Ironies B.Z. Niditch A TV reporter, in order to fill the hour, makes up a story of a suicide in progress. But when asked to produce documentation of the event, and threatened to be fired, he kills himself. A hungry Jewish editor in Paris, 1944, reads Celine, hiding in an abandoned church basement. A free spirit writes in her journal that her life is really slavery, and decides to go to a fundamentalist sect somewhere on another continent. In the middle of a blizzard a bulemic college film buff hides in the projector's balcony for a weekend, living on Good 'n Plenty. A former child star is kidnapped by her on ingenue for publicity and is convincing as an extra in a white slavery documentary. A quadriplegic who wins millions in his lawsuit after his truck collides with a luxury limo in Northridge is convinced of the spiritual life by the other driver, a porno star, who he discreetly marries. A manuscript on the uses of torture, supposedly written in the Middle Ages, is discovered and made into a Broadway musical. An asylum escapee and archery expert seeking sanctuary enters a film audition for a biopic of St. Sebastian, gets the lead role, and wins an Oscar. A Brooklyn soul seeks a hobby after stamp, art, butterfly, coin, and comic book collecting fail her, and decides to sell herself one night for the fun of it. She meets a harem collector who she briefly marries and goes into a business relationship with. A flasher who was mute in childhood as a result of a traumatic fall in a neighbor's swimming pool joins the shotgun wedding party of a beautiful celebrity and her beard, suddenly gets his voice back, and becomes their best man. On May Day 1966, a well-suited young businessman with an Opus Dei background and Wall Street reputation finds married Chicago suburban life a drag and becomes, with the help of surgery, a Frisco kidnapper of wealthy flower children. A quiet professor of Latin living in the margins of Oberlin and Caesar opts for a change of life and briefly engages in the sale of body parts, until he is discovered by his illegitimate daughter (and cop) who he never knew. Brought to trial for speaking up for animal rights, the San Francisco mime trouper is sentenced to be mute for a week on the charge that he molested and mutilated his neighbor's Persian lamb coat. A jockey falls in love with his horse, Caligula, and rather than tell his wife, shoots his horse and himself after posing nude for Cowgirl Magazine. Out of rare sensitivity and political proclivity, a German exile boycotting the news since World War II began (and his subsequent emigration to a Kazakhstan farm) dies still thinking Hitler and Stalin are in power. A bodybuilder in love with a Camille movie poster decides to go soft and becomes a Greta Garbo lookalike for Japanese TV. A pretending pharmacist in charge of prescriptions gives a bat mitzvah girl GHB and gets no further dates, but becomes a rabbi. In Buffalo, NY, a Frank Sinatra lookalike meets up with an Elvis lookalike and starts a Nirvana tribute band. A 1980s comedian with a reputation for stealing lines makes a comeback with a routine in which he robs his audience. B.Z. NIDITCH is a poet, playwright, fiction writer, and teacher, as well as founder and artistic director of The Original Theatre in Boston. His work has appeared in journals and magazines worldwide, including Columbia: A Magazine of Poetry and Art; Prairie Schooner; Antioch Review; The Literary Review; Le Guepard (France); Kadmos (France); Prism International; Jejune (Czech Republic); and Leopold Bloom (Budapest), among others. Miscellany Home

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