Fiction Paint

Black smoke burping from the back of a pickup. An orange cat on the tail a white rabbit. Silver rain cutting through the green woods. Yesterday my sneakers were yellow. Today they are mud brownies.

Fiction paint.

And the following stories are drenched in it. Read them now and read them later. Then go into a white room and body slam a white wall.

Enjoy.

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Where's Lenin?

We took the weekend off from all things internet — No online book reviews, no Web profiles, no social media or email. Nothing, completely off the grid. And we have to say, it was rather pleasant. But like all good things, our disconnectedness must too come to an end. So now it’s Monday. And, man, do we sure have a lot of catching up to do! We’ll start off by reading about Jane Austen’s rise to literary stardom, and then shift gears a little and learn about James Earl Ray’s tormented and evil life. Next on the list: Playwrights. And how the ambition to learn, produce excellent drama and get it into the hands of people in the know results in an epic struggle, one that still manages to trip up the likes of David Mamet. Another David, this one with the last name of Mitchell — you know, the novelist — is chatting up his latest effort in the Times Online, Lydia Davis’s collection of short fiction is spotlighted in the New York Review of Books, and the murky death of Federico García Lorca is revisited by Harper’s Magazine. Finally, in what will appropriately finish our internet-reading-dominated morning, we turn to the one and only Christopher Hitchens, who casts fresh appraisal on Animal Farm, and then begs the question, “Where is Lenin?” Pray tell, Mr. Hitchens. Pray tell. — Kevin Murphy

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