sure. The vet says yes. My father says it's the best dog he's ever had. He tells him how she saved my life twice. The vet says, the problem is, Doctor, it's illegal to have a wolf in the city of New York. You'll have to take her back to where she came from or give it to a zoo. My father says, doctor, you have been my patient for 20 years. If you want to go on being my patient, listen to me. This dog is a member of the family. I will not get rid of her. I will not separate her from the people she loves or put her in a cage. The vet says, let me make one call. He finds out that he can get a wildlife license for us, which he does. And this is how we get to keep Browning. Well, we kept her for another three years. We'd take her up to the Catskills in the summer. She'd sleep in the woods at night and be waiting for us at the hotel in the mornings. One morning, she wasn't there. We never saw her again. But I knew it was all right. I knew she'd return to her pack.
- [20:17]
Bebe Neuwirth
You don't think she just went into the woods to die? I asked.
- [20:21]
Richard Massar
She was too young for that.
- [20:24]
Bebe Neuwirth
Perhaps she was killed by another animal.
- [20:26]
Richard Massar
I believe she went back to join her pack. I'll tell you why? I've made a study of wolves for reasons I'm sure you find obvious. You see in a pack, only one female, the alpha female, the dominant one, is allowed to mate. If a beta female wants to mate, she has to leave the pack.
- [20:48]
Bebe Neuwirth
You think that's what Brownie did?
- [20:50]
Richard Massar
Most definitely. Yes, I do.
- [20:53]
Bebe Neuwirth
So she left when she was young because she wanted to mate, and then when she got older, she wanted to go back to the family.
- [21:02]
Richard Massar
I would say so it's sort of.
- [21:06]
Bebe Neuwirth
A story about female desire. Then I say, and what happens when that ends and it's replaced by an urge for conformity? His eyebrows are almost up to his hairline now.
- [21:21]
Richard Massar
Maybe it's a story about that for you. For me? For me, it's a wonderful story about a wonderful dog. And I have many more stories about this dog that I could tell you, but I won't be seeing you for quite a while because everything you're doing from my perspective, is perfect. Just keep doing everything you're doing. 100%.
- [22:02]
Meg Wolitzer
Bebe Neuwirth and Richard Massar shared the stage for Mary Gordon's My Podiatrist tells me a story about a boy and a dog. I'm Meg Wolitzer. At the live event, Brooke Gladstone shared a backstory about this story.
- [22:14]
Brooke Gladstone
I read that Mary Gordon read from this story at a ceremony when she won the story prize, this in 2008, and she said it was just as it sounds. It was a story from her podiatrist. I didn't come up with it. She said it was almost verbatim. That's life in New York. I have learned, she said, to listen.
- [22:41]
Meg Wolitzer
When I was a student in Mary Gordon's writing workshop in college, she told her class something that I haven't forgotten. She said, write what's important, which meant, I think, write what's important to you. And that's the moment, figuring out what's important to you. When a writer starts to develop her voice, you can hear that Massar and Neuwirth had fun with the story, and we caught up with them backstage at Symphony Space.
- [23:04]
Richard Massar
One of the things about selected shorts is the kind of spontaneity of the live event and the fact that we're all kind of winging it. And I really like that about doing these. I love this story. I love the character that I'm playing, and I love the character she's playing, too. We are two people who probably would not have crossed paths except for the circumstances that take place in the story. And I just think it's a delightful little piece.
- [23:31]
Bebe Neuwirth
I also love the story. I think it's beautifully written, it's surprising and it's delightful and it's warm and it's unusual, but I think it's just lovely and I love it. As a two hander, I think it would be fantastic with one person reading it, but to have two people reading it I think will augment the delight factor.
- [23:52]
Meg Wolitzer
If you will, that was Richard Massar and Bebe Neuwirth before their performance of My Podiatrist Tells Me a story about a Boy and a Dog by Mary Gordon when we return home cooking and a mother on the move. I'm Meg Wolitzer. You're listening to Selected Shorts recorded live in performance at Symphony Space in New York City and at other venues nationwide.
- [24:13]
Adobe Representative
Creativity is at the heart of everything you do, and Adobe Creative Cloud helps you take your projects to the next level. No matter what you're working on this semester, build pro level skills and create your best work with Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere Pro and over 20 other powerful creative apps. Students save over 65% on Adobe Creative Cloud the Go to toolkit for everything from class projects to standout portfolios. Make your ideas shine in and out of the classroom. Visit adobe.comstudents to save big today are.
