Richard Bausch Reads ‘Letter to the Lady of the House’
February 18th, 2008, 7 Comments »
For the past few weeks in Morocco, I’ve been jogging on the beach, first thing in the morning. As with most forms of exercise, I loathe jogging. However, we’re eating out a lot here in Morocco, and I must stave off the fat somehow.
I run barefoot. Not because of my last name, or because I’ve become some kind of hippie. I just thought I’d give it a try. Plus, I could avoid the difficult process of buying (potentially dodgy) Moroccan sneakers.
It’s actually fairly pleasant, as jogging goes. I run just at the waterline. The sand is both fine and firm, and there’s very little debris. I have yet to step on a crab or a broken bottle. I’m a habitual ground-watcher, truth be told, so I’m not worried about stabbing myself.
I walk down to the beach in my flip-flops, take them off, and, well, take off. Flip-flops in one hand, iPod in the other. I’m an inelegant runner at the best of times, and I must look mighty goofy.
Anyhow, I like to listen to long podcasts while running, so I don’t have to mess with the music (I find the notion of a motivating ‘power song’ kind of silly–see also my thoughts on music at the gym).
As I mentioned, I only recently discovered This American Life. The most recent episode revolves around the subject of long marriages. The first piece features Richard Bausch reading his short story “Letter to the Lady of the House”. It is a beautifully written and read story, and feels very, well, American. I highly recommend it.
Between the second and third ‘acts’ of the episode, there’s a gorgeous version of “Someone to Watch Over Me”. On the This American Life website, it’s credited to Sting. He has a version of the song (I thought it was from this album, but it’s actually this one) but it’s not this one (nor is it nearly as good). I browsed through iTunes and eMusic, but couldn’t find anything promising. I tried a few Google searches, but unfortunately there’s another episode of TAL named “Someone to Watch Over Me”. In fact, there seems to be some weirdness, because that episode (#269) includes the same ’second act’ as the current episode. Weird.
If anybody happens to listen to it (it’s at about 45:30), let me know if you recognize the singer. I also asked MetaFilter, in case anybody there knew.