On today’s episode, host Marcela Sulak reads from David Grossman’s newest work, A Horse Walks Into a Bar, which came out in Jessica Cohen’s English Translation last month with Jonathan Cape Books in London. The excerpt from the short novel is set in a comedy club in Netanya:
“But until midnight… we will raise the roof with jokes and impersonations, with a
medley of my shows from the past twenty years, as unannounced in the
advertisements, ‘cause it’s not like anyone was going to spend a shekel to promote
this gig except with an ad the size of a postage stamp in the Netanya free weekly.
F**kers didn’t even stick a poster on a tree trunk. Saving your pennies, eh, Yoav?
God bless you, you’re a good man. Picasso the lost Rottweiler got more screen time than I did on the telegraph poles around here. I checked, I went past every single pole in the industrial zone. Respect, Picasso, you kicked ass, and I wouldn’t be in any hurry to come home if I were you. Take it from me, the best way to be appreciated somewhere is to not be there, you get me? Wasn’t that the idea behind God’s whole Holocaust initiative? Isn’t that rally what’s behind the whole concept of death?” The audience is swept along with him. “Really, you tell me, Netanya—don’t you think it’s insane what goes through people’s minds when they put up notices about their lost pets? ‘Lost: golden hamster with a limp in one leg, suffers from cataracts, gluten sensitivity, and almond-milk allergy.’ Hellooooo! What is your problem? I’ll tell you right now where he is without even looking: your hamster’s at the nursing home!”
Text:
David Grossman, A Horse Walks Into a Bar. Translated by Jessica Cohen. Jonathan ape, London, November 2016.
Music:
Yame B’zoret – Matti Caspi
Savannah – Medjool
Hine Hine – Matti Caspi
Producer: Ariella Plachta
Technical producer: Tammy Goldenberg
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