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Wednesday, October 14, 2015

Story in current New Yorker - How would you have ended it?

Story in current New Yorker Usl At the Stadium, by Rivka Galchin, gets off to a start: Usl, yes that's his name not really explained where that name came from, falls asleep during a game at Yankee stadium and his image is picked up by the Jumbotron and he becomes the subject of much mockery and vitriol on line - he's overweight and insecure a mama's boy seems to live alone no girlfriend not many friends either in other words another instance of the outsider so often at the heart of American short stories. Over the course of the story he's prey to two impulses: a neighbor and recent law school grad tries to convince him to sue someone anyone everyone - and when word of this gets out Usl is even more reviled. His boss - he buys used gold and jewelry for a Manhattan shop - tells him to forget about it and get on w his life and waxes philosophic: it's not so puzzling that there is evil in the world he says, it's puzzling that there is benevolence. Story ends w Usl recalling what he dreamed while asleep at the stadium - a dream of being cared for. Very sad and sweet but within the scheme of this story - which begins w such a credible premise - any baseball fan know that the cameras often pick up images that could be subject to ridicule and often are (I've heard the Red Sox play by play announcers say mean things about fans) I think the story just didn't go far enough. Ending w a dream? Really? What is this MFA school? Imagine what George Saunders might have done w Usl - imagine what you could do - give him his chance to retaliate and see where it gets him - celebri or notoriety or both?

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