- [24:44]
Discover Representative
You still quoting 30 year old movies? Have you said cool beans in the past 90 days? Do you think Discover isn't widely accepted? If this sounds like you, you're stuck in the past. Discover is accepted at 99% of places that take credit cards nationwide and and every time you make a purchase with your card, you automatically earn cash back. Welcome to the Now It Pays to Discover. Learn more at discover.com credit card based on the February 2024 Nelson Report.
- [25:29]
Meg Wolitzer
Welcome back. This is Selected Shorts where our greatest actors transport us through the magic of fiction one short story at a time. I'm Meg Wolitzer. On this show, we're sharing works selected by on the Media's Brooke Gladstone and on our website SelectedShorts.org, you'll find shows and stories that reflect a wide range of tastes you already know. Selected Shorts is a radio show and podcast, but did you know it starts with a real live show? Join us at Symphony Space in New York City, on tour across the country or as part of our livestream audience. As an audience member, you will be part of what makes selected shorts, broadcasts and podcasts so special, and you can listen to your favorite stories again on your local public radio station or on our podcast. To find out more about where to be part of the action, visit selectedshorts.org Our second story is a Down Home Meal for these Difficult Times by Mehran Hedero. Hedero is an Ethiopian American who has published in the Best American Short stories, Plowshares and McSweeney's Quarterly, among others. The work we're about to hear is the title story in her first collection, published in 2022. Reading a down Home Meal for these Difficult Times is Chinasa Obwagu, whose work on stage includes All My Sons and Sojourners. Her television credits include Homeland, the Following and the Girl From Plainville.
- [27:01]
Chinasa Obwagu
The Riverside church was like no house of worship Jazara and Yeshi had ever seen. It had a gym, it had a view. It had a labyrinthine underbelly and an information desk that displayed notable moments like MLK Jr. S famous speech about Vietnam delivered from its pulpits and in one of the many community rooms in the basement. Every Sunday there was a children's Amharic class to attract the Ethiopian community that was trying to establish itself in makeshift ways in the American 80s. The immigrants attended early morning services at Greek, Russian and Armenian Orthodox churches, which were much closer to their own Ethiopian Orthodox tradition. The Eastern Europeans would stare at them, huddled in the back pews, praying incomprehensible prayers, but otherwise seemingly at home with the small dark hall and the low toned chanting and the incense and the long service. Afterwards, they'd make their way to the riverside Amharic classes. Who could ever get anywhere this way? Jezara said to Yeshi, who she met standing in the back of the classroom, watching their sleepy children struggling to learn the language of their ancestors, another concession made to life in America. Jazara shook her head, thinking of how she herself had moved through thick air with these words, breathed them in and let them course through her, then exhaled them in some innate, effortless way. It's too hard for them to learn this way. They're children. They'll pick it up, yeshi said, proud in fact to hear her language in such an esteemed establishment. Yeshi and Jazara talked about their experience as refugees, their assimilation, and all the fretful things they were learning to dread as they resettled in the States. Looming large was the PTA bake sale. They'd already attended the PTA potluck where, to their horror, everyone had to bring a dish to a party they'd been invited to. When the potluck was done, they watched in confusion as everyone took back their leftovers. It's like no one wants to be indebted to anyone else in this country, jazara said. Yeshi added, this is America, where everyone wants to be independent. They hated the idea of a bake sale almost as much as they hated the idea of a potluck. Almost as much as they hated to cook at all. Yes. She was the first to confess that she was clueless in the kitchen. Truth be told, she said, I'm a terrible cook. I trained in the sciences and never had any taste for domestic duties back home. It was a relief for Jazara, who never felt guilty that she was a negligent homemaker until she came to the US on account of being seriously rich. Back home, she had maids, cooks, housekeepers. She'd often gone weeks without stepping foot in the kitchen. Dzara admitted, as a cook, I'm catastrophic. I'd much rather window shop, which must come as a surprise to some people. When I first got here, the man who met me at the Refugee welcome center in Albany was surprised to see I had shoes and a coat, even more so that they were leather. He told me. We didn't know Ethiopians had access to those. The way he said it, it was like he meant clothes at all. Yes? She asked. Does your husband cook? Jazara replied, never. Yours wouldn't be caught dead in the general vicinity of a stove? Yes? She asked. Want to learn to cook? Jazara said, not at all. You? Yes? She asked. Is it a requirement? It