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O'Hare International Peoplewalk Tunnel

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At step blinding speed we all alight somewhere in the world

Revolution

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Suppose a bowl of mushroom soup. A table and a chair. A woman arguing against the uselessness of war. A bomb ticking in a man’s groin.

Imagination Factory

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I sit in a small office amongst a huge pile of letters picking out individuals and arranging them on a big square made of something like paraffin

How It Started

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At two AM I went to bed, and the mill shut down shortly after. The silence jerked me out of sleep so fast I almost screamed. Choking and sweating, I lay there and tried to figure out why I was so scared. And then I realized: for the first time in half a y

The First Day on Snowshoes

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I can hear my heart in this empty field; I feel it burn against the wall of my chest.

The Andy Warhol Experience

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Whenever I go shopping, I am trying my best not to be overwhelmed by an Andy Warhol experience. This is not like your typical Orwellian Big Brother experience, like when enormous Chairman Mao posters appear out of nowhere, keeping an eye

His Heart’s In the Right Place

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Andy was puzzled. “Why, then, does everyone say my heart is in the right place?” “I think that’s just an expression,” Doc said. “It should not be taken literally.”

Five Million Yen: Chapter 16

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He looked for Arris among the patrons. There were a few artist types and professional drinkers at the bar. Only two tables had customers. Arris was not among them.

The Turkey and the Tall Tree

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The bench was set by the waterMarbleAnd dedicated to a man etched his name,the year he was born,and the year he died. She had been suffering from a dark narcolepsythat reflected off the cloudsa lightening bolt energylike a screwturn screw and wrench.Door…

Enemies Are Taken Care Of?

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You took me to this great salad bar once, down in Chicago, on a special date. It must have been for my birthday (how old was I!) I remember that salad bar. It was the only salad bar I’ve ever seen that had caviar. I loved that black caviar. They put it up

Is That a Floating Postcard over There in your Shirt Pocket, or Are You Just Happy to See Me?

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We came wind-milling together ,up and over the blue and yellow stone bluffs, like a couple of empty yet racing nowhere fast plastic grocery bags, catching onto everything and anything in our way, and desperately trying to get free again,…

Vintage Orlando

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"Benny can't come over anymore." I was 12. Latchkey kid, but we didn't call it that. Mom working in another town. Dad working in another town. My brother. 2. My responsibility. "Why? Why not?"

Second Career

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“Just how many different bipeds try to hide their nakedness?” “Only one. And that'd be us, idiot.”, Twinkle responded. “Then, why don't we mind showing certain parts of our bodies?”, she then asked. Twinkle could see it was going to be…

The Dream to Build a City

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I tried to drain the ocean But only got a waterfall I tried to drain the sky But only got a thunderstorm I got lightning I got rain I had to build a city By blowing on the palm of my hand The sands rose up The dust blew away And all

In Memory of Lost Things

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What they used to do is hide in the cupboard, and would suddenly acquire the philosophy of “whatever happens happens,” so that they would finally find themselves grabbing each other's body parts in wanton excess until they both explode under the weight of their…

Late Eulogy

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We wished it had been murder./ It’s easier to hate for hurtfulness/ One you never knew.

durations of flamenco

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thus is life conjured with music: human life / with human music human souls human earth, / hot souls the cherished fruit of the hot earth beneath.

Take Abe To Mass

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Near Christmas in Chicago they used to have these pictures of a five dollar bill on billboards all around the city, with the caption: Take Abe to Mass. On the front steps before going into the church, we encountered a ver

Pleaser

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Yes keeps falling out of my mouth

having a bad day

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My mom said, “Carol, why are you laughing?” And I said, “I just saw my last boyfriend and his wife, who got married six months after we broke up, and it’s funny. I mean, I just saw them. They’re in town visiting from California.” And my mom said, “C

The Endless Dream of Humanity

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I may have walked across the sacred line That separates me from the rest of mankind But I already paid my dues So, what club do I get into? When I wake up And the wild rain of dreaming Ends I discover that Guilt is just another four-le

the break up

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Well I, for one, knew immediately what these great muffled sobs were coming from the parking lot behind our apartment complex. This stud named Clint was dumping one of his girlfriends, again. Exactly how many were there? Could have been a dozen, for all

It was a Dark and Stormy Night

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One of his big failings was getting pissed off about things behaving badly but not troubling to immediately fix them. He was working on being more prompt.

Casual Summons

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He summoned a demon from Hell, following instructions from a journal his grandfather wrote on the subject before being the victim of a sort of faust-like debacle himself. A little imp popped in from a cloud of smoke following his ritual. It turned around,

The I-Penis

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You’ll end bar-hopping once and for all You’ll never leave the house Steve took this one with him to the grave because he knew nerds everywhere would stop speaking to him Yes, that’s right, it’s the magnificent new I-Penis with built-in 10 m

They

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They had been part of the world for as long as he knew, but they were still an enigma to Timothy. They had an origin but he did not know what it was or what they were. They were both the source and the outcome. They generated and spread the information.

In the Film Room With the Big Guy Upstairs

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It was a stupid thing, but one I'd gotten away with before. My bagel was stuck in the toaster, and I probed a knife down into the slot without unplugging the appliance. BAP!—sparks and smoke, and before I knew it, I was dead.

But the Heart Loves Chaos

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The mind likes logic, but the heart loves chaos. The light is always on in Reality, isn’t it? Maybe I sought you out to make sense of my life, I don’t know. Maybe I wanted some sense that you were still how I remembered you (at least a little of you tha

A Day at the Fair

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“Furman lost all his money at a clip joint. I'm going to the office to complain.”

Kog Zadare, only living person...

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The poems and the Lies of Zog the Obscure It was said of old, shut the doors, close the windows; get into the spaceship and eschew mankind and every earth and like Neitszche put it "wipe away the horizon with a sponge".Negative 272°C (or Not Yet Absolute Order For These…