Most discussed stories

Leningrad's Sister City And Her Cuban Sandwiches

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It began not so innocently with voyeuristic tendencies. the sound of concrete and confetti in the night.

Quel Bordel

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Our friend, M. Dieu-Juste partnered in a used car business with a Vietnamese mechanic, Mr. Tran. Cars however, were not their only venture.

They know about fish

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A debacle has been scheduled for 11:45...

Ecce viator : Behold the Traveler

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The snake glides unhurriedly through the garden one warm July afternoon looking for a schmoose. Or barring such pleasant daytime passage, a shady snoozing spot. He twines himself about the gravid apple tree’s trunk caduceus-like, slithering his handsom

Deal Me Out

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Vegas is turning out to be my kind of town. Easy money, free booze, and everyone is too overstimulated to realize I’m broadcasting right into their noggins.

The Nanny

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     In the dark, alone after she was gone, he would whisper her name into his pillow and fight the tears more out of shear exhaustion than anything else. He had mourned for her even before she had passed, as he watched helpless while the disease marched slowly and…

Martini Business

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On Martini Business Nights the rules of decorum were written by Esquire or Playboy.The red bar-side book divulges the secrets brewed with ice, libation and a sleek chrome shaker, because its all about the accoutrement, and technique. Mr Boston said that, NOT James Bond. If…

The Art of Conversation

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The lounge in our hotel —— the Oregon coast —— one guest, wheelchair bound, in residence for the full summer season, asks us in her Main Line Philadelphia accent, "Have you come far?" "No, not far. Flew from Salt Lake…

Yuppies Fight Callous Image With "Tap Your Laptop" Day

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"When I knocked my laptop over,” he says, "four years worth of muffin crumbs shook loose on my desk. It got me thinking about those less fortunate than me.”

Beamers

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I try again. "You can make a big cup by putting your hands and fingers together, see?" He glares at me. "A giant could make a big cup," he says. "A giant could make a giant cup." I thought so before, and I’ll say it again. A little genius.

Assay the Assail

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No one is a Puritan under all that powder!

Shine

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not sure why - we rise

Fugue No. 4

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I am learning to write.

On the Anniversary of My Grandfather's Passing

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What I remember about my grandfather were his fart jokes. When he wasn't telling us kids about how young David defeated the mighty Goliath or how Saul the pharisee humbled himself to become Paul the Apostle, he was telling us about the baby burp that begg

Mom #2

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We’d sometimes find my mother asleep in her chair outside her trailer at the nudist camp when we drove up. She loved her garden there, even with the rabbits eating her young tomato plants. She used to coax the bluebirds down to the railing of her trailer

A Day in the Life of a Public Transit Mime

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We got a lotta people ruinin' the public transit experience. Talkin' loud on cell phones, clippin' fingernails, even flossing their teeth.

Wolf Moon

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Keeper of the balance. Husband of the night.

Wild Dreams of Reality, 6

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The diner was half filled with the loose ends of humanity that stayed up until five in the morning. We picked a booth by the window. The light in the diner was a dingy yellow, and the seats were that lobster-red vinyl that could only have been installe

The Sinking Boat of Evolution

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Living dangerously, I left my house with no glasses, no umbrella. I also forgot my straw hat, no purple dye for my gray hair, my map of the world to come,

Sri Lanka

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When he turned to the quiet sound of her voice, he knew he'd heard her before, that she had already called out several times, and that she'd reached him somewhere in a recess of…

Cousin (from The New Yorker)

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...to know something people around you don’t know can put you outside of them. And then you can’t get back in...

The Town Secrets

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How old is he anyway? 35? Maybe 40? Old—but in a good and sophisticated way. Everyone says he’s good-natured and generous, Mr. John-just-like-a-movie-star-Wagner.

"What It Means to Exodus" Or, "Brrrraaaawww"

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"I have consulted the Internet," the man remarks, squatting low, sorting through a mountain of tablets. He snags two and stands slowly, confidently, and I realize suddenly that he is Moses. Two iPads, cradled surely in each wrist, glow with lists.

Don’t Cross the Bridge Before You Get To the River

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I think we could be twins, our hands hitching us together like paper dolls, our parkas making blobby round balloon shapes as outlines for our bodies. I imagine each of us holding onto someone else, and the line continuing on from there until we have a cha

1. The Knife (or, Ignorance is Bliss)

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He showed me the knife, said it was his best friend. This knife is older than you, he said. Here, run your finger along its blade. Like this. He showed me how to do it.

Boxes

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His voice isn't familiar but his words are. He says he knows we haven't spoken in years and apologizes for it. I can hear him pacing on the other end of the line, tapping things and then a shriek of glass shattering. Really, I tell him, no need to…

What's a Horse without a Loofah?

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A horse is a horse Of course, of course Unless it's a horse Without a Loofah You better look into the mirror Check the picture window too I may not be the only one Who's broken Don't it take a little more When I'm not with you? Don

Anxiety

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Scenes of anxious

Our Terror Closet

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"Honey," I called out to my wife. "Why do we have Spam in the closet?" "You mean unsolicited bulk messages sent electronically?" "No--the canned, precooked meat product made by the Hormel Corporation."

you are the stem that rises, in my dream

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In my dream I am the showy leaf, and you are the stem and you are the strength. I am the leaf turning colors, my face flushed, the blonde hairs at my neck, and there is the deep carnal twisting around your stem that sends me floating to the ceiling over