Carlton Suede is about to dunk the ball. Without an ounce of grace — his mutt of a mother used to call him “our clubfooted son” — he is rising through the lower ether. Above the marshmallow-thick white soles, higher than the tense, ribbed socks, surpassing even the shiny mesh culottes of his despairing opponents. [...]
Bomb threats had been out of vogue for some time. Only minor thugs with bad imaginations – too many hours of Die Hard reruns and not enough love as a child – would stoop to something as pedestrian as “phoning in a blast.” Such enervated acts of terror were yawns, handled by a single old [...]
An ode to bulging biceps
February 20, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Hey dude, are you using that preacher bench? How many sets of curls do you have left? Three, huh? Hey, why don’t we call it one, and then you can go join that girl who has been reading Glamour magazine on the elliptical trainer for the last six hours. How does that sound? Look, I’m [...]
Susie Meister: Fame, dolphin tats, and the rules of the road
February 18, 2012 By 1 Comment
Pittsburgh — the little city that almost did and still might — has served as the launching pad for the careers of former Extreme Championship Wrestling World Heavyweight Champion Shane Douglas, comic book publisher Jim Shooter, retired federal judge Robert Bork, and the jam band Rusted Root. Susie Meister, a Pittsburgh native and multiple-time winner [...]
Our best flash fiction of 2011
December 10, 2011 By 1 Comment
Miracle, The Shining After he dumped me, I would go out and drink screwdrivers and have sex with strangers on an alarmingly regular basis. One night I came home and puked into the toilet. I gripped the cold porcelain, trying to catch my breath, my glitter make-up mixing with my tears in little rivulets [...]
The Caramel Macchiato
December 2, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Excuse me miss. I would like one of those fantastic … one of those … oh you know. There’s the coffee and the milk, sometimes a leaf drawn in the foam? Yes of course, a latte. Latte us pray, ha! Isn’t that a latte to ask for? Ha! No no, strictly an amateur funny man. [...]
Emily: Leading from the heart
November 18, 2011 By Leave a Comment
The problem with sex scandals, at least in Emily’s opinion, was that, no matter how many shoes dropped, there was always a stinking boot still suspended. It was like a goddamn Payless in here, and as much as Emily appreciated Airwalk-brand sneakers at guaranteed low prices, she wanted more from life. So it made perfect [...]
Ludwig III, Part 2: this I or he or it (the thing) which thinks
October 28, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Professor Edgarstein squealed. A perfect paper. William Gibson meets Mel Gibson. Umberto Eco meets Marc Ecko. It was gritty and mean and dystopian and weirdly urban. A freshman wrote it? Not some rarefied tract in “Fibonacci Journ.”, not an illuminated scrap of analytic hand-wringing gracing the onion-skin pages of the “Denotational Biennial.” Jesus. Co-authored by [...]
I’m in the 100% and you can be too!
October 14, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Look, My family completely abandoned the US financial system and didn’t let the door hit ‘em where the good Lord split ‘em. We used token currencies growing up. I had my allowance paid in marzipan, which I tried to use to get into a big-time college. I WAS REJECTED. So, I saddled up my brother [...]
I’m the 100% and I’m sticking to it
October 14, 2011 By Leave a Comment
I graduated top of my class from State University of College making a million dollars an hour for a second-tier hedge fund. I had a month’s supply of placenta cream eye-circles-remover. I was loaded. My parents were two rats that jumped on a slave ship and had to steal cheese from cartoon mice just to [...]
Ludwig II
October 12, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Children deliquescing into toddler soup, violent sexual dismemberment, four-page folio spreads of third-degree burn victims, the Poop Boys Macarena, Ludwig Wittgenstein receiving enough self-abuse to bring him within an inch of his life, Princess Di’s moribund breasts. All topics that the modern man embraces. All topics that the World Acadamie of Lit-rat-ture deemed inappropriate. Inappropriate [...]
Ludwig I
September 23, 2011 By Leave a Comment
“Horseshit,” whined Penny. “Actually, Penny, Jereme Michalek worked primarily with orangutang excrement on account of the anthropomorphic …” Penny’s teacher trailed off. She didn’t have a clue what she meant. She had dreamt of being a ballet dancer, a tailor, a docent at a hot, seafaring museum. And now she was splitting hairs about turds. [...]
The Collected Lecture Notes of David Edgarstein
September 19, 2011 By Leave a Comment
The Totality of Things
September 16, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Dear Brian Powell, I have something I’d like you to consider for your next film. You have always been about envelope pushing, pulling, mauling and disemboweling and, if I do say so myself, this piece drips envelope viscera. It’s a rough refutation of conventional ontology. INT. HOSPITAL ROOM – NIGHT The Spin Doctors’ immortal Two [...]
That Which Practices Before Praxis (or, The Spoliation of Horseface Jones)
September 8, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Dear Micah, We received your submission for publication in The Glasgow Review of Modern Deontological Inquiry. Your piece, I Am that I Am or that which Practices Before Praxis, will unfortunately not be appearing in our October quarterly. Though, we are always supportive of inventive style through which to plumb the depths of contemporary normative [...]
“These men did not expect to live, and now they are learning how to try and live again.”
This comment is by Adam McPhee on Kile Ozier’s post, “Good Grief”.
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