May 2012
4 posts
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Ana (new fiction)
by Alebonski
Ana rolls cigarettes like some people roll joints: skinny, cylindrical with the ends knotted so that they look like torpedoes. She rolls them deftly with elegant fingers, long slender things that could be those of a pianist. He watches her intently. It is too beautiful not to watch. His own cigarettes, he thinks, look more professional, but her’s are prettier, daintier, more elegant....
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I keep thinking of Henry Miller in Colossus of Maroussi being told by the American Consulate in Greece that he had to go back to the States.
“I don’t want to go back to the States, I’m writing about Greece right now.”
I don’t want to go home. I am home.
April 2012
2 posts
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March 2012
5 posts
1 tag
Excrement and the Exurban Male
The Texas A & M logo is a modern adaptation of 19th century aesthetics. Historically, it was proper to place the grandest factor of a set of initials as the largest and at center on a monogrammed shirt, or on a set of embroidered towels. Sadly for the institution, it means that Texas A&M is rendered ATM. ATM is emblazoned on the rear end of my neighbor’s Land Rover. It is a Land Rover LR3,...
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Et tu, Tumblr?
Shiny new look. Shiny new privacy policy. Is Tumblr, too, now going to sell us things?
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Plastics make it possible. The entirety of America is made out of plastic: The buildings, the cars, the food, the people. My high school English teacher once said that Disneyland is superfluous: All of America is Disneyland. With the Golden Arches, Big Boy, drive-in movies, and attractions like the world’s largest ball of twine, and towers in various states where you can pay to go up and see...
Whitelandia
Greetings from Republican Whitelandia! Yes, there is a white homeland. It is my hometown, where the only thing whiter than the people is the snow. There are, naturally, some darker people here, mostly brown ones from across the river and over the fence. These are here to do the jobs that the good white folks don’t want to get their hands dirty with (most of them). It is a wonderful thing...
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Miami
At the Dallas airport, they try to sell me Texas BBQ, a Dallas Cowboys jersey and a Chinese-made Brooks Brothers shirt. In Miami, I get off the plane to view a gorgeous young woman, her bare feet elevated on her roll-aboard suitcase, her long, shapely bronze legs running up to her white shorts, her mid-length sleeved t-shirt clinging to her shapely young body. Lost in the virtual world rendered...
February 2012
4 posts
The Christian Right views professed “Christianity” as a litmus test for elected office. Somehow, it assures them that a candidate has the underpinnings of the correct moral framework. Newt Gingrich might have had three wives, asked one of them to sign divorce papers while on her deathbed, had two affairs and sought a threesome, but he told Franklin Graham he’s a Christian, so Newt’s alright. It’s...
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Sketches of Brazil
I woke this morning with the 1964 Getz/Gilberto version of “The Girl from Ipanema” running through my head. Where this reverie comes from, I’ve no idea. There are a few possibilities. A very lovely Brazilian woman has just become a “friend” of our store on Facebook. Sadly, I find that “friended” is already in the Apple Dictionary database and I remain, as always, amazed at the rapidity with which...
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Dreams of Exotic Destinations
I was in the waiting room for our local sushi bar the other day. It may strike as odd that a sushi bar has a waiting room, but the sushi bar is digitalized to a scale that made Japan an industrial powerhouse. It is absolutely Asian whereas the new Asian restaurant down the street, an import from New York in a space built by a developer from New Jersey with two stories of airspace and enough room...
The Newt on the Moon
Newt Gingrich wants to live on the Moon. In Pensacola, just days before his crushing defeat at the hands of SuperPAC Man Mitt Romney, Newt assured Americans that, before the end of his second term, we would have a base on the moon. This is the product of two fantasies converging. Newt is prefers not to discuss details of the plan, or what we might actually be doing up there, instead vaguely...
January 2012
5 posts
Holiday Cards from Hell
It’s mid-January. It’s that time of year when W. and I take stock of the Holiday season just past, catch our breath and plan for the rest of the winter. It is also the time to reorganize. Housekeeping generally falls apart during the fourth quarter, somewhere between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Eve, the house will start resembling a college dorm room - cozy and comfortable, but disheveled, with...
It sounded like I interrupted her. She was breathing heavily and speaking in broken sentences. She was either crying or having sex. Either way, I’m not really sure why she answered the phone
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The New Software
The arrival of new software at our store always feels as though it is heralding the dawning of a new age. Things will be better now, more organized, more efficient… easier. The Sun will come out from behind the clouds, the birds will dance in the blue sky, and the angels will sing. In the eight years or so we’ve been running our store (it’s going on ten now but I don’t really feel it’s been...
I’m very excited about Peak Oil. It’ll be just like camping out, except we’ll be digging holes in our back yards instead of the woods to use for toilets and we’ll never have to go home.
I’ve been reading The Long Emergency by James Howard Kunstler. The discussion is about the converging catastrophes of our time: Peak oil and Global Climate Change.
In it he posits that suburbanites, addicted to their fossil fuel based lifestyle and believing themselves entitled, will cling to it against all logic, scapegoating those they think are to blame.
It appears to me that the long...
October 2011
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I’ve been wondering if my current obsession with cars is an indication of the onset of a midlife crisis. Of late, I’ve been obsessed with British cars. It started out with Triumphs and MG’s but progressed to Minis, Morris and Rovers (both defunct I was sorry to learn). Most recently, it’s been focused on Land Rovers. Not the lame LR2, LR3 and LR4 they’re flogging in the States. Those look like...
September 2011
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Dick’s running around with a clipboard and his MacBook, supervising the roofing project. I’m not exactly sure what purpose the MacBook serves other than to illustrate that he has one.
He has a raison d’etre now. It’s kind of cute. Thinking about buying him a pink hard hat.
August 2011
4 posts
Out of Pocket
Dick uses the term “Out of Pocket” frequently.
From Urban Dictionary: A term that should never be used. It is used 99% of the time by D.C. Bureaucrats. Not just any bureaucrat, but sycophant whore climbers. Mostly used by no talent grade 14’s in Headquarters with polished shoes who are clamoring to move up.D.C. Bureaucrat- “Hey Steve, I’m going to be out of pocket...
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Who the hell writes sentences like this?!
First, if necessary (and advisable) and not already sent, please do send the referenced FED demand. It may not apply, but I suggest we continue to dot our i’s and cross our t’s.
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Pet Peeve
Men constantly touching their “junk” in public.
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Meeting with Peter this morning.
I think he might be the Devil. He represents everything I detest about America and yet I kind of like him. One really can’t help but like him - he’s an affable fellow.
I wonder if he’ll try to intimidate me. He enjoys intimidating people.
That will be amusing. I’m about as easy to intimidate as I am to impress.
