Most read stories

A headline for Amy Hempel

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I shall go with german rules of capitalization in titles today.

Inspector of the Dawn

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It is a strange world, dawn. You may find yourself alone with your God, the old, and the young. Very likely a bird. An old one out hobbling past on a cane, a small dog trotting from bush to bush, sniffing a pile of leaves, jumping back, st

The Undercover Kingdom

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If you had on pajamas with pockets you could sneak a handful of animal crackers upstairs, but first you had to get them out of the kitchen.

Upfaked Out of My Love Shoes

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A dirty-blonde woman in a little black dress, her face a picture of chagrin/ Was similarly looking around as if lost, other’s heads ending at her chin.

The Red-Blooded Boys' Guide to Fashion Week

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When I was growing up–I know that begs the question–if I wasn’t gigging frogs or shooting marbles I used to wile away my idle hours by hanging out at my dad’s women’s clothing store.

Just Another Plebian — Err, Philistine!

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I hate your guts.

Battle of the Bulging British Bridesmaids

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A survey by “You & Your Wedding” magazine has determined that one in five British brides now requires her bridesmaids to sign contracts regulating their behavior and appearance.

Guidance Counselors Fight Boring Image by Ghost-Riding Their Whips

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“I was talking to kid who hadn’t applied to college, and I asked him why,” Branson says. “He rolled his eyes and said ‘Why go to college if I’m gonna end up a tool like you?’"

poetry seductress

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And then there was this girl from Boston, named Pat, who was a little on the hefty side and wouldn’t get off me. And I was skinny then too. She wanted sex so much and so often that the whole time I visited her apartment in Cambridge, after I graduated f

The Trash of Spring

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Winter offers pitting salty sand clouds

The Boy Who Tamed Wild Things

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The boy had a gift, we understood; he could speak the language of the animals, and so soon there was a skunk that he would walk on a leash.

Strayhorn's "Chelsea Bridge" (Webster/Mulligan)

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The chorus is a melancholy enlightenment; this is all I have, he thinks, the only transcendence I’ll get out of this day. I should seize it while I can.

The Birth of Intuition

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My wife’s got dangerously good Peripheral vision She can see things so far to the side That I’m almost certain she can see things behind her And I’m sure she can see things that happened yesterday But the thing that scares me the most She

Saturday, 1AM

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Tonight, as I ate stale fries in the car, / after getting back home, / my seatbelt still around me, / struggling to keep me in place,

Short Lobsters

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"They measured the lobsters and they were short. But like I said, not by much. If they had any sense they’d leave the poor guy alone and go after the big fish.”

Sense and Sensibility Too

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http://fictionique.com/?p=15975

The Football Hero

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He was the first football hero the town had ever known; so fast, he ran rings around teams from other towns.

a prayer for lambs

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unsteady, they try to rise

The Men's Chair In the Women's Shoe Department

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We were going shopping, and they put me in the women’s shoe department at Macy’s so I would really have something to write about, and maybe you can imagine what happened. Well, this one woman sits down right in the chair next to me, which I thought a

Blessed

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The first thing Noah did, more or less, was plant a vineyard.

Rumination

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I am cultivating a willingness to devour anything. I will eat a chemistry lab. I will eat a perturbation if I can figure out how to cook a perturbation.

Science Fiction

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This is the story of the metastasis of the national security state.

All of a Sudden

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Look at this contradictory neon night.

Feminist Gift-Shopping is Man's Work

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“Hey Jimmy,” we’d shout at the bartender, whose real name was Bill, but who acquired his nomme de biere with the fixtures when he bought the joint. “What?” he’d reply in monosyllables in order to keep his overhead down. “What does a woman want?”

The Pulse-Soldier

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The Pulse-Soldier: Part I Dr. Zog Kadare waddled in off the patio, daintily lay down his umbrella, acknowledged his wife with a grunt, kicked off his sandals with a deft movement of the heel, without troubling to unbind them, removed a sealed envelope from his rear…

the girl next door to Andy's

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Then there was this short little girl, Jo Ann, who had a daughter and was divorced, who lived next door to Andy. She told me right after we did it one night that she had always wanted to have sex with me when she was growing up, as a teenager, I mean. A

The Old Man of the Mountain

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I care little for innocence. I prefer the breath of dragons to the silhouettes of apes.

Why I Got an Unregistered Gun

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No matter how tough we make our gun laws, it’s the other goober states that let a dramatist with a lengthy record of prior absurdist plays buy an unregistered weapon at a gun show.

ARE YOU: An ode to overthinking brought on by having too much time to think. To be recited in your best Julie Andrews voice.

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Are you interesting?Are you clever?Are you, maybe often, sometimes never?Are you shining? Pining?Are you glowing?Are you worth knowing?Are you a life without zest?Are you mainlining strife …

Ballad of Vengeance and Violence

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Two weeks later, on his way to a neighbor boy's house, Tim sees Tony on his way to the nearby convenience store.