Take a look at the above Brooklyn Street Art. Is that born and bred Peter Cherches poking his head out to snatch a peak at some crazy city goings-on so he can write a piece of minimalist fiction when he grows up and becomes a writer? After reading Peter's new collection of over 100 pieces of minimalist fiction, I reckon the rousing response is a categorical Cherches "yes."
Reading Whistler's Mother's Son and Other Curiosities, one will encounter a man throwing a stone back and forth with a bird, Fred Flintstone having sex with Wilma in the bronto position (short for Brontosaurus?), a man with a steak for a nose, a prosthetic mole, a rematch of the race between the tortoise and hare and four possible choices why the English are wrong about football: a) They're not right, b) They're not American, c) They're stupid, d) They use the English language incorrectly.
In turn comical, curious, odd, offbeat, ironic, sardonic, far out and bugged-out, tasting the tang of Peter Cherches micros, author Tom Carson wrote, "If Donald Barthelme had grown up on Rocky and Bullwinkle, Bob Newhart's telephone routines, and Terry Southern's The Magic Christian - with a dash of Camus' The Myth of Sisyphus thrown in - then he might have turned out to be Peter Cherches instead."
So, how should I describe a piece of my own Cherches experience when reading Peter's recently published book of curios? Ah, let me share three imaginings: 1) Imagine Buddy Hackett explaining how to use rubbers to those old New England Puritans; 2) Imagine Hunter S. Thompson on LSD recounting his sensations when scaling up the side of the Empire State Building; 3) Imagine the robot versions of Madison Avenue supermodels swinging their metal down the runway. -- After you have a read for yourself, I'm confident you'll be able to come up with your own string of imaginings.
I would be remiss if I didn't include one Peter popper in its entirety for you to munch on. Here it is, in the hope you will treat yourself to the entire Crackerjack box of Peter's parable-like potboiler poppers. Pop them in your mind one by one and feel the fizz of your brain cells fizzing.
PASSED OUT
As I left my building for a walk the other morning I saw a bunch of people standing around in a circle, looking down at the pavement. I figured whatever it was, there were enough people to take care of it, no need for another gawker, but still I was curious.
"What happened?" I asked a woman as I went to join the circle.
"I don't know. He was just lying there."
I wondered who it was. Perhaps one of my neighbors? It was, after all, right in front of my building. I couldn't get a good look at the guy until I moved further into the circle. Then I saw who it was. It was me!
What was the meaning of this? How was I lying unconscious in front of my building and looking at myself from above at the same time? I was wearing the same clothes, the unconscious me and the conscious me. The standing, conscious me had no memory of anything happening to myself that could have caused me to be lying on the pavement.
"Does anybody know his name?" someone called out.
"Yes," I said, "it's me! Peter Cherches!"
"Peter Cherches? That's a strange name for a dog," someone else said.
Dog? I thought. Then I took another look. It was a big, mangy stray dog passed out on the pavement, not me at all.
Embarrassed, I slunk away from the circle and then ran as fast and as far as my four legs would take me.
American author Peter Cherches, born 1956
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