did, though, seem like a requirement to them, somehow entangled in the American view of womanhood and femininity. They'd always been outliers of sorts, but they'd assumed coming to America, they'd be able to completely reinvent their identities as women. Women in a holy, liberated way. It didn't work out like that at all. In America, there were no extended families who were constantly inviting them over to eat, tending to maybe four, maybe five dinners a week. In America, there was no Aunt Adanich who would make weekend lunches while Yeshi tutored the kids in biology and geometry. There were no great grands and cousins thrice removed to look after their kids when Jazzara had to catch up on work, and no doting neighbors to look in on the kids in the yard when Yeshaya was having afternoon tea with her husband. The pressure of their task as women, as mothers, as homemakers just seemed so much more burdensome here. And yes, somehow cooking every meal for just their small families felt like not only like a waste of energy, but a national prerequisite, as yeshi and Jazzara stood in the church's classroom, watching their kids go through the Amharic Alphabet and mispronounce their own names. They decided they'd make something together for the upcoming bake sale, combining forces the way they would have back in old days. Finding the quintessential American cookbook for the quintessential American woman was a task they took on with relish, as if the dishes had some secret to their new identities, and they sought out just the perfect combination of recipes for all their new obligations. They walked into the bookstore at the Riverside Church when the kids were getting their weekly lessons, and they hadn't expected to find so many options in the separate section that was reserved just for the genre. What I wouldn't give to have my grandmother's recipes written down just to see them, yeshi said. My grandmother claimed she was allergic to the kitchen and she'd start sneezing anytime she approached it, jazara replied. She was also allergic to the broom closet and the wash basin. My kind of woman, yeshi said. A sales associate walked over, lingering near Yeshi and Jazzara so as not to interrupt but also to make it clear that she was there to help. Jazara spoke. Miss. Oh, miss, what is the most American of these? I mean, American food is just food, the clerk replied, walking over with her hands folded across her chest. Of course. All food is food. Yes, she said. The clerk laughed a little and said, but American food isn't really a thing. It's like a melting pot of things. Things. It's everything and it's nothing. What we mean is we need a good, popular, pleasing American cookbook, jazara clarified. This is our bestseller, the clerk said, holding up the Good Housekeeping Illustrated Cookbook, adding, it's an instant classic with each new edition. Huh. Certainly has a ring to it, jazara said, taking the book from the clerk. Doesn't it? Yes, she agreed. Who doesn't want to keep their house? Well, I've already lost two. One to the Derg of 1975, one to the Derg of 1979, so I'd love to keep mine as long and as good as I can, dazara mused. I've lost three already. One to the floods, one to the Derg, one to the Counter Revolution. So I couldn't agree more, yeshi said. This series is your best bet. Then they go way back, the clerk said, showing them a ratty, tattered early edition. She opened it to the front and Yesi read Good Housekeeping for the Advancement of the American Home. Hmm, that sounds important, said Jazara. Ah, and they have a department of household engineering. Yes, she said. I like that too, jazara said. Authoritative. This book is an authority. It's right up my alley. The science and mathematics of trying to keep one's home, Yeshi emphasized. A pretty complicated equation. I know from experience. They were sold. Yeshi and Dzara picked out the least expensive edition they could find of the Good Housekeeping Illustrated Cookbook. As the clerk ran up their orders, she said, don't start with this recipe, pointing to an image of a souffle on the COVID Maybe you should start with an omelet. Like a Denver omelette is a very American omelet. What else? They asked. Lasagna's good. That's a favorite of mine for dinner parties and potlucks. Oh, good. What else? They were getting excited like they were playing a game. Um, I don't like meatloaf, but it's common and fried rice is a crowd pleaser. And tater tots. Tater tots, Tater tots. Good, good. What else? What else? Well, there are a lot of diagrams in the book, the clerk said, so it's okay if you don't know English very well. Jazzara and Yeshi didn't respond to that snub. Disguised as a helpful footnote, they walked off, flipping through the glossy photos in the front section, where dishes seemed shellacked, thoughtfully lit and posed almost. Indeed, they did not start with the souffle, but they also didn't start with the omelette. While Richard Simmons was bouncing on the tv, yelling at them to lift, lift, turn it, rumble round the world, they were baking a pineapple upside down cake that they thought was the most fitting of all their options, a reflection of how everything had had flipped around their lives, their identities. And here