Litro #117 America Teaser

117

Anthony Doerr Jess Row Fred Voss Simone Felice Geoff Nicholson Tony Concannon

America 44

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Litro #117: America Editorial

America, that slippery beast. One nation, one constitution, one currency; a framework for arguably the most diverse, remarkable and undefinable country in the world. But short stories are something of a specialty; in 1962 Frank O’Connor described them as America’s national art form, and the roll call – from Cheveer, Carver and Yates to Yiyun Li, ZZ Packer, Jhumpa Lahiri - is as much an illustration of the changing American imagination as anything else.

Like that relentless metamorphosis, this issue is crafted to take you off-course to territories new and unexplored, both on and off the road. We wanted this vast, complex, hybrid nation to be represented through its songwriters, short story writers, and in Fred Voss - the American Bard of factory life who has published three superb poetry collections with Bloodaxe - its iconoclasts. We’re thrilled to have two new stories from Granta’s Best Young American Novelists: Jess Row’s elegiac and haunting state-of-the-nation story waterfalls and Anthony Doerr’s heart-breaking yet redemptive tale Trees. Simon Felice’s The Night Ride injects a dosage of dreamlike urban lyricism and we ramble in the Mojave desert with Geoff Nicholson.

Curating a collection of American stories can’t hope to reflect the possibilities of the country. This little taster is to show glimmers, a few reflections of the myriad complexities that lie beneath. The American short story is in rude health. Long may it continue. *** In other news, we’re delighted to welcome Ian Parks as Litro’s new poetry editor (details below), and look forward to bringing more of the best new poetry into the mix for forthcoming issues.

Mohsen and Alex Editors

IAN PARKS was one of the Poetry society New Poets in 1996 and is currently a Writing Fellow at De Montfort University, Leicester. His collections include SHELL ISLAND (2006), LOVE POEMS 1979-2009 and THE LANDING STAGE (2010). His poems have appeared in POETRY REVIEW, THE TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT, THE INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY, THE OBSERVER, MODERN POETRY IN TRANSLATION and POETRY (Chicago). He is writer in residence at Gladstone’s Library in 2012 and THE EXILE’S HOUSE is published by Waterloo Press. cover artwork: Photograph by Litro Editor In Chief And Publisher: Eric Akoto

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From Steve Bell and Ronald Searle to William Hogarth and The Beano the Cartoon Museum, near the British Museum, shows great original British cartoon and comic artwork from the last 250 years.

SEE THE WEBSITE FOR DETAILS OF OUR WORKSHOPS Upcoming exhibitions include 25 JULY - 21 OCTOBER Animal Crackers FROM 24 OCTOBER 75 Years of The Dandy

!"#$%&'!(()$*+,#+* 35 Little Russell St, London WC1A 2HH info@cartoonmuseum.org / 020 7580 8155

www.cartoonmuseum.org

Tues - Sat: 10.30-17.30 Sun: 12.00-17.30

CONTENTS Anthony Doerr Trees

Jess Row Waterfalls

Fred Voss Jim Morisson

Simone Felice The Night Ride

Š Jerry Bauer

05 08 18 20

Geoff Nicholson

24

Tony Concannon

30

Amboy: A Walk In The Ruins

A Trip to America

Events

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Trees

Anthony Doerr He stops at the supply room window, a floor-to-ceiling sheet of glass, doublepaned, six feet wide. The best window in the entire building. Third story, forty feet up. He has been in here maybe three thousand times and hasn’t noticed this window once. Maybe they’ve stripped it of blinds, or hauled some obscuring shelf away.

The view looks into the heart of the grand old tree which stands just behind the Company’s entrance sign. He thinks it is an oak but it might be something else. A maple? He has that dry, wooden film in his mouth that he always gets in the afternoons at work: something close to the smell of the Company cafeteria an hour after lunch, three or four engineers at long tables staring into their baked chicken.

They make memory here. Semiconductors. Every hour is a tribulation.

In the supply room, forty feet up, the branches of the tree are thin, forking into glossy twigs, and ornamented with seeds. Waving yellow ropes of light slip down through the boughs, and the leaves look to him like small hands, ten thousand of them, each moving of its own inclination, but all of them moving somehow in concert, showing their palms to the sun.

