Many years ago when I first read this book of Barry Yourgrau’s collection of outlandishly imaginative surreal, fabulist micro-fictions, I thought his writing was too good to be true.

I just did complete another rereading and I can assure you – Barry’s book is, in fact, too good to be true. But, thanks to the blessings of the gods of our childhood dreams and our weird, hallucinogenic visions, we can read and appreciate his stories as well as marvel at his ability to turn a vivid, highly visual phrase.

Wearing Dad’s Head is one of Barry’s first published books and has a decidedly Freudian flavor, his mom and dad, especially his dad, having a predominant place in nearly all these wacky, sexually playful fictional snappers. I could write until I’m blue in my or my own dad’s face or my fingers turn blue and wash away in the bathtub à la one of Barry’s stories, so I will simply cite the opening of two of my favorite pieces.

UDDERS
I get involved in a game of strip poker. The others have somehow persuaded a cow to join in. The cow stands stupid and uncomfortable in the cigar smoke. My tablemates ply it with booze. It is decked out in a pathetic catalogue of bedroom apparel. Naturally it always plays a losing hand. It can’t manage with its garments, and everyone makes full use of the opportunity to handle it, in the name of assistance. I watch in disgust as a beefy bank-manager type fumbles with a lacy garter on the cow’s flank. His hands are trembling. “Will you look at those udders, will you look at those udders,” he keeps mumbling. His face is flushed crimson. ------ Here is a youtube video of Barry performing this story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QeVu...

MAGIC CARPET
My father arrives on a magic carpet. “Come on,” he says. Sitting cross-legged together, we lift magically into the air. We glide over the backyard. Our rectangular shadow passes over the sheets my mother is hanging up. She rushes out from them to the back gate. She wave at us and, shouts indistinctly. I lean over, excited and scared, and wave cautiously down to her. She signals frantically for me to come back. My father gives a lazy, sardonic laugh and opens and shuts a fat, much-ringed hand in farewell to my mother’s diminishing, tiny figure. She dwindles to a speck.



As a nod to my love of Barry’s stories and encouragement for any reader of this review to write some of your own imaginative micro-fiction, here is one of mine relating to my own boyhood and relationship with my father:

PARADE OF THE PAST
It’s back again, the same old dream, the one where I’m standing on the sidewalk of Main Street in the small shore town where I grew up and haven’t lived in decades. The street is filled with water – I might as well be in Venice – and here they come as if in a bizarre Fourth of July parade, floats or whatever they are, motoring down the watery street.

First there is a gigantic turtle, every bit as large as a truck, paddling with its head and the top of its shell above water, carrying on its back a band of giggling kids in bathing suits. The kids are obviously having a blast and they all wave to me.

Next, there’s a float labeled “Dads”, where a bunch of blue-collar, middle-age men I recognize from my youth, including my own dad, are sitting in easy chairs, surrounded by beautiful blonde, tanned, bathing beauties. The dads smile and wave to me, knowing they’ve never had it so good.

This passes and the third float comes into view. Here we have the people who tried their best to make my life hell, including the eighth-grade bully, an overbearing buffoon manager and a sinister coworker. Their float is really done up – balloons, swan figurines, streamers, glitter and a banner that reads: “The Bad Guys”. They are all smirking and, like the kids and the dads, wave to me until their float passes out of sight.

What makes this dream all the more puzzling is that I’m standing there, trying to figure out if this is really a holiday parade or the normal flow of weekday traffic. I’m inclined to think it’s nothing out of the ordinary, because, unlike a real parade, there are no spectators lining the streets; quite the contrary, I’m the only one present.