they were baking a mixed up dessert to raise funds for a gymnastics meet in Schenectady. Every time there was a big upset in their lives, big enough a shock to rock foundations, pullet rugs underfoot threatened to take yet another home away from them. Yeshi and Jazara made a dish from the Good Housekeeping Illustrated Cookbook as sort of a superstitious offering to the gods of the Department of Household Engineering, praying that they got to keep what they had, even if they had to promise to strive for no more. In their shaky times, they picked recipes at random or with intention and made them over and over until they had them perfected. They'd go to Yeshi's home in Sunset park or Jazara's home in the Rockaways. Not so much to cook but but to pay homage to this most sacred and difficult task of staying put. When Yeshi's husband lost his job, they made classic chili con carne. Four times they went to the Goodwill to buy kitchen equipment, then hid it from their husbands, who would rather have one new pot and one new spatula than bags of things that had been owned by who knew who and given away for who knew why. Yeshi carefully leveled the ingredients in a measuring cup like she was in her old chem lab. Jazara chatted as she burnt the garlic and overcooked the meat. They both thought it needed a few extra dashes of chili powder, and both questioned the inclusion of sugar. Puzzled over the Worcester sauce and decorative parsley, Yeshi triumphantly finished the dish with grated cheddar and sour cream. Before they took their first bite, they said a few words to the spirit of good housekeeping. Mei Yeshi's home remain prosperous, though her husband is out of paycheck and may work flow quickly back in the way it left. And it did, until Yeshi's husband lost his next job and they made batches of emergency corn biscuits. When Yeshi's husband left her for a blonde waitress, they made broiled Hamburg steak just the once. When Yeshi's husband came crawling back and they had to change the locks, they made scalloped ham potatoes for a week. When Jazara had to suspend her education to pay for the car repair, they made mashed yams and buttered beets for lunch and dinner. When Jezara's daughter was hospitalized with a severe case of pneumonia, they made the perfect apple pan dowdy. When Jazara's credit cards were stolen and maxed out, they made trays of corn fritters. Once a month they made a beef stew for the kitchen of the Riverside Church. In the weeks after 9 11, they made every recipe in the dessert section and wearing American flag pins, brought coolers to the relief workers stationed off the west side highway at Pier 92, where every city, state and federal agency seemed to have an outpost. The mayor's office, the intelligence agencies, the Red Cross, the firefighters, police, the computer engineers who worked on logistical software. The street in front of the pier was lined with garbage trucks to dissuade car bombers, and the river behind the pier was lined with barges to prevent boat bombers. The fences outside the pier were covered with photographs of missing loved ones. People milled around the pictures, desperately seeking answers or silently holding vigil. Yeshi and Jazara stood there among them every evening, and for the first time since they came to the U.S. they shared their own stories with strangers, revealing that they had escaped a brutal dictatorship, that some of their families had also gone missing, and that the hope for their return never really goes away. They camped out with their Ziploc bags full of sweets and chatted with exhausted relief workers coming and going a few times. Yeshi and Jazzara even were even invited to watch the game at a nearby bar on warm fall evenings in New York as the Yankees made their way well into the post season. After the recession of 2008, Yeshi and Jazzara got back to work cooking in a fit. Their copy of the Good Housekeeping Illustrated Cookbook was never more needed, the magic they attributed to it never more urgent. They chose to focus on perfecting economy holiday foods. Not to celebrate, of course, but to comfort. They brought plates to their neighbors who had been evicted as often as they could. They brought whole chickens to the Riverside church for those in need. They cooked for themselves, too. When both of them lost their jobs as receptionists after their companies folded and they scrambled to figure out what to do next, their kids were grown and gone. So Jazara and her husband moved into Yeshi's cheaper and smaller home. As they all tried to make ends meet in 2009, still having no steady work for over a year and having gone backward and forward through that cookbook, Yeshi and Jezara took the last of their savings and bought an old van that didn't run, towed it next to a parking lot up by the Riverside church and opened a stationary food truck selling down home meals for these difficult times. There was only one item on the menu, the sack lunch, and whatever recipes they made that day went inside. One of their regulars, a construction worker, said it was like being a kid and opening his lunchbox on the playground, while a yogi said it gave her a chance to practice the act of receiving with grace. A Harlem hipster