He intended to retrieve a box of purchase order blanks. Instead some thin and final membrane inside him gives way and he picks his way through the cubicles, not even pausing when Fred Simpson tries to show him a piece of paper, and goes down the fire exit and stands beneath the tree, oak or maple.

The bark presents a storm of texture—canyons and ridges and caves. A column of big black ants ascends the trunk, wallowing in its grooves.

A half hour later he is in the public library in his khakis and knit tie, with his plastic name badge still around his neck, paging through a book called Trees.

Paulownia. Catalpa. The glory of cherries. Spruce. Stone Pine. Maple. There it is: Norway Maple. He has to apply for the library card.

At home his wife says, ‘You’re home early,’ and he says, ‘Yes I am.’ He fumbles through boxes in the basement. There is a 35-millimeter Nikon FG-20 buried in here somewhere, beneath football jerseys and an antler chandelier she’d made him take down.

All through dinner she asks questions about work. To pacify her, he says he has managed to collect some overdue funds from Hitachi, one of the ‘majors.’ This is an outright lie. The tree book sits on the hall table, waiting.

The house is old but new to them. They have moved to it to escape the memories, but the memories wander the halls after them, relentless, unabating: nighttime feedings, the gurgling he would make in his crib, the sour, powdery smell of his formula.

He didn’t last, their son. Gave up after ten months, called it quits. They’d used the Nikon on him plenty.

5

Waterfalls Jess Row THE PAST So I was a counselor at a summer camp.

Not the kind of camp you see in the movies. It was on an island; stranger still, an island smack in the middle of Boston Harbor. In the nineteenth century it had been an orphanage. There was a quadrangle of old brick buildings, athletic fields, patches of woods, tidal swamp. There was a ropes course and a nature trail and a campfire circle and even a dock with sailboats and canoes. Though no swimming. You can’t have kids swimming in Boston. The summer I worked there three corpses washed up on the beach: one whole, one decapitated, one just a human torso, headless, armless, an oblong chunk of flesh.

It was a charity camp, of the Fresh Air Fund variety: our kids came from the joyless telephone-wire blocks, the broken glass streetcorners, the squalling asphalt parks of Roxbury, Dorchester, Quincy, Bunker Hill. They rode the ferry carrying corner deli subs in wax paper and Super Fizz Cherry Blast, Golden Krust meat patties and Champagne Cola; they brought boom boxes and yesterday’s tabloids with photographs of drive-by victims they’d known from around the way, and teddy bears, and Supersoakers, and asthma inhalers. Monday mornings they descended from the camp ferry and swept across the island in a cacophonous wave, like Vikings; we trailed behind with first-aid kits, tubs of sunblock, bottles of DEET, picking up debris, nursing the trampled and maimed. Every so often we came across a pistol, its serial number filed away, tossed in the bushes or drowned in a toilet tank.

These children—because they were still children, at twelve, thirteen, even fourteen, with children’s faces staring out of startlingly long-limbed bodies—drew you in, so that you lived among them, sharing their rituals, their taboos, the sweet oppressive stink of young bodies shoved together, and then expelled you, a pathetic interloper, with wry disgust. You could see it in the faces of the replacement counselors, who came nearly every week: beatific joy, as the game proceeded, the shrieks of laughter, the hollers, the pretend-back-of-the-hand kisses and slaps on the ass, and then, at dinnertime, red-eyed, thin-lipped rage, as they sat deserted at the far end of the cafeteria table, bewildered, insulted, spiritually mauled. As often as not they’d be on the special Tuesday midnight ferry that hauled our worst offenders back to Juvenile Justice and summer school. There was no shame in leaving; really it was a matter of luck. Who among us could have withstood the pyromaniac lighting up his bunkmate’s sleeping bag three nights in a row, the cabal who spraypainted 187 All Cops across the front of the gym, the eleven-year-old suicide case who rubbed poison ivy across her bleeding wrists and ankles? At night we huddled in our cells and ate through our stashes of chocolate and Xanax, waiting for the scream, the explosion, the shattering windowpanes, that would indicate our clocks had run out, and it was time to flee: back to our parents’ lazy sprinklers, their decomposing patio furniture and six o’clock rations of Chardonnay.

