Story
Botanical Man
Bonny Finberg
I'm sure there was a moment when I realized it was about to happen. But I can't remember it. It snuck up on me, like snake bite—sending you into a delirium, and just when you realize what's happening you’re dead. It was...
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Essay
Love
Mike DeCapite
I went to St. Louis and stayed with Ted and Kit for the weekend. They’d been there a couple of years, I guess. Ted had bottomed out in Brooklyn and they’d moved home to St. Louis for him to get straightened out. Their...
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Story
The Best Night of His Life
Max Blagg
an excerpt from 101 Nights
Every two weeks the exterminator came by the bar to suppress the vermin that swarmed beneath the sinks, behind the kitchen walls and in the basement. There were no rats, but the place had a fluc...
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NEW
Self-Portrait as Dennis Hopper’s Frank Booth from Blue Velvet
Jose Padua
After turning on the television one sleepless early
summer night, I realized that many of the sounds
I make, as a re...
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Art
Toward Reasoned Promiscuity: Chester Brown’s "Paying For It"
Jane Does
Review
Chester Brown’s new book, “Paying for It” (Drawn & Quarterly, 2011) will be found among the graphic novels at your nearest bookstore, but it merits cross-shelving in literature, sociology, and gender studie...
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AfterGraph
D. Scot Miller
Awakened brother catatonic
deified expletive
flayed gargoyle
heathen icon
jack-of-all-trades jaded jalouse jargon
jejune jewelry jiggle joker jockey
jouissance journeyman juvenile joyride
jubilee juke jump juncture juxtapose...
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Essay
Beer Mystic Burp #3: Pivo is Czech for Beer
bart plantenga
Pivo Is Czech for Beer But Also An Alter-Ego
In 1993, you could live like a bastard prince in Prague – if you had dollars to spend – on a pauper’s wages. Beer was 15 US cents – and we would repeat the names ... Pi...
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NEW
MacArthur Park
Jose Padua
When I was a kid I thought
that the greatest record ever made
was the 1968 mod orchestral rendering of
of Jimmy Webb’s lost love opus, MacArthur Park.
For me, MacArthur Park was a flash of wisdom, an epiphany a...
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Waiting For The Red Lady
Jonathan Shaw
2AM Saturday night, Buenos Aires.
Lost in a rancid late night whirlwind of saggy asses and rock hard smiles, my friends upstairs shaking up the night, the tired parade is running out of fun. Tired of the sad old games an...
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Gold Bar Night
Jonathan Shaw
Went to the Gold Bar with the gringo but he wasn't feeling it. No speeky spany. I spotted my little firework girl from Saturday night among the blinking Christmas lights and tacky plastic decorations. We were about to go ...
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Essay
Beer Mystic Burp #2: Spilling Beer
bart plantenga
Su Byron Spilling Beer: Late at night Su Byron and I would walk back from whatever disaster, like in Fanelli’s where things happened or didn’t. On the way home – each our own hovel with beds where the sheets no longer ...
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Davy Jones' Locker
Jonathan Shaw
Journal Entry, Buenos Aires.
The innocence of the lambs, the shattered glass in voices, the screams of anger and dizzy despair behind the words. Dragons and demons behind the terror and joy, the hot dog goes down, spirit...
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NEW
A Portrait of America in Trash
Jose Padua
I give to you a portrait of America in trash.
I give it to you with love and respect, America:
mountains of beer cans crumpled, plastic figures
with fallen action, black velvet portraits of Elvis
with...
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NEW
THE RAPTURE: JUST ANOTHER PR HYPE FOR CHRISTIAN GUILT? Or, God’s away on business.
Bonny Finberg
6:30 PM THE END OF THE WORLD -- late by 1/2 hour. God either overslept or isn’t really interested. A pint of cold beer on a rooftop terrace overlooking the canal, uninterrupted. Animated, bare-chested men sit in the s...
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Casino in Joliet; or, getting old in the usa
Emily XYZ
This is a piece that first came to me in probably 2003, when I was living in Evanston IL, not too far from Joliet. I heard someone say , "we're going to a casino in Joliet," and it just lit up something in my mind. This is...
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