blogged that the best part was the authentic, unpretentious approach when they handed their customers their brown paper bags. Yeshi and Jazara would say, a down home meal to keep your home good and tied down, which patrons found endearing, if a little odd. They crafted a small seating area just to the side of the truck and it streamed in, with the cabbies taking breaks from their shifts and the Columbia students shuttling to and fro and the store owners heading over to their shops in Broadway and the commuters coming in from the George Washington Bridge and the congregants and the priests and the park goers and eventually businessmen and women too. More tables had to be brought out, of course, more folding chairs, and one patron said it was starting to look like Bryant park over there, which they took as a compliment. The lines grew long and began to form before they opened. One day a famous chef with an Ethiopian background even came by and told them it was great work. And at that moment, what had been this hobby, this habit, this salvation, not even a passion, but a custom that they very much came to need had become their work. They started to see that what comforted them comforted those around them, too. What fed them, fed others. What grounded them seemed to hold down their customers. Who said that a meal at Down Home was like being at the endless, timeless American family table, everyone from everywhere coming together to press pause on their long days, sharing the same food, one plate, one fate. The whimsical menus became more planned and plotted, and the care that went into choosing the items each week was the care that went into reading bedtime stories to their kids with the most authentic American accents they could manage decades ago, or sewing the best red, white and blue dresses they could afford for their immigration interviews years before that, or strategizing every detail of their escape route out of Ethiopia to the West. Even before that, they thought everyone should start the week with a hearty meal. So Monday's choices were heavier protein, more carbs, sometimes fried pork, sometimes biscuits and beans. By Thursday, the menu was playfully anticipating the weekend. A peekaboo chicken, a celebration layer cake. Saturdays were all about the aroma and warmth of home. Cinnamon pastries, ham and bacon, roasted coffee fries, fresh fruit stove, grilled meats. They took Sundays off. The care that went into redecorating the eating area was the care that went into buying the best red, white and blue dresses they could afford for their citizenship, swearing in ceremonies and years later, of personally inviting each of their neighbors to their kids graduation and years after that, personally inviting those same neighbors to their kids weddings, like in the old days, rounding up the whole village to celebrate together. For the seating, Yeshi and Jazara chose sturdy chairs that were anchored to the floor with chains and tent pins. They hand painted flowers on tabletops that always looked fresh. They printed out hundreds of flyers and tucked them under windshields of cars parked in commuter lots, passed them out to Little League games down the block, delivered them door to door. They were able to hire staff, start second careers, rotate in and out of this life that began to run all on its own. Their grown children had anniversary parties at the food lot, their grandkids had christenings and birthday parties there. Friends and neighbors would stop in for old style American lunches and to catch up with each other on Sunday afternoons. Sometimes chic urbanites and out of towners came by holding reviews published in off the Beaten Path travel guides touting this well worthwhile tucked away spot that takes forever to find but makes you feel like you finally landed. When the pandemic descended and the restaurants closed, the lines got longer, the need for community and comfort even stronger. It took all the effort in the world, but it happened quite organically nonetheless, that the little vehicle of a truck had sunk several inches and settled into the plot of earth it occupied, had established itself and them in the city, had supported their lives, had given them purpose, community, deliverance too. One day, after a long, fruitful week, someone suggested they fix up that old van and get it to run bring your down home dining to Wall street or Williamsburg, where they'd make a killing. But Yeshi and Jazzar couldn't even comprehend why. Why should all of the energy they'd spent to stay in one place be cast aside so lightly? No, for as long as they could, they'd continue on, right there in that stationed van with moss on its wheels, a palm sized sparrow's nest under its front bumper, vines growing up its facade and around the spokes of the hubcaps and webbing of roots. The fingers of roots curled around their lives too, sprouting from seeds they never meant to plant, never consciously watered, but that had taken hold anyway, because life adapts or tries. These roots that cradled their lives were ripped away from time to time, trampled, shook loose, but slowly, slowly pushed through, steadied them. And Yeshi and Jezara stood even more firmly on ground that had to be home.
