Most read stories

1958-1961

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In those years, you and I were told to leap for a world suffused with sound and industry.

Parts

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Trigger warning: casualties of war.

"Is Your Stomach Making You Sad?" and Other Conundrums of 21st Century Life

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The questions we ask ourselves define who we are as a culture. “What is the meaning of life?” “Is there a God?” “Does anybody really know what time it is?” “Where the hell did I put my car keys?” To see what…

Happy Birthday!

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[WARNING: DO NOT OPEN UNTIL 'R XMAS!]

Misplaced Emotions

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I spent most of those days in my car. Stashed in the trunk was a cache of precious stones, neatly sorted and separated, bound in smooth black velvet inside a smooth black briefcase.

Last Call

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It’s last call for the Class of 2001, their five-year reunion drawing to a close, and Brenner, in his standard t-shirt and holey jeans, has just arrived.

The Search

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“Sixty-seven responses!” Al Edelstein announces at the first meeting of the search committee. It has been just two weeks since Rabbi Feldman dropped dead of a heart attack and just a week since the congregation ran the ad: “Help Wanted: Orthodox Rabbi. Im

yapping and laughing and living

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I can't take it bird by bird because I have neither.

bunk

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I bit her ear and / it was burnt toast

After

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The next week, she sends a small white box in the mail / with tissue paper, a ceramic mold the color of bleached bone—

Mon Oncle

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Mrs. L. was sitting on a love seat in her nightgown. She was sitting in a man’s lap....

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…

First Ending

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His wife had just come from the gynecologist and was toying with her French fries.

The Mojave Desert Remembers Ron Paul

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The Mojave Desert remembers Ron Paul With tattered billboards Scraped and clawed by vehement dust

Greet Death

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where are you now?

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 37

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—Frank, how is your sex life?

Things to Do while Waiting for the Toaster

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For you have waited. And waited and waited. And soon your slice of bread will be ready.

Eight-Legged Freaks

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I’ve just moved to New York City and, somehow, Scarlett Johansson is at the same party I’m at.

6.0 in Eureka

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"Shit," said the Charge Nurse. "Not again."

This Is

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Have you ever spent twilight in a old pasture?

Honeymoon Bike Ride

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On my honeymoon, we went upstate to the Catskill Mountains.

Charles the Bold Signs His Name

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Charles the Bold is holding a pen.

Hara-kiri

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unwrapping the gauze from her wrists....

Prayer

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Prayer

Grace

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The instant you remember gratitude with enough focus to spring free its power...

The History of Strands

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We cannot love the past...

Too Weak for the World

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There was a certain romanticism in it, the salty old man sidling up to me at a bar, rhapsodizing in a slurred stream of conscious about the state of the world, the country, the state of his own heart. He didn't have an eye patch nor beard, nor was he…

R.I.P.

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Her funeral was scheduled for the following Monday, and of course Claudia would attend. Trouble was, Monday was a workday for my parents. So when neither Mother nor Claudia could find somebody else on short notice to keep me, it was decided that I would a

A Look In the Mirror

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...That flash of horror as well as the lie that replaced it were mirrors of sorts and both told the truth.

My Church

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My ChurchThe white dressThe bridesmaidsThe friends, the familySadnessMy church knewno music