Billy grew up watching his home deteriorate. Behind a veneer of nonchalant plastic prosperity, creeping damp and dry rot spread relentlessly. Every possible creature comfort populated the interior: colour TVs, soft furnishings, wardrobes crammed with flashy clothes. Yet behind it all, the walls crumbled and flowered with fungus. The wallpaper reeled and peeled, its jagged […]
The Crumbling Structure Read More »
Mitch bit into another slice of pizza and took a guess at who would win the BBQ Pitmasters episode he was watching. The judges awarded the grand prize to a team from Georgia. Mitch muttered, “I knew it.” He hoisted himself off of the sofa and headed toward the kitchen for another beer. He was
Running from Death Read More »
The African grey parrot began rocking back and forth in its cage when it saw the Golden Retriever enter the kitchen. The dog trotted over to an unattended skillet of bacon that was popping and splattering hot oil all over the counter. Another six pieces of bacon sat cooling on a plate next to the
Yesterday, had I been a millionaire able to hire a gardener or two, I — I still would have knelt in the earth and brushed back the crunchy leaves, to see, touch, oh! green shoots of new garlic. Yes, pruned scratchy rose bushes sucked blood from my thorn-stabbed thumb; cut back the lower aspen branches, plucked
Millionaire’s Spring Delight Read More »
THREE metamorphoses of the spirit do I designate to you: how the spirit becometh a camel, the camel a lion, and the lion at last a child. Many heavy things are there for the spirit, the strong load-bearing spirit in which reverence dwelleth: for the heavy and the heaviest longeth its strength. What is heavy?
Nietzsche on the Camel, the Lion, and the Child Read More »
Praised by such different souls as Ernest Hemingway, Donald Barthelme, Simone de Beauvoir and Kurt Vonnegut, Nelson Algren remains at best a rumor in his own time. They misspelled his name on his tombstone, and when the City of Chicago renamed a street in his honor, the residents complained so bitterly about the change that
Notes From a Sea Diary: Nelson Algren All the Way Read More »