Thursday, May 17, 2012

Short Story Month, Day 17. Snippets

I walk to work every morning, but sometimes, if I'm lucky, my friend Dave is coming back down the hill from taking his son Max to school and he gives me a lift to work. Often a very charming aspect of this trip is that I get to listen to a bit of a CD that is more or less always in his CD player. It's one of a collection that was his mom's, and is a series of short stories from Jewish writers. Originally, it was part of an NPR series, hosted by Leonard Nimoy. Yes, that Leonard Nimoy.

The funny thing is that the drive is actually very short and so I have yet to hear a story through to completion. This would probably be maddening to some, but I don't actually mind. I've gotten a little taste of Joanne Greenberg on an Indian reservation, Ida Fink, Sholom Aleichem. One day, I will retrace my steps, and read or listen to these tales. (I thought I might be able to post a link for you, but it's proving harder than I thought. You can find a list at least of some of the tales here .)

The point, though, for my purposes is that this is in fact how a significant amount of the stuff we learn is conveyed to us--in exactly these kinds of partial ways. I suppose a case could be made for the idea that all of what we know is conveyed imperfectly and partially.

Today's prompt offers two possibilities. Try to remember a conversation that you overheard only a part of--or seek one out more deliberately if you can't.  Now here is where your road divides. You can a.) complete the conversation, or b.) convey the fragment and why it leapt out at you.

Good luck.

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