- [49:41]
Meg Wolitzer
Chinasa Obwagu performed a down Home Meal for these Difficult times. By Mehran Hadero well, I love this story, and I also love food. If I had to choose between fiction and cookbooks, don't make me choose. When I first came to New York after college, the cookbook that I and everyone I knew had was the Silver Palate Cookbook. Maybe some of you had it too. One recipe was for Chicken Marbella, which involved chicken olives, prunes, and cilantro. If I had people over to dinner, I made this dish. I felt so adult, so. So sophisticated, but I could not cook anything else. It was all I made for a couple of years until I realized it was time to branch out so if you remember the great cilantro shortage of 1983, that was my fault. I think cookbooks are magical because they are filled with possibilities, the way we hope our lives will be. There's something so touching about watching the women in this story reinvent themselves, not by conforming or losing themselves, but through generosity and ingenuity. A reminder that that old phrase can be literally true. America is a melting pot, or maybe a sizzling one. We caught up with Chinasa Obwagu backstage at Symphony Space and she shared a personal connection to the story.
- [50:52]
Chinasa Obwagu
It's a beautiful immigrant story, and it's a story that people don't usually get when they see immigrant stories. It's a beautiful, life affirming story and the reason why I say it's not like your typical immigrant story. I'm a child of immigrants and I notice that a lot of immigrant stories are more focused on the tragic elements rather than the beauty that comes from coming to a place that's unknown and making a completely new life here. And that's actually the story of a lot of my family. And so I love that I'm getting to read something that represents that.
- [51:28]
Meg Wolitzer
That was Chinasa Obwagu, who read A Down Home Meal for these Difficult Times by Mehran Hadero. I'm Meg Wolitzer and here's Brooke Gladstone again to comment on the story.
- [51:39]
Brooke Gladstone
It evokes a place in time that may be familiar to even those of us that don't share the specifics of the story because it's about making a home far away from the place we started and doing it by weaving the stories of both places together, especially in this case through the potent, pungent and enduring language of food.
- [52:07]
Meg Wolitzer
That was Brooke Gladstone from the stage at Symphony Space. Our final story from our evening with Brooke Gladstone is Love youe Only Mother by David Michael Kaplan. Kaplan has written two short story collections, Comfort and Skating in the Dark, and his works have been selected for the Best American Short Stories and the O. Henry Prize Stories collections. Some of the most potent stories people tell themselves are about family members, often reimagining them as we would like them to be. For this delicate piece, we're bringing back Bebe Neuwirth, who we heard earlier in the show.
- [52:43]
Bebe Neuwirth
I received another postcard from you today, Mother, and I see by the blurred postmark that you're in Manning, North Dakota now and that you've dated the card 1961. In your last card you were in Nebraska and it was 1962. You've lost some time I see. I was a little girl, nine years old in 1961. You'd left my father and me only two years before. Four months after leaving, you sent me, always me, never him, your first postcard of a turnpike in the Midwest postmarked Enid, Oklahoma. You called me my little angel and said that the sunflowers by the side of the road were tall and very pretty. You signed it as you always have, your only mother. My father thought, of course, that you were in Enid, and he called the police there. But we quickly learned that postmarks meant nothing. You were never where you had been, always already passed through in the wanderings. Only you understand. A postcard from my mother, I tell my husband, and he grunts. Well, at least you know she's still alive. He says. Yes. This postcard shows a wheat field bending in the wind. The colors are badly printed. The wheat's too red, the sky too blue, except for where it touches the wheat there, becoming aquamarine, as if sky and field could somehow combine to form water. There's a farmhouse in the distance. People must live there, and for a moment I imagine you do, and I could walk through the red wheat field, knock on the door, and find you. It's a game I've always played, imagining you hiding somewhere. In the postcards you've seen your scrawled message, as always, is brief. The Beatles are so much bigger this year. I know you must be enjoying them. Love, your only mother. What craziness is it this time? My husband asks. I don't reply. Instead, I think about your message, measure it against others. In the last postcard seven months ago, you said you'd left something for me in a safety deposit box in Ferndale. The postmark was Nebraska and there's no Ferndale in Nebraska. In the card before that, you said you