Don’t go back to the Chinese restaurant. You’ve been there three times and every time it’s a close call. Three times you’ve sat there and watched people run up with guns, shooting and killing people. And yet you’ve gone back. You’ve crouched down in a booth, shitting yourself while death surrounds you. Misses you. You’ve... Continue Reading →
Imagine having a terrible hangover in 8 AD. How would you make sense of the pain, sickness and waves of anxiety? Probably feeling worse than Ovid writing his Black Sea Letters: the exile from the world of your people, your life; feeling as though you're on the brink of death and clinging to the hope... Continue Reading →
Things that m'lord has said incorrectly. Slowly combing through clips to add any more that I hear for myself. Catch you cool cobras later. "Cardinal Cherries" for Cordial Cherries "Billie Elighzh" for Billie Eilish "Pramazhan" for Parmesan "Bill Barr" for Bill Burr "Churn O'Boil" for Chernobyl "monitorization" for monetization "phonicsly" for phonetically "nestle" (as in... Continue Reading →
[B]esoin d’écrire et besoin de ne plus [boire] s’épaulent…. -Adaptation of a line by Roland Dubillard Written on day one of quitting drinking. Forgive the quality if poor. One of the problems with drinking too much is that space (places in your life) becomes stained with the filth of drunkenness. You connect your world around... Continue Reading →
A small, mouthy bird landed in the parking lot of a 24-hour diner in the suburbs. It was about 10:30 PM. He was supposed to meet his friend, a dog, at 10:45. He looked at his phone and saw a series of missed text messages from the dog that read: >omg >Wait. >I have to... Continue Reading →
I couldn’t have chosen Prime. Not even if I tried. Prime does nothing for transatlantic shipments…. I ordered my book when I was halfway through the second-to-last book I read: that book referenced the one I ordered. Well, I finished that book…then another…and now I’m too stressed to select another to read: once I begin... Continue Reading →
By Joe A small, mouthy bird is standing by his car in a parking lot. It’s almost 11:00 PM. The parking lot lights are still on but will go out soon as they are on a timer. Finally, a rambunctious dog walks out of the door of the massive hardware store that sells everything from... Continue Reading →
By Joe “The trick is to find one item, one detail, and focus on it.” -Detective Somerset to Detective Mills Originally, I planned on writing about the various symbols seen throughout David Fincher’s 1997 movie Seven, but when I heard the line quoted above, I decided to focus only on the role that numbers... Continue Reading →
I watched Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket recently for the second time. The first time I watched it was more than a decade ago at least, so my second viewing was almost like seeing it for the first time. I did, of course, have vague memories of the training sequences and I remembered Private Pyle... Continue Reading →
DA-PHNE (chicago) 