Short-a-Day: Haruki Murakami's "U.F.O. In Kushiro" by Aaron Riccio

Originally published in The New Yorker, Mar. 19, 2001. Personal enjoyment rating (out of 100): 8.[Translated, from the Japanese, by Jay Rubin.] A bit of an opportunistic reprint, here, by Th…

SOURCE: That Sounds Cool at 4:45pm on March 23, 2011☆⚑

Short-a-Day: Saïd Sayafiezadeh's "Paranoia" by Aaron Riccio

Originally published in The New Yorker, Feb. 28, 2011. Personal enjoyment rating (out of 100): 93.  "Why aren't you eating?" he asked."I saw a fly land on it," I admitted.With irritatio…

SOURCE: That Sounds Cool at 2:03pm on March 20, 2011☆⚑

THEATER: Kin by Aaron Riccio

We first meet Anna (Kristen Bush) as she, a stony and/or stoic adjunct, is being dumped by an older professor, Simon (Matthew Rauch), who we will never see again. That's fine: in the next hu…

SOURCE: That Sounds Cool at 5:45pm on March 19, 2011☆⚑

THEATER: Cactus Flower by Aaron Riccio

Stephanie Dickinson (Lois Robbins) is a prickly nurse, which is to be expected: for years she's been reduced to nothing more than a potted fixture beside her boss, Dr. Julian Winston (Maxwel…

SOURCE: That Sounds Cool at 11:45pm on March 10, 2011☆⚑

Short-a-Day: Robert Coover's "Going For A Beer" by Aaron Riccio

Originally published in The New Yorker, March 14th, 2011. Personal enjoyment rating (out of 100): 53.Coover, he of the experimental concept stories. Here's a life, told through the vague and…

SOURCE: That Sounds Cool at 3:08am on March 9, 2011☆⚑

THEATER: Feeder: A Love Story by Aaron Riccio

Photo/Jill SteinbergJesse (Jennifer Conley Darling) lies there in a hospital bed, sipping lime water through a straw. In flashbacks, her husband Noel (Pierre Marc-Diennet) enters through the…

SOURCE: That Sounds Cool at 5:47pm on March 8, 2011☆⚑

Short-a-Day: Mary Gaitskill's "The Other Place" by Aaron Riccio

Originally published in The New Yorker, Feb. 14 & 21, 2011. Personal enjoyment rating (out of 100): 11.I never thought of killing Jenna. I didn't think about killing anyone I actually kn…

SOURCE: That Sounds Cool at 4:29pm on March 7, 2011☆⚑

THEATER: Invasion! by Aaron Riccio

A famous tragedy once wondered, "What's in a name?", but it's doubtful that Shakespeare, a master of double-talk and other precise tricks of English, ever thought that question would come so…

SOURCE: That Sounds Cool at 7:06pm on March 2, 2011☆⚑

THEATER: The Hallway Trilogy (Part 1: Rose & Part 2: Paraffin) by Aaron Riccio

[Note: Due to an unfortunate circumstance, I was unable to see Part 3: Nursing, by today's opening. Given how unrelated the first two plays were, and how strongly negative my reaction to the…

SOURCE: That Sounds Cool at 9:34pm on February 24, 2011☆⚑

Short-a-Day: Steven Millhauser's "Catalogue of the Exhibition: The Art of Edmund Moorash (1810-1846)" by Aaron Riccio

Originally published in Little Kingdoms (1993). Personal enjoyment rating (out of 100): 83.There's a bit of Pale Fire in this, a story told through the gallery notes for the twenty-six portr…

SOURCE: That Sounds Cool at 3:59pm on February 23, 2011☆⚑

THEATER: God's Waiting Room by Aaron Riccio

The last thing an audience wants is to be told that they're entering limbo for the next seventy minutes, so it's a ballsy move on Ashlin Halfnight's part to have the characters in God's Wait…

SOURCE: That Sounds Cool at 1:23am on February 22, 2011☆⚑

Short-a-Day: Steven Millhauser's "The Princess, the Dwarf, and the Dungeon" by Aaron Riccio

Originally published in Little Kingdoms (1993). Personal enjoyment rating (out of 100): 76."Grapes swell on our slopes, deer graze in the grassy trench between our walls, and in the winding …