No one worked there because they needed the money. We could have gone to Maine, New Hampshire, the Poconos—Ramapo, Katahdin, Bide-a-Wee—and made three or four thousand a summer, plus tips. The staff ran high in Ivy League

8

Jim Morrison Thumbs a Ride on 4th Street Fred Voss

On mornings like this as I drive toward work at 6:21 am 4th Street stretches ahead without end as I stick my arm out my window and roll back my sunroof as the sky begins to lighten my long-dead father waves to me from a barber chair as the red white and blue pole spins ready to tell me never-before-told stories of riding boxcars in the depression the man in the donut shop window waving his arms with wild eyes delivering a speech to the rest of the donut munchers knows the secret to world peace Jim Morrison didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t die but is a minor aging poet with long gray hair walking to a beat in his head he wants me to get him a reading at the Long Beach Poetry Festival he sticks out his thumb and I wave at him but keep on rolling because I will always have my chances to stop and give him a ride and listen to him audition Charlie Chaplin twirling his cane as he waits at a bus stop a whiff of albondigas soup from the red brick Honduras Kitchen Buddhists in orange robes leaving the monastery to walk down sidewalks and see

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The Night Ride Simone Felice

I love you. These simple words knock against the inside of his head the same way police knock. Hard. Loveless. I love you. He sits in a backward chair by the window and watches the wide cold river run, trying like hell to remember what it means. The winter sun’s fallen low across the water over Jersey, and soon the sad pastels will bloom behind her skyline. Dusk on these cities, colors of evening, I love you, misplaced colors come to seal, like a fierce rosy paste in the sky, one more day’s end in the life of this thin misplaced soul we’ve found, this stranger at the window.

He’s naked and the draft from the glass plays at his chest and knees. There’s a likeness of the Virgin on the wall. There’s a dirty stack of dishes in the sink.

There’s a Sears VCR with a pile of tapes on the floor. There’s a three-speed bike by the door, and there’s the sorry white seated nude who keeps this place: Adrian Young. His fire-fighter old man long killed in a fire, his mother a vegetable somewhere in Queens.

Years since they’d carried him home from Kings County Hospital down Atlantic Avenue to Columbia and up three flights of stairs to this very room on one of the last white nights before Nineteen Seventy Six turned without apology into Seventy Seven. They heated formula on the stovetop and exchanged looks and petrified smiles and the babe breathed soft and then it wailed and choked and then it slept and they listened to the clock and stood over their pink spawn in a dry state of puzzlement. Whatever lies they’d told themselves had thrown their young souls into atrophy early on and caused them to forget how good it feels to run all night, how good it feels just to be.

But outside their apartment the Hudson kept running. And so have the years in their own greedy way. Hostages were taken and disco died and an actor president got shot through the ribs and lived and he whispered to God and his country got stranger still and rich and his subjects looked to the stars till a wall came down and everyone cried in the streets and the world bled and we watched and slept and grinned and before you could say God is dead our famous red century swung shut like a madhouse door. And one fine morning just across the harbor our skyscrapers fell, same as all things in due time, and though his folks have fallen too the child is still here, still watching from the window, his still eyes a little cloudier now, his big pretty hands a little bigger, that’s all.

Out across the river the sun has fallen from view, its pinks and coppers drowned in the eventide. It’s grown dark in the living room. His eyes are quiet. He lingers in the chair awhile waiting for nothing and then he breathes a long drama-queen breath and gets up to turn a light on.

The switch by the door clicks as he hits it. Nothing. Dead bulb. ‘Damn it,’ he says.

‘Not again,’ he says and walks on these pale legs of his through the half-dark toward the kitchenette on the other side of the room where atop his bare table stands a lamp whose shade is glass and shaped like a woman, cheap with little birds painted on, simple pink birds in flight against a hard pale sky that nobody’s moved since he was a kid.

20

Amboy: A walk In The Ruins Geoff Nicholson

Amboy is a place in the Mojave desert, about 200 miles east of Los Angeles.

I hesitate to call it a town: undoubtedly that’s what it used to be, and maybe once a town always a town, but right now, and for the past twenty years or so that I’ve been visiting, its population wouldn’t qualify it as a village, not even as a hamlet. There are SUVs driving down the freeway with larger populations than Amboy, and the freeway is precisely the reason for Amboy’s demise.

Amboy sits along a stretch of Route 66, the Mother Road, the place allegedly, formerly, to get your kicks, and when, in the 1950s, the Interstate 40 was built, some ten miles to the north, the serious cross-country traffic went there, leaving Amboy behind, to fade and desiccate, and remain a kind of rough time capsule.

