Cort was asleep when the car crashed into the side of his building. He’d lost his job only a week and a half earlier, and had taken to sleeping until the early afternoon. In the summer heat he’d started sleeping on the screened-in porch.
Imagine planting a garden. Imagine planting a garden of only yellow tulips. You love yellow tulips, the dusky smiles, stems’ green neutrality. Yellow tulips are your favorite. So mild.
“Again.” I waited for his response, anticipating a sigh.
“Again?” John checked his mirrors and signaled his emergency lights, but no sigh. There’s a plus.
“Oh, yes, again. Pull over,” I muttered, reaching for the paper towels. As I looked away, I felt his stare penetrating me. Too commanding, too bossy, too everything, once again. I knew.
The whole thing was rotten. A wet heap that piled in and on itself, leaving white flecks of paper hanging in the water like a snow globe.
He sighed.
“It’s all that extra ply,” he said. He tried to sound confident.
His head was an apple
chest proud, deadman's float
while rows of parents looked on
with drowsy interest
His ghost was with me that morning
Wandering round my room
While I tried to write,
Lifting the corners of my laundry,
Making the dust dance in the light.
I have, over the last month or so, been forced to consider the penis a bit more than I would like. I mean, I have nothing against penises, but boy oh boy, do you guys like to write about them. And talk about them. And reference them. All the time. Every day. The amount of submissions we receive that are totally centered around the gratification of dick is… well, I should say it is shocking, but it isn’t, really. And one can argue all writing is masturbatory, all writing is navel gazing, but I don’t necessarily believe that. I mean yeah, maybe if this was the movie Wonder Boys or something (I did not read the novel).
"T. Anderson can never be free—that is the beginning and end of the story. If he thinks he is freeing others, he is wrong. He is not."
“Call me right now! I can’t believe you lied to me AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!”
It was Friday at 3:42 pm. I was in a meeting when I felt my phone vibrate. Sheer panic is a very appropriate descriptor of my emotions at that exact time. Mix in a healthy dose of shame, disgust, self-loathing and add a bit of self-preservation. She knew. I had contacted the woman I cheated with after promising I would never do so again. And now she found out. How could I mitigate this? And could I lie to cover it up? Only to protect her, of course.
The Oscars have been over for a while, and I find myself thinking about the way the awards doom otherwise good movies to unreasonable scrutiny, and ultimately, dismissal. There is a long list of Best Picture winners that I personally wouldn’t call the best movie of the year. In many cases (for some reason, I keep thinking of The Artist right now), I wouldn’t even call them the best movie amongst the nominees for that year. Despite the fact that no one allegedly cares about the Oscars, Best Picture winners tend to piss off an awful lot of people.
In the very center of the grassy commons stands a regal statue of Thaddeus Wallace. One hand grasps a weighty tome while the other thumbs a jacket lapel. Wallace University’s founder faces the administration building and oversees the comings and goings of all students, but his bronzed eyes aren’t the only pair watching. Waiting. Looking.
They do so quicken
to warn don’t they?
‘specially those that
have never dared or
worse, but sadly, onced.
Earlier this year, Frankie Metro contacted me about doing a reading in Denver in August. It would get me back to the Mercury Cafe. I had always wanted to go back. I just didn’t know when I would get the chance.
Suddenly, given the chance to go back, I felt the weight of failing two years ago. It was an instant match for the anxiety I almost always, immediately feel, whenever someone asks me to read or perform.
And we’re gonna fly, as well? The first time I’ve done so in eighteen years? Lovely.
Here I am wearing June on my fingers,
earrings on my ankles, skinny dipping
in a public pool regardless of awe-struck
children, writing a note between gillyflowers,
slurping breakfast on the ice veranda, braiding
lavender though it’s long been brown.
COMICSMr. ButterchipsAlex Schumacher
Mr. Butterchips returns for Drunk Monkeys Volume 2, Issue 3!
You are in a new house. It is your fifth birthday.
The Charles River shushes your tantrums,
infrequent as they have become. The moon moth
is an introvert. Her wings light up the night like limes
but she prefers her Sycamore hollow.
Lay your head down to sleep with word for word transcripts of murder trials still ringing in your ears. One thousand stories from neighbors of lawless men. Their mouths open like baby blackbirds spewing out ink, instead of tiny songs, a river into the corridors of the dead.
1. For instance, forsythia catch April on fire and this is when babies learn the color yellow and adolescent girls carry their new chests like medals, momentarily. By May, the fuss has diffused and branches shiver without flower while dumb daffodils gab and lilacs diva the garden.
The holiday we think of as Presidents Day is really a bit of a misnomer. Celebrated on the third Monday in February, what we today know as Presidents’ Day was first established by Congress in 1879 in recognition of President George Washington, and is still called “Washington’s Birthday” by the federal government. The holiday became Presidents’ Day in 1971 after Congress and the Nixon Administration moved to change it to the third Monday in February as part of the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, an attempt to create more three-day weekends for the nation’s workers.
PODCASTDrunk Monkeys RadioFilmcastLego Batman
The Filmcast crew returns with a look at the first big hit of 2017, Lego Batman, as well as other advertisements masquerading as movies.
Films discussed on this episode:
The Handmaiden (2015)
Pit Stop (1969)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
The Room (2003)
Lego Batman (2017)
The Garbage Pail Kids Movie (1987)
Clue (1985)
Mac and Me (1988)