Andrei Codrescu

VALLEY OF CHRISTMAS

(Gert Town)

A yuppie couple have a son thanks to the help of their Dominican maid. But the boy runs away, only to encounter a rooster who grants his wish in return for some goose-liver paté. And so begins dry-witted NPR commentator Andrei Codrescu's modern-day update of an ancient holiday fable. The Romanian-born Codrescu, whose radio pieces have been called "sweet and sour satirical gems" by Spalding Gray, writes and narrates the sinister story of Almond Joy, a boy who sets out on his 18th birthday in search of eternal youth. The backing music by Mark Bingham appropriately follows the tale's moods -- from a wickedly comical beginning where Almond Joy's parents keep failing to conceive to the boy's all-too-sweet days in the bucolic Valley of Christmas to a final dark ending. The moral: mass media and silly luxuries take us away from reality and one another; but running away only takes us further.

-- Mark Bazer

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