Pasha Malla is one of Canada’s most talented and creative young writers. I’ve been loving his stuff, and this piece that he penned for The Morning News recently nicely captures his particular variety of funny brilliance.
If at Halloween you’re invited to a TV- and movie-themed party and she dresses up as Winnie Cooper and you dress up as Paul Pfeiffer, mainly because you already have the glasses, and at the party some guy who’s a dead ringer for Fred Savage saunters up, peels off his mole, and says, “Get lost, Paul, Winnie’s mine,” and you’re left standing there while the two of them go off dancing to the soundtrack from Forrest Gump, and when two hours later she finds you sitting by the punch bowl explaining for the umpteenth time that, no, you’re not supposed to be Woody Allen, she holds up a tie stolen from a passed-out Alex P. Keaton to her petticoat and redubs herself Annie Hall, and you Alvy Singer: She loves you. And, to be honest, I sort of love you, too.
I also really liked the bit about Gael Garcia Bernal.
Check out his short story collection, The Withdrawal Method.