Blah blah blah, I like Woody Allen, yada yada yada. Been reading a collection of three of his books -- two stories in the first, Without Feathers, really stood out to me, and I'd like to share them with you fine people. They're both pretty short, so it will take only a few minutes to read them.
The first is called "The Whore of Mensa". It's a film noir/hard boiled fiction parody about a racket of intellectual prostitutes. The story is much sillier than it sounds. Anything parodying hard boiled fiction puts a grin on my face.
The second is called "If the Impressionists Had Been Dentists". (I have no idea why it is in this book, but at least the full text version exists online!) The story is exactly how it sounds -- it's told from the point of view of Vincent van Gogh writing letters to his brother, Theo, except he and his contemporaries are dentists instead of painters. (We'll ignore that most of the painters in this story are post-impressionists instead of impressionists.) For a sort of art geek like me (who especially loves impressionism and post-impressionism), this story is fantastic. Enjoying this is probably the geekiest thing I've done in quite a while, actually.
EDIT: Sadness. The second story isn't actually complete, although it is the most complete version I have seen online. Tell you what: Anyone who reads it and is interested in getting the ending, PM me and I'll give you a written transcription of the last couple of letters.
