I've been carrying around the Winter 2005 issue of All-Story for a couple weeks now and finally had the chance to read it on the flight down to Los Angeles yesterday morning. The issue's Guest Designer is Tom Waits, whose pictures of oil stains on pavement from out of the way places like Lubbock, TX, where I spent six years of my childhood, and Sioux Falls, Iowa accompany stories filled with longing that will creep into your dreams. The longing for things to be different, more, better, real. The fruits of loneliness, from murder ("High Lonesome," Joyce Carol Oates) to make believe ("Auggie Wren's Christmas," Paul Auster), are harvested in each story. Filmmaker Miranda July who has created a sort-of nouveau eccentricity contributes, "The Shared Patio," a gentle and zany story of one woman's attempt to connect with her neighbors. Mary Gaitskill and director Wayne Wang are also among the contributors. Just the thing to read in the in-between other world that exists 20,000 feet above the earth.
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