Life is a beach, not an enormous ashtry.

Thus was Rent-a- Rat, Inc born. At first it was Rent-a-Rugrat, but we changed it so the Army wouldn’t be onto us. Our first headquarters was out of a damned tent on Red Square, but we would get the hell out of there as soon as we could muster the necessar

Why is this woman smiling? Because she’s the Real Mona Lisa, that’s why

My dad was in a barber training school where they cut off the tip of a bum's ear and taped it back on with scotch tape

As ghosts, they became lovers. Rodion would strum the Underwood keys like a balalaika. Lizaveta would sing.

It’s always daylight there My brother comes running down the sidewalk holding out his arms and calling my name He’s wearing suspenders. He’s gotten thinner in heaven He embraces me warmly wanting us to be friends I give up trying to resist

There is no need to worry about art. Art in its ideal forms stays safe. Real art resists being the object of attention. It directs your gaze, and it swings in you forever.

The funk of wet wool, stinky feet, reeking armpits, stale beer and fried food created a bohemian fetor.

My name is Jacob Ellis. I was thinking about school and all those years and years and how they go eventually away but always remain somewhere in the mind as if imprinted on an akashic record. I was dizzy there, dizzy with dread and always on the verge of falling.…

What happens when you accidentally run into your lover's daughter on a plane.

there are nights when you're all alonein the darkwhere the only lightis the glow of the computer screenand words can't seem the scratchthe surface of your skulland bit by bitthe sentences, phrases, and lettersattached to your synapsesdrownin your subconscious

Soon you too will lie down with the sleep of rain, telling them a thing or two, grown old by having lived through your youth, that is all. Lying from the side of your mouth so often that you take up lying on your side, to try getting an eyeful of the of

Who does that besides Kafka, Arreola, and Steven Wright?

I can still see us sitting, somewhere (was it in a café?) imagining what it would be like if our mutual faces blended into the future (the waiters posing as in a Manet painting.) Putting our bones together, our broad features, Bohemia and Sweden. Yo

a body lost in thought stays hopelessly lost in thought for as long as the latte lasts and the coffee shop stays open and the moms don’t gather with their baby carriages and the bums don’t bum overly much and the trust funders don’t lose too