The Calm by Raymond Carver 

By: Ethan Rideaux and Fernando Benavides 

Songs:


Chopin- Fantsie Impromptu

Artie Shaw- Nightmare

Babushka- Paul Cantellon



INTRODUCTION



IT WAS SATURDAY morning. The days were short and there was chill in the air. I was getting a haircut. I was in the chair and three men were sitting along the wall across from me, waiting. Two of the men I’d never seen before, but one of them I recognized though couldn’t place. I kept looking at him as the barber worked on my hair.  He was moving a toothpick around in his mouth. He was heavyset, about fifty years old, and had short, wavy hair. I tried to place him, and then I saw him in a cap and uniform, wearing a gun, little eyes watchful behind the glasses as he stood in the bank lobby. He was a guard. Of the other two men, one was considerably the older, but with a full head of curly grey hair. He was smoking. The other, though not so old, was nearly bald on top, and the hair at the sides of his head hung in dark lanks over his ears. He had on logging boots and his pants were shiny with machine oil.
The barber put a hand on top of my head to turn me for a better look. Then he said to the guard, “Did you get your deer, Charles?”
I liked this barber. We weren’t acquainted well enough to call each other by name, but when I came in for a haircut he knew me and knew I used to fish, so we’d talk fishing. I don’t think he hunted, but he could talk on any subject and was a good listener. I this regard he was like some bartenders I’ve known.
“Bill, it’s a funny story. The damnedest thing,” the guard said. He removed his toothpick and laid it in the ashtray. He shook his head. “I did and yet I didn’t. So yes and no to your question. “
I didn’t like his voice. For a big man the voice didn’t fit. I thought of the word “wimpy “my son used to use. It was somehow feminine, the voice, and it was smug.  Whatever it was it wasn’t the kind of voice you’d expect, or want to listen to all day. The two other men looked at him. The older man was turning the pages of a magazine, smoking, and the other fellow was holding a newspaper. They put down what they were looking at and turned to listen...

See full short story here: http://spartans.sstx.org/~ethan.rideaux/ilk.mp3

The Story of the Bad Little Boy

The Story of the Bad Little Boy by Mark Twain,1875
Read by Maria Xu

Once there was a bad little boy whose name was Jim - though, if you will notice, you will find that bad little boys are nearly always called James in your Sunday-school books. It was strange, but still it was true that this one was called Jim.

He didn't have any sick mother either - a sick mother who was pious and had the consumption, and would be glad to lie down in the grave and be at rest but for the strong love she bore her boy, and the anxiety she felt that the world might be harsh and cold towards him when she was gone. Most bad boys in the Sunday-books are named James, and have sick mothers, who teach them to say, "Now, I lay me down," etc. and sing them to sleep with sweet, plaintive voices, and then kiss them good-night, and kneel down by the bedside and weep. But it was different with this fellow. He was named Jim, and there wasn't anything the matter with his mother - no consumption, nor anything of that kind. She was rather stout than otherwise, and she was not pious; moreover, she was not anxious on Jim's account. She said if he were to break his neck it wouldn't be much loss. She always spanked Jim to sleep, and she never kissed him good-night; on the contrary, she boxed his ears when she was ready to leave him.

Once this little bad boy stole the key of the pantry, and slipped in there and helped himself to some jam, and filled up the vessel with tar, so that his mother would never know the difference; but all at once a terrible feeling didn't come over him, and something didn't seem to whisper to him, "Is it right to disobey my mother? Isn't it sinful to do this? Where do bad little boys go who gobble up their good kind mother's jam?" and then he didn't kneel down all alone and promise never to be wicked any more, and rise up with a light, happy heart, and go and tell his mother all about it, and beg her forgiveness, and be blessed by her with tears of pride and thankfulness in her eyes. No; that is the way with all other bad boys in the books; but it happened otherwise with this Jim, strangely enough. He ate that jam, and said it was bully, in his sinful, vulgar way; and he put in the tar, and said that was bully also, and laughed, and observed "that the old woman would get up and snort" when she found it out; and when she did find it out, he denied knowing anything about it, and she whipped him severely, and he did the crying himself. Everything about this boy was curious - everything turned out differently with him from the way it does to the bad James in the books.

Once he climbed up in Farmer Acorn's apple-tree to steal apples, and the limb didn't break, and he didn't fall and break his arm, and get torn by the farmer's great dog, and then languish on a sick bed for weeks, and repent and become good. Oh! no; he stole as many apples as he wanted and came down all right; and he was all ready for the dog too, and knocked him endways with a brick when he came to tear him. It was very strange - nothing like it ever happened in those mild little books with marbled backs, and with pictures in them of men with swallow-tailed coats and bell-crowned hats, and pantaloons that are short in the legs, and women with the waists of their dresses under their arms, and no hoops on. Nothing like it in any of the Sunday-school books.

see entire short story:http://www.washburn.edu/sobu/broach/badboy.html

Sound Track:
Sound Track:
Moumoon - Sunshine Girl
Vox Angeli - j'ai demandé à la lune
Black Eyed Peas - Boom Boom Pow
Joe Hisaishi - The Rain
Mozart - Minute
老狼 - 美人
冯曦妤 - 我在那一角落患过伤风
蔡依林 - 布拉格广场
Lenka - Trouble Is a Friend