Writing Archives - Sensitive Skin Magazine

Olivia Wilde & other poems about women filmmakers

John S. Hall

Poem No. 1584 ("Olivia Wilde") I'm going to see The new Olivia Wilde movie I don't give a shit When people Trash a movie They have seen Unless they have good reasons And I care even less When people Trash a movie...

HIGH WHITE NOTES—The Rise and Fall of Gonzo Journalism—Review

Marc Olmsted

HIGH WHITE NOTES The Rise and Fall of Gonzo Journalism By David S. Wills Beatdom Books $17.99 High White Notes takes a phrase from F. Scott Fitzgerald that was of prime importance to Hunter S. Thompson (or any serious writer) - being in the zone while creating. It is of course important to all artists to be in that zone, and thus David Wills uses Thompson’s writing exclusively (rather than a more conventional biography) to get to the man and his self-created myth, one far more invented than I previously realized. Most of us enthusiastic about Thompson agree that Hell’s Angels, Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas, and Fear & Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72 are his “high white notes” - and anyone attempting to follow and understand him can see that there is a deterioration in his work from that point - relatively slow enough to entice us back momentarily (I used to regularly pick up the San Francisco Examiner ju...

The Methadonians

Nelson Loskamp

I sat every day perched high above the northeast corner of Canal and Allen in my painting studio in New York, mostly not painting. Down below was a tree-lined stretch of median called the Allen Malls. Worn by the wind, weath...

Nobody Reads Mailer Anymore

Frank Richards

Things were different in those days. Back in the nineties, my international business meetings were face-to-face rather than screen-to-screen. I spent a lot of time in the air. Sometimes I felt like one of those big sea birds...

We Come, We Go

Lenny Levine

“Thank you, New York!” Justin Howitzer stood bathed in spotlights, his right fist raised aloft, his left hand idly tracing patterns on the fingerboard of his Stratocaster, as if impatient to begin the last song of t...

Anarchy At The Circle K – excerpt

Patrick O'Neil

ANARCHY AT THE CIRCLE K On the road with Dead Kennedys, TSOL, Flipper, Subhumans and...HEROIN A memoir by Patrick O'Neil Punk Hostage Press, 2022 By 10pm I’ve yet to meet anyone that says they’re in charge. I had t...

The Slop

J. Boyett

He spat his toothpaste into the sink, rinsed his mouth, then as he straightened saw himself in the mirror and froze. Yesterday he’d been in a public bathroom with mirrors mounted on all the walls, which had given him the c...

The Peacock Feathers and 3 other poems

James Reich

The Peacock Feathers Whose eyes fanned evil from the house, petrol Blue at the edge of green, the lapis on the lawn Of the Raj, now we drink tea at summer’s end In a pinched house where a man has died, you’re So...

CBGBs

Ron Kolm

I worked in the Strand bookstore with Tom Verlaine. He invited me to CBGBs the first time his band, Television, played there. Punk was born that night. I ended up getting into a fight with my date and we left ...

THE END OF THE WORLD

Peter Dolack

We interrupt this program to bring you this special bulletin Two automated observatories inside the orbit of Mercury Have now confirmed the news The Sun is going nova All life on Earth will be extinguished in eight minut...

Jacket Weather by Mike DeCapite – Review

Greg Masters

JACKET WEATHER Mike DeCapite Soft Skull Press, New York City, 2021, 258 pages, $16.95 Senses attuned walking through the city: the crispness of the sounds, the grittiness of the incongruous assembly of buildings and storefronts, the light effects, the pedestrians mired in their moment, even the smells; plugged into the cacophony for the solo passage through the grid, each element contributing to a choral totality that in Mike DeCapite's hand streams forth like clear whitewater, without decoration, without a superfluous syllable. In fact, a strong, residual effect of this novel comes from what is not present. Not to give away too much, but the narrative is on its own track, so far away from mainstream formula. The delight of not being absorbed into what most art douses us with every day results in a therapeutic wash. How can a book be so full of love without irony or conflict? He does it. While there is story-telling going...

Lost & Found

Valery Oisteanu

A chandelier of clouds twists over the mountains Signaling the launch of the morning But that will not end my dreams Which refuse to stop the apocalyptic nightmare The invisible reality lies undetected by the senses L...

ALLEN GINSBERG, BUDDHA’S FOOTPRINT, AND THREE FISH WITH ONE HEAD

Marc Olmsted

If you've read Allen Ginsberg, you probably know the image - three fish, one head as a sort of triangular Illuminati eye. Allen saw it in Bodhgaya in 1962, carved into a representation of Buddha's footprint, itself huge and...

What Passed for Love Those Days

C.O. Moed

Fall-down drunk that he was you pumped O’Grady’s cock from desperate semi-soft into hard from hope into love Eventually, eventually And then finally Took you years in church basements on folding chairs ...

Gonzo Ecology: A Surprisingly Green Hunter S. Thompson

David S. Wills

When we think of Hunter S. Thompson, many ideas may spring to mind, from drugs and guns to hyperbole and brutal political satire. On those rare occasions that his work is given serious consideration, we acknowledge obvious t...