Shelly the celebrity pet
Everytime I start to write something for the blog, I just know it's going to feel trivial to me after posting about The Story Prize. I wish I could say that Prizes really don't matter to me, but damn, I'm jazzed.
This is a juried prize, so the prize is based on the opinion of a few people. There were a number of good collections this year (for example Magic For Beginners, by Kelly Link and from what I've heard--not yet having read it--A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, by Yiyun Li) that didn't make the final three. One man's meat and all that. But it still feels so nice to be picked. It's hard not to think of it as validation for...something.
So I have to go shop for clothes because I don't think I want to go in corduroy pants and a sweatshirt. I'm thinking I should take Shelly the dachshund. It would kind of be like Paris Hilton taking her dog everywhere she goes except instead of a chihuahua in a diamond studded collar I'd have an ill-mannered dachshund with a weight problem. As alter-egos go, there is something fitting about that.
This is a juried prize, so the prize is based on the opinion of a few people. There were a number of good collections this year (for example Magic For Beginners, by Kelly Link and from what I've heard--not yet having read it--A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, by Yiyun Li) that didn't make the final three. One man's meat and all that. But it still feels so nice to be picked. It's hard not to think of it as validation for...something.
So I have to go shop for clothes because I don't think I want to go in corduroy pants and a sweatshirt. I'm thinking I should take Shelly the dachshund. It would kind of be like Paris Hilton taking her dog everywhere she goes except instead of a chihuahua in a diamond studded collar I'd have an ill-mannered dachshund with a weight problem. As alter-egos go, there is something fitting about that.
posted by Maureen McHugh at 1:03 PM
6 Comments:
Bwahahaha. Oh, that brings back memories. Shelly is so damned cute. And somehow I could see you pulling it off.
I support this plan wholeheartedly.
Will you dress Shelly in something soigné? A gold-lame dog coat? An Elizabethan ruff? (dachshunds are about the only dogs I can imagine that could carry off an Elizabethan ruff). Or just carry her in a suitably lavish bag?
I think the whole idea is stupid.
Now if Shelly spelled her name
S-H-E-L-L-E-Y, then it would be witty and allusive!
I could point out that Shelly isn't so good at spelling. But we here at the Yeager manse take a very sixteenth century perspective on spelling and the dachshund has in fact had her name spelled 'Shelley'. She is, alas, oblivious to the honor even when 'Ode to a Skylark' is recited to her. (Although she kind of likes 'Ozymandias'.)
But Paris Hilton turns out not to be the role model I thought. http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/music/article.adp?id=20051212114109990020
When you introduce her to the press, they will all spell it as "Shelley."
(Just don't blow things by referring to your hamsters, Keats and Yeets.)
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