But if I hesitate to call Amboy a town, I hesitate even more to call it a ghost town.

The place has certainly been abandoned and neglected. Parts of it have certainly decayed and crumbled, and parts of it do indeed lie in ruin, but not all of it, and not all of it conspicuously. The most important parts, the most eye-catching, don’t look like ruins at all, at least not at first glance.

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A trip to America Tony Concannon

‘Excuse me. Does this train go to Ames?’ Taeko Endo asked a woman reading a newspaper in one of the seats near the door.

‘Yes, it does,’ the woman answered, smiling.

Taeko thanked her and took the seat across the aisle. She put down her bag of presents and the flowers she’d bought inside the station and relaxed. She was on her way to visit Edward Hunt. He’d been her English teacher at the junior college in Tokyo and she’d been secretly in love with him ever since. Two years earlier, the year she’d graduated, he’d returned to Massachusetts; now she was there to get her bachelor’s degree and to see if she could make him fall in love with her.

She looked out the window at the people passing on the platform. A few minutes later the conductor came into the car and called out something she couldn’t understand. The train started moving. Collecting the fares, the conductor made his way down the aisle toward her.

‘A round trip ticket to Ames,’ she said when he reached her.

‘That’ll be ten dollars.’

She gave him the money. He clipped a piece of blue paper and handed it to her.

‘Excuse me. What time will the train reach Ames?’

‘You don’t like to keep him waiting?’

He said this in a loud voice and the people sitting nearby laughed. It took Taeko a few seconds to get the meaning. She was finding her English was better than she’d expected but she had trouble telling when people were joking. The conductor winked at her and looked at his watch.

‘We’re running a little late, so about one-forty.’

‘Thank you.’

‘You’re welcome.’

The train slowed. The conductor announced the next station but she couldn’t understand him. The train entered a tunnel and stopped. A dozen or so people came into the car. The train started again and in a few moments it picked up speed. Taeko looked out the window. It was cloudy now; it had been sunny when she’d left the dormitory. The train passed through what she guessed was the outskirts of Boston. There were vacant lots, rundown buildings with broken windows, rusting cars with the engine or a tire missing. The train was moving fast. They went through a residential section. The houses were big but not wellkept. On many the paint had faded or peeled and there were broken fences and unmown lawns. Children played in the yards and streets. A man smoked a cigarette in front of one of the houses. His hair was long, like Edward’s had been, and she wondered for the umpteenth time if Edward had a girlfriend. He might even be married. She’d known of no girlfriend in Japan. He was thirty years old.

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EVENTS THIS JULY Royal Academy of Arts, 04 - 12 August 2012 A unique celebratory showcase for art of all styles and media, encompassing paintings, sculpture, photography, prints, architectural models, film, and artist’s books.

Henry Moore ‘Late Large Forms’, Gagosian Gallery, 01 June - 18 August 2012 In collaboration with The Henry Moore Foundation, an exhibition of monumental sculptures by celebrated British sculptor Henry Moore. For the first time, some of these works are to be presented within the gallery rather than outdoors, offering the chance for visitors to experience their forms in a new way. It was Moore’s intention that these large- scale forms be interacted with, viewed close-up, and even touched.

David Nash at Kew, The Royal Botanic Gardens, 09 June 2012 - 14 April 2013 The exhibition will open to members of the public, with sculptures, installations, drawings and film in place throughout the Gardens, glasshouses, and exhibition spaces. Nash will work at Kew on a ‘wood quarry’ - the first he will have done in ten years, creating new pieces for the exhibition using trees from the Gardens that have come to the end of their natural life.

BT Artbox Project, Throughout London, 18 June - 16 July 2012 Each artist or designer will take delivery of a full-size, fibre-glass replica of the Sir Giles Gilbert Scottdesigned original K6 telephone kiosk. Participating artists include 2002 Turner prize winner Keith Tyson, Romero Britto and Royal Academician Professor of Sculpture David Mach, along with fashion designers Giles Deacon and Zandra Rhodes.

Dickens and the Artists, Watts Gallery, 19 June - 28 October 2012 Dickens and the Artists will explore the significant connection between Charles Dickens and visual art.

Superhuman & Image Awards, Wellcome Collection, Euston, 20 June - 16 October 2012 Explore how human ability has been enhanced in the past; contemporary approaches to the subject and what those working at the forefront of human enhancement anticipate for the future. The Wellcome Image Awards 2012 are being held on the 20th June and will recognise the creators of images acquired by the Wellcome Images picture library over the last 18 months, as chosen by a panel of judges. Free.

