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Roadside Graves
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FRIDAY, Aug. 6, 9PM
@ Mikey's GyrosStereopathic on Hypem
Aug
14
“And now I’m hung up on a dream.”
-The Zombies
August 11
I’m mystified. Last night in my dream there was a guy who sort of looked like my boss yelling at me for all the work I hadn’t done, because I’d gotten really into re-editing the Wikipedia page about Internet addiction. I still have no idea what it means. I also had the dream about eating my pillow. When I woke up, the Jet-Puffed Marshmallows I keep by the side of the bed were gone.
August 12
Dreams really are inscrutable. Last night I had this dream where I got Read more
Aug
12
“I’m feeling lost and found.”
-Taken by Trees
Several years ago a couple in their seventies used to come to the park near my house with metal detectors. They’d show up about once a week. Around their waists they both wore small aprons with pockets to collect their finds; the kind a waitress might use for tips. I liked the idea that they were working so quickly they needed to stash their winnings on-the-go, heedless of what they’d dug up until later. Since I didn’t usually have much to do in the evenings, I sat and watched them whenever they showed up.
In this way, I became increasingly curious about them. They never found Read more
Aug
10
“Like a hitman/Oh, like a dancer/All muscle.”
-A.C. Newman
Mel and I watched everyone walking past. We guessed about what everyone did. We sat on the bench in front of the playground facing toward the street. It’s about twenty yards to the street from the bench and in the early evening we used to do a lot of people-watching. We both wore jackets; mine olive, Mel’s a surprising shade of red. Mel said the sky looked like the yellow inside of a foam pillow ripped up by dogs and scattered across the sky. I couldn’t agree. I claimed it looked like a patient waking up just after the ether, eyes clear in front of a fogged brain. Mel stuck to his guns.
A man wearing pants with plastic buckles at the ankles. Bald on top, with a bird’s nest of Read more
Aug
7
Song in Plaster: The Magnetic Fields, “I Think I Need A New Heart”
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Two men, Tolly and Stephen, have shut themselves up in a room. They’re adapting Tolly’s off-Broadway play,The Heart Within the Heart, for the screen.
Stephen: So, in the play Robbie and Jeff are gay?
Tolly: No. They’re brothers.
Stephen: So why do they live in the same room?
Tolly: Because they’re brothers and their family’s a little poor, so Read more
Aug
4
Two former roommates meet at a class reunion. One of them works as a sales rep for Walgreen and the other is a physicist working on the Large Hadron Collider.
Chris: So you’re working on that thing? That’s amazing. Is it going create a black-hole and kill us all? (Laughs)
Lance does not react.
Lance: No, that’s impossible. There’s no way that anything like that could happen. We’re looking for Read more
Jul
31
Song in Plaster: J. Tilman, “First Born”
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You are to have—ease it —an open hand while you pray.
Say, tell it, speak like it’s for a free pass.
A condemned man, you have to kill the rule.
You have to keep down at mind.
If you have to have me,
break the first born friend
till it pass over me, Read more
Jul
29
New College, Oxford, is of rather late foundations, hence the name. It was founded around the late 14th century. It has, like other colleges, a great dining hall with big oak beams across the top, yes? These might be two feet square, forty-five feet long.
A century ago, so I am told, some busy entomologist, went up into the roof of the dining Read more
Jul
29
When I was seventeen Mary and I went to the fairgrounds looking for the carnie bones Jimmy Ploutz told us about. As we walked she put her arm around my shoulder, and I put my hand in the back pocket of her jeans, in the manner of a drunk couple I once saw dancing to a Springsteen tribute band, who also taught me that drunkeness and love respect no censors.
We found the booth immediately, buried under a pile of greasy popcorn bags and Read more
Jul
27
[Click image for best quality.]
Bianca cannot get married until Kate gets married. Kate is not a happy camper, primarily due to activities like cooking over fires and not taking showers. Their father loves camping more than even arbitrary and dramatically pregnant rules. Let’s camp this weekend, their father says, I feel I need it. The girls feel they do not need it. But they are oddly compelled to obey their father’s wishes.
Lionkiller is at home with this environment. He views Kate as Read more
Jul
24
Claudette Gable looked in the refrigerator for the aloe. She bent down and moved condiments in the door. Her hand on the mustard, she seized slightly and emitted a low groan. She thrust her hand under the back of her shirt and scratched. She righted herself, groaned again. In the bathroom she lifted her shirt and twisted to look at the redness of her back, which had an unnatural glow that she imagined resembled the sweet and sour sauce at a Chinese restaurant. She decided not to scratch. She would just let the itchiness go.
The scratching didn’t help. Drinking water and applying aloe were the only things that helped. Otherwise it burned, and it actually burned. Her back burned as though she were a Read more
