Most read stories

O Where Did Our Funny Go?

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What a nation! First we lost our money Now we’ve lost our funny

Flamboozled in the Beak

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I was looking for an inn to get a cup of calf soup before jacking ribs at the mutton joint. Feng calls, running numbers on an engine zone out in the valley.

Greener Than Thou: Saving the Earth, One Smackdown At A Time

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Are you a hostile person who gets into trouble when you express your anger? Would you like to annoy the hell out of people and get away with it?

Artist's Statement: Oracle

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Mark Reep is a faded Polaroid oracle taped to the only unbroken window of an abandoned house in Ithaca NY.

everything moved in circles

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everything moved in circles like the music, the booze and the drugs

Northeast of Eden (Memoir; Editor: Charlotte Curtis)

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Snakes have no eyelids, no hips, no lobby in Washington (some creatures do!) and little support at home.

Mr. Wazzeldot

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Mr. Wazzeldot has seven legs. He lives very comfortably. He likes to sit by the fire. There's a large cushion for a chair, and in the evenings, he sips his Bloody Marys. I know because I visit him…

Rent a DNA

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“Yo, Paciorek. Lend me your DNA, cuz I left mine on the farm, and I have a test tomorrow,” Feller ordered in a commanding voice, because he had gumption.

Strange Times

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From my place, down here amongst the earth, we have many names for you.

Okay

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I supposed reluctantly that Princeton is soft as Macalester College is soft. A person could die just for having attended U.W.-Madison or Yale.

TRAUMA

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Everybody breaks. Everything splinters.

How Veetzers Set Us Up For the Zorks

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We're doomed as a species. The Zorks are coming to eat us. It all started when Joey Cacciatore, the dumbest crook in the history of the world, got Veetzers swarming like blowflies in 1972, and thereby ensured the upcoming…

Space Program

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Mercury and Gemini disappointed.

Lovely

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I would open an eye, waiting for it to absorb the scant light in the room, and I would see her on the far edge of the bed, the topography of her hips now a battlement to keep me at bay.

maybe just a little too sensitive

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"do you know what your problem is when it comes to girls?" she must mean other than the fact that they're all completely insane. or at least all the ones i've dated.

Deadheading

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No matter how much he composes and prepares, he cannot override the electrical trigger in his brain. Something to do with the resonance of physical memory. It remembers amplitudes of current.

Speaking to the Dead

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I didn't hear your last words or see your lasteyes. I didn't reach you in time, so I sat by your corpse,silently saying goodbye. I am in that process,not sour, not sweet, that yoked speaking which can't(because the heart won't let it) utter its whisperedlast word, but…

Morphine

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Until the ivy hides me in

boring

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You don't want to knowthe details of my lifethe gossipthe boring moments strung togetheracross the lap ofmy sense of responsibilityit drives methrough the daysdoing this and thatchore, check on the listi am tired and need to stop for a drinkand then, i am filled up for a…

Freelance Your Way to Poverty

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Buyers of freelance writing have a well-deserved reputation for responding slowly, thereby increasing your pleasure in much the same way that the Pointer Sisters longed for a slow hand.

A Few Good Band Names

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Auto and the Grease-Pits Sugar Cube Full Frontal The Holy Grill Crazy Al and the Squirrels Talk Is Cheap Grilled Cheese Sandwich Cold Zippers Destiny Howl Epiphany Critter Cold Kneecaps Crepes Pulled Pork Baby Seals and the Club

Morning People

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she thinks she looks good in her short red dress, black makeup around her eyes, last night's lipstick a slap of crimson on her cheek. "like this," she says, holding the hammer above her head.

Rising

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The coin, so little, the watch chain, the youth, the fading softening speech, each hand and finger, the panic modeled on your own eyes, the ashtray, certain stumps along the way, the long distance, the odd feather, the jazz rope gone,…

The Old Dog (in response to Brian Warfield)

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Blend the dog a drink and sit down beside him and draw straws for regrets.

Startle Reflex

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I’m decades in and it hasn’t gone away. In all other respects, I am normal. Life is hard, but I’m not complaining. The thing is, I am in a constant state of falling.

to a gregarious stranger

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Three lines.

ghosts

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conflicts in time

How to Be the Most Hated Person on BART (London Tube, Tokyo Bullet, or Any Public Transit)

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The daily slog on public transit is a battlefield. Tensions are often higher than a presidential debate, but throw a wrench into the gears (or a tree branch onto the tracks) with any “severe delay,” and add in one or more of the below faux pas, and we’re

My Latest Failure

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Jason, the obnoxious host, thrusts his microphone against my nose.

Calling All Feathers, Do You Hear

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These little things, they are the hopes We were waiting for, they are everywhere. I made this one just for you. Call them feathers. Call them roses. You'll always See them if you need them. These Little things carry the good news…