were making me a birthday cake that you'd send, even though I vowed I'd never do it again. I try to understand what you're telling me. Your only mother. I've mauled that signature over and over, wondering what you meant. Are you worried I'd forget you, my only mother, in favor of some other my father, you know, never divorced you? It wouldn't be fair to her, he told me, since she might come back. Yes, I said. Or maybe you mean singularity. Out of all the mothers I might have had, I have you. You exist for me alone. Distances you imply, mean nothing. You might come back. And it's true. Somehow you've always found me. When I was a child, the postcards came to the house, of course, but later, when I went to college, and then to the first of several apartments and finally to this house of my own with my husband and daughter of my own, they still keep coming. How you did this, I don't know, but you did. You pursued me. And no matter how far away, you always found me in your way. I guess you've been faithful. I put this postcard in a box with all the others you've sent over the years. Postcards from Sioux City, Jackson Falls, Horseshoe Bend, Truckee, Elm City, Spivey. Then I pull out the same atlas I've had since a child and look up Manning, North Dakota. And yes, there you are, between Dickinson and Killdeer. A blip on the red highway line. She's in Manning, North Dakota, I tell my husband, just as I used to tell my friends. As if that were explanation enough for your absence. I'd point out where you were in the atlas, and they'd nod. But in all those postcards, Mother, I imagined you. You were down among the trees in the mountain panorama, or just out of frame on that street in downtown Tupelo, or already through the door to the world's greatest reptile farm. And I was there, too, hoping to find you and say to you, come back. Come back. There's only one street, one door. We didn't mean it. We didn't know. Whatever was wrong will be different. Several times I decided you were dead. Even wished you were dead. But then another postcard would come with another message to ponder. And I've always read them, even when my husband said not to. Even if they've driven me to tears or rage or a blankness. When I've no longer cared if you were dead or anyone were dead, including myself. I've been faithful, too, you see. Have always looked up where you were in the atlas and put your postcards in the box. 63 postcards. 400 odd lines of scrawl. Our life together. Why are you standing there like that? My daughter asks me. I must have been away somewhere, I say. But I'm back. Yes, you see, Mother, I always come back. That's the distance that separates us. But on summer evenings, when the windows are open to the dusk, I sometimes smell cities, wheat fields, oceans. Strange smells from far away. All the places you've been to that I never will. I smell them as if they weren't pictures on a postcard, but real, as close as my outstretched hand. And sometimes, in the middle of the night, I'll sit bolt upright, my husband instantly awake and frightened. Asking, what is it? What is it? And I'll say, she's here, she's here and I am terrified that you are here. And he'll say, no, no, no, she's not, she'll never come back. And he'll hold me until my terror passes. She's not here, he says, gently stroking my hair. She's not, except you are my strange and only mother. Like a buoy in a fog, your voice, dear Mother, seems to come from everywhere.
- [60:05]
Meg Wolitzer
Bebe Neuwirth performed Love youe Only Mother by David Michael Kaplan I'm Meg Wolitzer. I love the way Kaplan deflects the central mystery. Why did she leave for the subtler grammatical one, as if somehow that displaced only can explain it so all of the stories on this show have been in a way, about stories. Storytelling happens all the time, everywhere. When I was three, I told my mother that my friend Bethann and I had driven downtown. My mother said, meg, you can't drive. And without missing a beat I said, I know, Bethann drove, And maybe I believed it. But in any case, I was pulled by the lure of the tale, and that never stopped. I seemed to understand just the way all of you listeners do that stories, whether true or wholly invented, matter thanks for joining me for Selected Shorts Selected Shorts is produced by Jennifer Brennan and Sarah Montague. Our team includes Matthew Love, Drew Richardson, Mary Shimkin, Vivienne Woodward, and Magdalene Wrobleski. The readings are recorded by Myles B. Smith. Our programs, presented at the Getty center in Los Angeles, are recorded by Phil Richards. Our mix engineer for this episode was Dennis Jacobson. Our theme music is David Peterson's that's the Deal, performed by the Deardorf Petersen Group. Selected Shorts is supported by the Dungannon Foundation. This program is also made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature. Selected Shorts is produced and distributed by Symphony Space.
- [62:13]
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