The Developing City Exhibition, The Walbrook Building, 21 June - 09 September 2012 Highlights the relationship between the architecture of the City of London and its success as one of the most important global trading centres. Free entry, event of the London Festival of Architecture, this public exhibition takes place at The Walbrook Building, designed by Foster + Partners and is organised

by NLA - London’s Centre for the Built Environment in association with the City of London Corporation.

BP Portrait Award 2012, National Portrait Gallery, June 21 - 23 September 2012 The BP Portrait Award is the most prestigious portrait competition in the world, promoting the very best in contemporary portrait painting. A first prize of £25,000. Free.

Jamie’s Union Jacks, Covent Garden, July 2012 Jamie Oliver’s new restaurant is located in the market Building and will occupy 3,500 sq ft, over two floors in the North Hall of the Market Building. The ground-floor dining room will seat up to 108 guests around an open kitchen so that diners can watch the chefs at work whilst the lower level will be able to seat a further 50 diners.

Shakespeare: Staging the World, British Museum, July 2012 Shakespeare: Staging the World, will provide a unique insight into the emerging role of London as a world city around 1612 seen through the lens of Shakespeare’s plays. Maps, prints, drawings, paintings, tapestries, arms and armour, coins and much more will retell Shakespeare’s stories to London in 2012.

Designing 007- Fifty Years of Bond Style, The Barbican, 05 July - 05 September 2012 With unprecedented access to EON’s archive, Designing 007 - Fifty Years of Bond Style is a multi-sensory experience where screen icons, costumes, production design, automobiles, gadgets, special effects, graphic design, exotic locations, weapons, stunts and props combine to immerse the audience in the creation and development of Bond style over its auspicious 50 year history.

Foto8, Foto8 Gallery, 07 July - 18 August 2012 150 of the most powerful images from photographers professional and amateur around the globe are then brought together for the highly anticipated, and free, summer show in London. Celebrated ‘Fake Take’ artist/photographer Alison Jackson is one of the judges for 2012 who will select a ‘Best in Show’ winner who receives £2000.

Metamorphosis: Titian 2012, National Gallery, 11 July - 23 September 2012 Titian 2012 brings together a group of contemporary artists, poets, choreographers and composers in response to three of Titian’s paintings - Diana and Actaeon, The Death of Actaeon and Diana and Callisto - all inspired by Ovid’s poem Metamorphoses. Every member of the ballet’s company - over 100 dancers - will participate in the project. A special performance at the Royal Opera House on the 16th July will be simultaneously relayed to the public on a large screen in Trafalgar Square. In addition, the National Gallery has commissioned a group of well-known poets to explore Ovid’s text and Titian’s mythological paintings, and to respond with their own poems.

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EVENTS THIS JULY Bob Hope: A World of Laughter, Greenwich Heritage Centre, 13 July - 28 October 2012 The Heritage Centre will be the third institution to host the touring Bob Hope exhibition which has been produced by the World Golf Hall of Fame & Museum with the support of the Bob & Dolores Hope Foundation.

Tino Sehgal to create Turbine Hall commission for London 2012, Festival, Tate Modern, 17 July - 28 October 2012 The artist’s new work is one of two projects which are part of the Cultural Olympiad, the other being the Tate Movie Project, supported by the Legacy Trust UK, BP and CBBC, the nationwide film animation project for children which will culminate in the production of a fully animated film.

Bob Marley - Messenger, Mezzanine Gallery, 24 July - 24 October 2012 Visitors will witness Bob Marley as a private, spiritual man, as a powerful performer who used his lyrics to give a voice to the disenfranchised and as a legend who has inspired legions of fans in the years since his death.

Designed to Win, Design Museum, 25 July- 18 November 2012 By examining celebrated sporting moments and the sense of shared celebration and spectacle, the exhibition will look at not just how design can influence sport but also how sport has influenced design, art and culture.

Another London: International Photographers capture City life 1930- 1980, Tate Britain, 27 July - 16 September Brings together some of the most celebrated names in international photography, from Henri CartierBresson to Eve Arnold, with less familiar photographers to explore the distinctive ways in which they saw and represented this unique location. Tate Britain will show over 150 classic photographs that depict the city and its communities from the 1930s to 1980s by photographers for whom London was a foreign city. Another London shows the city as a dynamic metropolis, richly diverse and full of contrast.

