Pope John Paul II, long reported to be suffering from ill health, began early training for the Roman Catholic Triathlon this morning. The Pope had long tired of the endless window waves and hoped to demonstrate to the world that, like other elderly leaders before him, he could swim across the Yangtze River in record time.
“Reports of my demise are greatly exaggerated,” said the Pope. “I’m feeling better than ever and I don’t know what these reporters are talking about.”
The Pope’s acolytes proved just as astonished as anyone else. The Fountain of Youth, discovered last night in the back of a Starbuck’s, was moved to the Vatican, where the Pope drank agua fresca and began displaying an unexpected vigor. The Pope reportedly “planned to live forever, or die trying.”
When asked what his Catholic constitutency would do now that the Pope’s health was secure for at least another 100 years, the Pope suggested that they either read the Bible again or take up cross-stitching.
The Call by Yannick Murphy: The always interesting author of Here They Come and Signed, Mata Hari returns with a novel that whips up a worldview from a rather quirky set of limitations: namely, the call logs that a veterinarian maintains as his son is unexpectedly put into a coma and an unforgiving economy denies him work. What emerges is a surprisingly optimistic, often funny, and very moving account on how one family uses acceptance and forgiveness as a way to atone for hard knocks. (
Birds of Paradise by Diana Abu-Jaber: Forget Franzen and Eugenides. If you're looking for a social novel that counts, Diana Abu-Jaber is the author you're looking for. Building from the free-form exploration of consciousness and identity in Crescent and the gripping procedural structure of Origin, Abu-Jaber's latest novel is her finest, equally fluent with gutterpunk culture and smarmy real estate men. It has been suggested by The Washington Post's Ron Charles that you will likely gain some pounds while reading this novel. This is certainly true. Abu-Jaber's description of food is so precise that it often made me want to do more cooking. But I very much admired the way in which Abu-Jaber presents all her characters as unwitting victims of rough capitalism, which permits them some dignity even as they perform terrible acts.
The Last of the Live Nude Girls by Sheila McClear: This memoir isn't so much about the decline of the Times Square peepshow, as it is about one young woman's efforts to pull herself up by by her bootstraps when presented with few economic options. Filled with self-introspective candor and a quiet dignity, McClear's story is one that might befall any of us in these volatile times. While McClear does get back on her feet, her book leads one contemplating the terrible fates of other young women now moving to New York and falling into deadlier vocations. (