During blackouts over the years, Gilligan
had been making unscheduled return trips
to the original island, where, mysteriously,
the population has been steadily
diminishing.
She walked away, crossed the street,
plopped into the plastic swivel chair.
Her bare feet pointed and flexed over the
metal bar, beside the pile of curls.
She was a devoted mother, supporting and doting on her sons and daughter, sharing their hilarity and accomplishments with us all. Last fall she and her husband discussed moving, and she said she wanted to go back to Oregon, where her parents had lived.
The first house they found was her mother’s house.
You have to know what you want, which means
you’ve tasted something,
whether or not scarred
Tom had been dead a while, and was now studying the Library, familiarizing himself with the sections, getting to know all the different species on all the different planets who had mastered the science of binding books and filing texts and adapting ink to sunlight while the beings who’d written them had been alive.
100 WORD BOOK REVIEWS / Hooker / M. Lopes da Silva
“Retrowave pulp thriller” is in the Goodreads description of this phenomenal, visceral book about sex workers, queer love, family and the unfathomable cruelty and weirdness of 1980s Los Angeles. I think that’s accurate in the most appealing fashion possible. Combining the best noir qualities with the kind of revenge drama not seen since Ms. 45, Hooker is one of the most exciting stories to come from that pulp tradition in quite some time. Sylvia Lumen makes for an impressive hero, and M Lopes da Silva gets some pretty cool ideas from the serial killer trope. Don’t miss this one.
100 WORD BOOK REVIEWS / Typescenes / Rodney A. Brown
“Our author is versed in the intersection of text and dance” reads a line from the website created to celebrate the release of Rodney A. Brown’s wonderful new book Typescenes. The book is twenty-five prose poems that you can theoretically dance to. While I can’t dance myself, there is something very musical, very singular about the way Brown seeks out a unique point where music and the lyrical written word explores the difficult, painful smaller stories that make up the larger notion of what it is to be a Black male in America. Brown offers one of the most engaging approaches to telling such stories I have ever encountered.
FILM / Zora's Super Short Show / Kimchi Fried Dumplings / Zora Satchell
What says “holiday spirit” more than family drama? Kimchi Fried Dumplings is a 2013 holiday short about a gay Canadian named Carl who returns to his estranged parents’ house for the first time since his father's stroke a year and a half earlier.
FILM / Finding the Sacred Among the Profane: Jason Goes To Hell: The Final Friday / Sean Woodard
Film Editor Sean Woodard returns with the latest “Finding the Sacred Among the Profane” column, where he hacks apart the hokey supernatural elements of Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday.
Walking toward town, I try to stay on the grass, but all of it is yellowed and crunchy off Sanctuary grounds. No one is in charge outside of that gate, and to be fair, we have been stealing the water for our garden for a very long time. I don’t think it has rained in at least a year either. Where is everyone?
In one segment, a vindictive former cop (played by horror icon Bill Moseley) tries to hold an elementary school hostage in Cokeville, WY with a homemade bomb, but the explosion kills only himself and his wife in the process. The show presents this story as one of its “Miracles” segments.
“I don’t want the damn money!” Her desperate plea falls on the deafened ears of the divine. There is no sign of mercy, no holy herald, no miracle.
This year is different.
Out of two packs of seeds, a dozen nasturtium and cosmos
have come up. A dozen all together. A small victory.
once upon a time, you were softer
but every lost puppet who called you Blue Fairy,
tried to make himself real in your arms,
only transformed you into something other than yourself
An organ is an instrument or wet smush inside a casing
Turn sideways to navigate a movie aisle pre-Covid
What is a movie and how large is it? How many hands?
“What the hell is going on here?” K tries to say, but her tongue flops huge and stupid in her mouth, slurring her words into nonsense. Dr. Fred ignores K. His fingers swarm the keyboard, creating a symphony of clattering keystrokes. The woman in the hallway keeps rummaging through the supply closet.
Don had just finished his daily prayers. After the door was opened, he stepped outside in a robe and wooden slippers, trying to understand what they were talking about. “Nobody gives without wanting something,” said a hooded man wearing a white cloak. “What mask are you wearing today?”
Their mistress walked into the room, carrying no watering can,
No refreshing draughts of fertilizer. She didn’t question
Why a broken stem of Christmas cactus lay on the floor,
Just shoved it in a glass and added cold water.
Andrea stared at it as a cold, clammy sensation burst somewhere inside her and began to spread its icy fingers. Trying to ignore the feeling of alarm rising in her stomach, she said, “Boy’s night out, huh? Just you and the guys?” She tried to keep her tone casual despite her rapidly rising heart rate.
You carried sea moths brightly to their tombs. I have tricked us far too long, make you slide me letters on wires as I dangle low on the dock, watching the infants grow legs