NEW
The Autobiography of My Memory
Jose Padua
The earliest memories I have are a morning
when I was four or five in 1962 or
1963, putting on my shoes in our old
apartment on “S” Street before going out to play,
standing on the cobblestones in Williamsbur...
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IMHO, best poem i ever wrote
Emily XYZ
Emily XYZ here w/ my first post to Sensitive Skin blog. Great to be here.
I moved back to the east coast Sunday night after 10 years in the midwest. Had just got cats & clothes in from car and was settling in for the ...
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Essay
The True Story of the Death of Osama Bin Laden
Sir Andre Bemler
We here at Sensitive Skin don't like to delve into politics because, well, really, who gives a shit?
But given all the controversy over the death of Osama Bin Laden - was he armed or not? Were we trying to capture him or ...
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NEW
Ruby, My Dear
Jose Padua
I could write a poem about Thelonius Monk by saying how he bent
notes, or how Uri Geller bent spoons, how his jagged rhythms took
you by surprise, how it’s hard to believe these phrases, or by tryin...
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Crazy Girls
Jonathan Shaw
Rock bottom in America. Sitting in a third-rate L.A. titty bar on a rainy winter night a few days before this Christmas of the Apocalypse.
"What the fuck in Jesus's underwear am I doing in this wretched hell pit, sitti...
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Essay
Letter From Santee
City Of Strangers
If we ever colonize Mars, our settlements will look a lot like Santee Town Center.
The heart of Santee, CA, on San Diego’s eastern edge, is a series of interlocking strip malls, the big box monster kind, abutted with...
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Billy Bang, R.I.P.
Bernard Meisler
Billy Bang, the great jazz violinist, moved on to the next plane, April 11, 2011.
When I first came to New York, in the early 80s, Bang was the man in the LES jazz scene. Bang was born in Alabama as Billy Walker, but as a...
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Essay
The Sensitive Skin Guide to Daikaiju Eiga (Japanese Giant Monster Movies)
Bernard Meisler
Oh no! There goes Tokyo!
-Blue Oyster Cult
Japan's problems seem to get worse every day. First the earthquake, then the tsunami, then Ernst Blofeld's secret volcano lair blew up again and to top it all off, a horrific ra...
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Essay
Dock Ellis and the LSD No-Hitter
Bernard Meisler
On June 12, 1970, Dock Ellis, a pitcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates, accomplished what is perhaps the single greatest achievement in the history of sports - he pitched a no-hitter while under the influence of LSD. Apparently ...
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NEW
The Beer Mystic’s Last Day on the Planet
bart plantenga
previous Beer Mystic Excerpt #43: BLACK BILE PRESS [Ottowa]
Furman Pivo believes he [plus beer] may be the cause of a rash of streetlight outages. This sense of empowerment transforms him into the Beer Mystic. He has ...
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Essay
Words for My Mother’s Funeral
Robert C. Hardin
Her loveliness grew to encompass her gentleness as the span of Heaven is multiplied by the depth of its city of souls.
Leah Hardin was a woman who treasured her family above all else. Long after desire and ambition had be...
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Essay
Introduction to The Bricklyn Project
Tim Hall
Abstract: A funding proposal to photograph all the bricks in Brooklyn.
Introduction: Do you know many bricks were used to build your house, your neighborhood, your city? Does anybody know? If not, why not? These are some ...
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NEW
A Tale of an Affair
Carl Watson
An excerpt from Backwards the Drowned Go Dreaming now available at Amazon
Sometimes the speed works for you. Sometimes you’re left behind. The latter is my usual state. It was the early 1980s, West Lakeview. Subtle ...
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The Bucket O’ Crabs
Jill Rapaport
I was scrunched up tight against Mike and Elvin; we made a gaping trinity off the noses of which Esmee purveyed her shining but misguided Wagnerian fantasies. Her father, like the fathers of more socially assured characters,...
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The Collector
Ron Kolm
I’m a collector. I hunt down runs of literary magazines and signed first editions of tricky prose, and place them in university library archives. I collect comic books and the Jokers from decks of playing cards. I also ...
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