A Visit From the Goon Squad

In 1979 San Francisco, the punk scene is burgeoning and Bennie, Scotty, Jocelyn, Rhea, and their friends are on the front lines. Bennie and Scotty are the leaders of the Flaming Dildos, a band hopeful of making it big amongst the likes of their local idols Flipper, The Nuns, and the Dead Kennedys.

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The Color Purple

She begins by blindly following the vengeful God of her fathers, casts off her entire past in an effort to find who she is, and rebuilds her relationship with God to fit with who she has become. Her later relationship to God is more spiritual than religious “People spend all their time trying to please God. Us don’t realize that God trying always to please us too. I think God don’t like it when us walk by the color purple in a field and don’t notice it.” (paraphrased) A reference, of course, to the title.

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Interpreter of Maladies

In “The Third and Final Continent”, a man rents a room from a 103-year old woman until he can afford to bring his newly acquired wife from India. Upon his nightly return to the house, the old woman remarks “Did you know that there’s an American flag on the moon? Isn’t that splendid?” Ever-polite, the man replies “Yes, madame.” “No,” the woman demands, “Say it was splendid!” “Splendid!” he exclaims.

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