SOURCE: That Sounds Cool at 2:02am on February 21, 2011☆⚑

metaDRAMA: Music To My Ears by Aaron Riccio

"Hello Flux," reads a recent blog posting on the website of the Flux Theatre Ensemble. "I didn't know about your company or this show until I read the NY Times review. I noticed it because…

SOURCE: That Sounds Cool at 2:01am on February 20, 2011☆⚑

Short-a-Day: Tessa Hadley's "Honor" by Aaron Riccio

Originally published in The New Yorker, February 7, 2011. Personal enjoyment rating (out of 100): 23.I declare a war on storytelling terrorists like Hadley, you know, the sort of people who …

SOURCE: That Sounds Cool at 11:55pm on February 19, 2011☆⚑

Short-a-Day: Steven Millhauser's "The Little Kingdom of J. Franklin Payne" by Aaron Riccio

Originally published in Little Kingdoms, 1993. Personal enjoyment rating (out of 100): 92.The animated cartoon was nothing but the poetry of the impossible -- therein lay its exhilaration an…

SOURCE: That Sounds Cool at 2:07pm on February 15, 2011☆⚑

metaDRAMA: You Can't Swing Both Ways by Aaron Riccio

"Visually enchanting . . . dazzling" - New York Post"Bono and The Edge have contributed stellar songs. SPECTACULAR!" - New Jersey Star-Ledger  "Succeeds thunderously! I was riveted." - …

SOURCE: That Sounds Cool at 1:58am on February 13, 2011☆⚑

THEATER: Dog Act by Aaron Riccio

Photo/Isaiah TanenbaumAfter the apocalypse, long past our scavenging and regression to a Clockwork Orange-meets-Shakespeare argot ("In a mutant's anus, thou quark-witted son of a three-eyed …

SOURCE: That Sounds Cool at 6:58pm on February 11, 2011☆⚑

THEATER: The Drowsy Chaperone by Aaron Riccio

Photo/Bella MuccariRobert Martin (Eric Weaver) is marrying Janet Van De Graaff (Whitney Branan), and it's the task of his best man, George (Colin Pritchard, doing a great Roger Bart), and he…

SOURCE: That Sounds Cool at 7:15pm on February 10, 2011☆⚑

THEATER: Laws of Motion by Aaron Riccio

Photo/Michael Mahoney It's the unscheduled delay on the local train that convinces Christopher (Gregg Mozgala) to fake a sneeze, hoping to catch the eye of the pretty girl, Anna (Sara Buffam…

SOURCE: That Sounds Cool at 11:59pm on February 9, 2011☆⚑

THEATER: Apple Cove by Aaron Riccio

"Oh, we'd be so adult here," says Alan (Erin Gann), giddily ogling the newest lot in his father-in-law's precious gated community. How better to prove one's manhood, after all, than by playi…

SOURCE: That Sounds Cool at 3:43am on February 8, 2011☆⚑

THEATER: Lathem Prince by Aaron Riccio

Lathem (Kris Kling) is chilling in the cemetery with his bro Patio (Bryan Grossbauer), smoking some bud to take the edge off his father's recent death, a possible murder that's incorrectly, …

SOURCE: That Sounds Cool at 6:25pm on February 4, 2011☆⚑

THEATER: The Witch of Edmonton by Aaron Riccio

Between each of their productions, one can just imagine artistic director Jesse Berger sitting in a dark corner of a rehearsal space, plotting and scheming, using their excellent reading ser…

SOURCE: That Sounds Cool at 6:07pm on February 3, 2011☆⚑

THEATER: Better Left Unsaid by Aaron Riccio

Photo/JP YimPerhaps younger demographics and changes in our future will turn this unsavory combination of social media and live theater into the next pairing of chocolate and peanut butter, …

SOURCE: That Sounds Cool at 11:25pm on January 31, 2011☆⚑

Short-a-Day: Alice Munro's "Axis" by Aaron Riccio

Originally published in The New Yorker, Jan. 31, 2011. Personal enjoyment rating (out of 100): 91.One of the many nice things about Alice Munro as a writer, beside her effortless ability to …

SOURCE: That Sounds Cool at 6:26pm on January 28, 2011☆⚑

THEATER: What the Public Wants by Aaron Riccio

Time and again, Sir Charles Worgan (Rob Breckenridge), the manager/publisher of dozens of newspaper magazines in England tells us that, as a practical businessman, he isn't concerned with th…

SOURCE: That Sounds Cool at 3:27am on January 28, 2011☆⚑