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The WHOLE THING

If we still lived in Juneau, this is where we’d still be parking our Subaru wagon.

Last week, the Soobi would have been buried under this:

Zach Falcon, 37, of Iowa City, earned the recognition for his story “The Malamute.” The honor came from the United Kingdom’s Bridport Prize, which will be announced today. The Press-Citizen received an embargoed copy of the announcement and originally posted it (this version has been edited for clarity):

“I was delighted. I know writers sometimes make too much of it being a lonely and solitary endeavor, so I don’t want to complain about it. Any sort of recognition is exciting,” Falcon said in a telephone interview.

The annual competition recognizes top submissions for stories and poetry. The contest is open internationally and received over 14,000 entries from more than 75 countries.

Falcon, who was born and raised in Alaska, is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, as well as the University of Michigan law school and Columbia University. After college, he returned to live in Alaska until he came to Iowa City to attend the Writers’ Workshop in 2007.

He graduated in May and stuck around to finish a collection of short stories and to work on a novel, he said.

“The Malamute” is set in his hometown of Kodiak, Alaska. The story explores the trials and tribulations of a small-town community.

“I was frankly surprised (the judge) selected it,” Falcon said. “It is a fairly grim story. It doesn’t have a lot of humor or levity. The (criterion) asked for something a little more lighthearted. I sent it anyway, and I am delighted she selected it.”

“The Malamute” will go into an anthology with the other winners, Falcon said. Falcon was pleased that the voice of an American, and more specifically an Alaskan, is being recognized in an international competition, he said.

“It’s a major award,” the local man said (no he didn’t)

Some comments from competition judge Ali Smith were included in press material about the prize.

“All good writing is about economy, edit, rhythm and precision; the short story form demonstrates this to the other literary forms. An end, when it comes, should always send you back to the beginning, because a good story, like any real art, demands revisitation. A good short story is lifelong,” Smith wrote.

Cheers to Randy Crow

Jason Kottke mentioned this post about the economics of pinball, which brings up questions about more than just what our all-time high scores were:

Black Knight brought pinball to a new level, literally speaking because it was among the first games with ramps and elevated flippers, but even more importantly because it brought a new challenge that drew in and solidified a pinball crowd. In doing so it also set the pinball market on a path that would eventually lead to its demise.

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Above is a pic of the living room in my new apartment in the Born district of Barcelona. El Born is a small village within the city, fashionable but very authentic, where luthiers, glass-makers and designers have their shops and studios and where pensioners play cards, young people hang out and chat at the edge of the fountains. Charged with history, here I will witness the commercial prosperity of the XIII century. Much of the architecture from that period still remains. It also happens to be the neighborhood where Picasso’s gallery lives:

My father, who will be 71 this year, wrote the following memories down the other day about his time as a paper boy in rural Iowa:

It’s 1950, I am 11 years old and my first chosen occupation was to have a paper route with the Waterloo Daily Courier. When the paper boy who delivered our family newspaper left, I told him I was very interested in having his route. He introduced me to his supervisor, and I was hired to deliver in North Cedar and Cottage Row. I had approximately 30 customers to start. Two years later, the route had grown to 45. I had lots of fun, as my dog Velvet was at my side, and we managed to discourage other dogs from interfering with the delivery process. The streets were very sandy with some gravel. On wet days it was difficult biking with a load of papers hanging from the rear fender rack of my bike. The bike that I bought on layaway from the Coast to Coast store in Cedar Falls was bought with my earnings from my paper route. Collection was the most difficult part of my job. With my long, leather, ringed collection book in my hand, I would go from door to door, collecting each week, always on Friday. Too many times I was told to “come back next week.” I always went back with my chrome changer attached to my belt to collect, many times as much as five weeks. I would tear off the stubs with freezing fingers and collect well after dark.

Without Gortex and synthetic wools, my front and back paper bag filled with papers gave me warmth and wind protection. I can still smell the newspapers in that white sailcloth canvas bag with the red letters Waterloo Courier. It fit me good.

Summer was another story, as I could put all my papers in a cart pulled behind my bike. It was always faster to just walk, as I could cut through yards and take shortcuts home. My dad always got his paper last!
Lyle Calease, Cedar Falls