The Olympic Journey: The Story of the Games, The Royal Opera house, 28 July - 12 August 2012 BP, the Royal Opera House and The Olympic Museum in Lausanne have joined together to create a free exhibition telling the Olympic story through the endeavours of ancient and modern Olympians.

It will include artefacts, animation, film and audio from The Olympic Museum in Lausanne.

Designers in Residence & This is Design, Design Museum, 29 August 2012 - 27 January 2013 The programme includes a series of events, offering the designers the opportunity to interact and engage with the public, whilst using this platform as a test-bed for ideas, designs and innovations.

WWT Events, London Wetland Centre, June - September 2012 Summer events include meeting the otters, joining experts for a dragon fly, samselfly and stag beetle walk, discovering record breaking animals, studying bats, creating traditional crafts and joining wetland warden team for a day.

London 2012 Festival, All 33 London boroughs, 21 June - 09 September 2012 A 12-week celebration of the world’s best music, theatre, dance, visual art, literature, film and fashion. In London, free events are being planned by the Mayor’s Office in partnership with artists and performers, across all 33 boroughs, to create an unforgettable experience for anyone in the city during the Festival.

St Martin’s Courtyard, July - August 2012 Two festivals will be held over the summer. Global Food festival (14 July) is a feast of food, fun and frolics as all six international restaurants host tastings, demonstrations, cookery workshops and more in the courtyard. Silent Cinema is a mini international film festival with screenings taking place in August.

BBC Proms, Royal Albert Hall, 13 July - 08 September 2012 It will feature new music, international orchestras and many of the world’s leading soloists and conductors and there will be a particular focus on young performers and a celebration of music associated with London this year. For more information visit www.bbc.co.uk/proms Sail Royal Greenwich, Gravesend to Greenwich, 25 July 2012 The Arrival Parade takes place on Wednesday, 25 July 2012 when an entire flotilla of around 20 Tall Ships will sail in convoy into London to inaugurate the spectacular maritime event Sail Royal Greenwich 2012. The all-inclusive catering package includes a reception with appetizers, canapés, drinks package and dinner while enjoying the stunning views from the ship’s decks.

Camp in London & Eat festival, Camp London, 26 July - 13 August 2012 A camping festival running for the duration of the Olympics. Affordable, well-located camping complimented by sporting tournaments and an entertainment zone that will house a large outdoor screen, bar, stage and two feature festivals. Eat Festival from 1st - 5th August will feature some of the finest and most diverse offerings from the United Kingdom. Quality produce from organic farmers, cheese, wine and cider makers, bakers and curers, will be amongst the offerings.

London Live Headliner, Hyde Park,12 August 2012 Blur have been announced as the headline act for the BT London Live Closing Ceremony Celebration Concert in Hyde Park, a unique concert celebrating the climax of the city’s celebrations for the London 2012 Olympic Games.

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Notting Hill Carnival, Notting Hill, 26 - 27 August 2012 Annual London Carnival rooted in the Caribbean tradition is a series of linked events from July to August that culminate in the large event on the streets of Notting Hill on August Bank Holiday.

Nomad, Various locations, June - September 2012 The pop- up cinema will return to some of its favourite open-air venues. No matter where The Nomad appears, it will embrace and enhance each venue, offering new ways of seeing an uplifting range of films, from silver screen classics to cult, noir and silent, to mainstream guilty pleasures.

Summer at the National Theatre, National Theatre, June - October 2012 Timon of Athens: World Shakespeare Festival, directed by Nicholas Hytner, with Simon Russell Beale in the title role, will run from July - October 2012 and The Last of the Haussmans: a new play by Stephen Beresford, directed by Howard Davies will play at the Lyttelton Theatre from June to September.

Get Into London Theatre, 21 June - 09 September 2012 Returning with booking now open for a wide choice of musicals, plays, dance and entertainment, with tickets priced from £10. With more than forty shows available there is something for everyone.

The Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra, West Side Story, Royal Albert Hall, 22 - 24 June 2012 Celebrate the 50th anniversary or West Side Story and experience this classic romantic tragedy dramatically brought to life on stage by The Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra conducted by Jayce Ogren.

