Donkey Tired, Donkey Gets Slapped With A Wet Fish

Today in contemporary literature (haha), we had some fun evaluating Steve Almond's "Donkey Greedy, Donkey Gets Punched," the leadoff hitter in the Richard Russo edited 2010 Best of American Stories. Although that one is mainly about fathers and sons, therapy, poker, and among men competition, bonding, animosity, drunkenness, insanity, and generalized angst, we still had time to consider his comic "deconstruction" of Toto's Africa in relation to all of the postcolonial and transnational stories we've been reading.

So it was a veritable Steve Almond Experience in Daniel 405, and apologies to any students present or innocents reading this now who wind up swaying to the beat at an inopportune moment.

Here's some bonus coverage of Almond on bad jobs with some additional thoughts on the bad job that is the writing life.

Man, if this wily veteran rock 'n roller is still knocking on doors, what does that mean for the rest of us?

Yikes.