River Tour Service, Westminster to Greenwich pier, 27 July - 09 September 2012 A river cruise to the Equestrian events held at Greenwich Park. London 2012 spectators travelling with City Cruises downstream to Greenwich Pier can choose to embark at Westminster, London Eye (Waterloo) or Tower piers.

The Retreat - City Festival, The Brewery, 27 July - 12 August 2012 Ticket holders to these events can enjoy six exclusive areas - including a private outdoor park, fully transferable membership, an unlimited section of fine food and drinks, vintage cinema and large screens for Olympic viewing and late night DJ performances in the club Antony’s Meltdown, Southbank Centre, 01 - 12 August 2012 Encounter musicians, performers and thinkers who have helped shape the life and art of Antony, lead singer with Mercury Award-winning Antony and the Johnsons. Antony’s Meltdown is part of Southbank Centre’s Festival of the World.

Theatre Kids Week, Various theatres, 01 - 31 August 2012 Children 16 and under can go free to any participating show when accompanied by an adult paying full price. Shows include The Wizard of Oz, Shrek the Musical, Horrible Histories: Barmy Britain and The Tiger Who Came to Tea. Kids Week also offers a fantastic range of free activities, workshops and events.

The Big British Bang in Store Entertainment Selfridges will bring together under one roof some of the walking and talking symbols of British culture. Pearly Kings and Queens, Morris dancers and other colourful characters will all be mixing with customers as they go about their shopping.

ME London Hotel Opens, ME Hotel Aldwych, July 2012 ME is a new concept for hotels which has taken the belief that each hotel should respond to the cultural landscape of the city with which it engages. Design, international cuisine, the latest technology and cutting edge music all have an important role to play.

Safestay, Elephant & Castle, July 2012 Safestay will open its first in a line of new contemporary hostels. With prices starting at £18 a night, the 74 room, 407-bed hostel will be based at John Smith House, close to Elephant & Castle underground station and many of Central London’s tourist attractions.

A Taste of Noma, Claridge’s, Mayfair, July 2012 René Redzepi, head chef of Noma in Copenhagen (twice voted best restaurant in the world), joins forces with the Mayfair hotel this summer. For 10 days, Redzepi will be creating a five course menu at Claridge’s which will reflect his signature flavours and dishes from Noma, using local, seasonal British ingredients.

Camping at the Games, Various locations, July - August Campsites have been set up at community sports grounds in London to offer accommodation with free parking less than 30 minutes from Olympic Venues from £10 per adult and £5 per child.

World Food Marathon, Andaz, Liverpool Street, 02 - 27 July 2012 In anticipation of the upcoming 2012 London Olympics, Andaz Liverpool THE STORY SALON: London’s most intimate literary venue. A night of readings, conversation and wine. Featuring award-winning writers Alison McCleod, Will Cohu and Hazel Osmond, hosted by Cathy Galvin. Saturday August 25th 6-8pm The Society Club, 12 Ingestre Place, Soho, W1F OJF. £5 door. Contact: Carrie@thesocietyclub.com

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LITRO IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY EDITOR IN CHIEF AND PUBLISHER: ERIC AKOTO eric@oceanmediauk.com EDITORS: MOHSEN SHAH & ALEX GOODWIN editor@litro.co.uk CONTRIBUTING EDITOR: KATY DARBY katy@litro.co.uk CONTRIBUTING EDITOR: SOPHIE LEWIS sophie@litro.co.uk EVENTS EDITOR: ALEX JAMES events@litro.co.uk POETRY EDITOR: IAN PARKS CULTURE & ARTS: JULIETTE CG GOLDING juliette@litro.co.uk CREATIVE DIRECTOR: KWAKU CREATIVE ASSISTANT: JAMES HOLLIDAY design@litro.co.uk PUBLICITY & PRESS: BENEDETTA PETROZZI press@litro.co.uk CHAIR WOMAN: CATHY GALVIN Twitter:@cathygalvin1 LITERARY ADVISORY BOARD: KRISTY ALLISON INTERN: LAURA HANNUM, LYDIA SMITH & ANGIE WANGSHA

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â&#x20AC;&#x153;By the time we saw ourselves whole we had useless graduate degrees, fortunes on paper, closets full of embarrassing wedding presents. Money was the byproduct of making money, and the world was the size of a two bedroom, one-and-a-half bath apartmentâ&#x20AC;?

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