Karl Ove Knausgaard (code name: KOK) Karl Ove Gump. Or Chauncey Knausgaard? A little of each, cannily packaged as one…
The Thinking-Father’s letter to his Thinking Son
My Son is 37-years-old, an Artist with a decent-sized public following (he also models and is thinking about breaking into…
Time: A Mortal Straight Male’s Perspective and Counsel
Any fan of Martin Amis’ “Experience” will remember his father, Kingsley’s, character, in that book, as a craggily-lovable figure of…
Why do They call them “Movements”?
Way, way back, in the early Aughties (and how long before some scientist finally makes the announcement that one year…
Notes from/for/to/as An Existential Critic: on Daydreaming
Like everyone reading this, I’m an Animal. A peculiar kind of Animal who is both natural and capable of imagining…
MONSTERS in (de)BASEMENT
Wow. I remember this show from when I was a kid; I remember finding the guy who played the Thurberish…
THE NOVEL IN PROGRESS, part 2: Excerpt from THIS INCREDIBLE SEX COMEDY (near completion)
34 [monologue #2, cont’d] We stalked around the museum a bit, taking in German Expressionism, which, as you know, is…
N-Words, C-Words, O-Word
JHVH or “Jehovah” was once a kind of J-word: “Religiously observant Jews and those who follow conservative Jewish traditions do not pronounce יהוה,…
But now a gentleman passing
A few weeks ago, an old friend I’ve known since the 1980s, a musician, a friend from that side…
MILLENNIALS, PUH-LEASE
You’re kidding again, right? Right? You’re joking…. you’re pulling my leg… I know when I’m being pranked! The good old…
I believe the proper terminology is “FIERCE”
There’s something about the self-confident expression of Truth against a rain of Shitstorm and Arrows that I always find thrilling…
FATHER VONNEGUT
Reprinting here an essay I posted on an early blog of mine; published there, originally, January 6, 2011… KURT NOTES…
And You Trust These People with the Hydrogen Bomb?
There’s an unlikely New Repressed Minority deserving of our sympathetic, even scandalized, attention. Where is Gloria Allred? Where is Greta…
CONSCIOUSNESS: OVERRATED, UNDERUTILIZED and MORE THAN A LITTLE PRETENTIOUS: A Few Quick Essays About The Internet
1. MORE PROOF… BUT OF WHAT? I stumbled across this virtual review of Joshua Ferris’s new collection of stories, The…
AMONG THE RAINDROPS FROM MODERNISM’S CLOUD
Scofield Thayer was one of those cloudy, ambiguously gendered, stinking-rich people floating around in modernism’s primordial soup in the early…
LISTEN
AGAINST (THE AUTHOR’S) INTERPRETATION
There is a word for the misinterpretation of a pop lyric caused by the mishearing of the lyric (the…
UTOPIA RULES: a few simple suggestions for fixing this shit
ONE: SEX Let’s end A) teen pregnancy B) the violence-triggering sexual frustration of male teens C) ignorance regarding the clitoris…
THE BROTHERLAND MIRACLES: a Novel Excerpt
“Father was busy reading and did not notice that the house was being filled with strange Indians until Mother…
THE NOVEL IN PROGRESS: AN EXCERPT (yet another novel)
6 “You don’t look a day over fifty. ” He had a genuinely dreamy look on his face. Delighted to…
FORBIDDEN FRUITS and VEG
View story at Medium.com A LITTLE READING LIST: YOU ONLY HATE ASSAD BECAUSE YOUR TV TOLD YOU TO. READ PAGE…
BLOOMSDAY IN BERLIN-a gallery
Near a park dedicated to Käthe Kollwitz there’s a corner from which these two towers appear both near to one…
I’M PRETTY SURE I INVENTED A GENRE HERE
INTRODUCING INA BOYD (A SCREENPLAYPOEM) (from way back in 2010) 1. -Ina says a dreamboat’s any man refrains demanding anal…
IMPERIALIST NOTES: a ZINE within the ZINE
1. FEARLESS = THOUGHTLESS (or, as Joyce puts it, more judgmentally, in Ulysses: “No fear: no brains.”) Recently, one late…
A NOVEL EXCERPT
Kootchie Towers SIDE ONE 1. Cowper Lundgren slipped into Benjamin Schamansky’s office with loafered stealth. Such loafered stealth that…
OEDIPUS Rx (a short story from NOT REALLY DIFFICULT TEXTS)
Goss slithered out of the hotel bed, careful not to wake her. This was not easy because she was the…
SALTER’S LUCK (a short story)
Salter woke up to Lola shouting there was oil fucking paint on her Jil fucking Sander. He couldn’t at first…
THE BIRTHMARK (a short story from DIFFICULT TEXTS)
The little bald citizen from an Otto Dix painting asks Veer ah yoo go-ink and Frederick shrugs so slowly…
THE YINS and the YANGS of a very STRANGE YEAR
On the one hand, 2016 was the year that killed off a dense cluster of our favorite Avatars of…
GREAT MOMENTS IN CRITICISM
Rock critic Robert Christgau (the “Dean” of American Rock Criticism) reporting on the Monterey Pop Festival of 1967: Hendrix is…
CAREER MOVE (a short story from CITY of AMATEURS and GERMANTOWN)
Wednesday evening at 19:00, Simon’s event at the North Coast Gallery, in association with Absolut Vodka and Virgin Records, is…
THE GRADUATE (a short story from DIFFICULT TEXTS)
Miriam with the curly blonde hair that when you looked closer was full of white and gray. Her point being…
THE AWFUL PERVASIVENESS of LIE CULTURE
Any Propagandist with a highly-visible (possibly-well-paid) gig probably can’t wait until all Facts are finally made illegal. Facts will be…
YET ANOTHER OBITUARY LETTER
Dear____: This hardhearted year keeps blowing old troubadours down like some tyrannical Baron striking Serfs with his blackthorn and it got…
JUSTICE with a SMALL “j”
Several long-time readers (aka very strange people to whom I can usually relate) have contacted me about the “shock” election.…
THE CLOAK ‘N DAGGER PENTAMETER: a review of Paul Beatty’s THE SELLOUT and a look at several other shitty books and why they’re Hyped
The well of culture has been poisoned with propaganda. It may not be as lethal as a literal well-poisoning but…
2 SAUL and WALLY TALES (two short stories)
1. IF I DEALT IN CANDLES: THE LOST MASTERPIECE OF RALPH ELLISON Constance thanked Wally profusely for his helpful…
IF BERLIN (poems)
if berlin (poems) LINK TO POEMS
jizos av masi: a short story from GERMANTOWN
Every working day at 5:40 a.m., like a ninety six pound prize fighter in training, Bernadette Murcheson wakes up to…
SUNDRY CASUAL DEMOLITIONS
1. Two days ago I was on a 2-hour expedition with a very real friend (who displays, however, many of…
RICHES of the IMAGINATION to SOOTHE your TV-BATTERED SOUL
***WE DO NOT DIE: FUTURE TALES of CRIME and FORGETTING***
(A TEN-CHAPTER EXCERPT FROM MY LATEST COLLECTION of SHORTS) “We do not die but we forget and forgetting…
ANOTHER (!) OBITUARY LETTER REGARDING CURRENT EVENTS
DEAR _____ : I actually have some Prince tales (maybe you’ve heard a few of these from me already):…
AN OBITUARY LETTER REGARDING CURRENT EVENTS
Dear _____ : I have to admit it doesn’t bother me terribly much that Bowie finally bit the deathcock… although…
ADVENTURES in the PLUS TARD GARDE: a CRITIQUE in PROGRESS
1. August 28th: LIDIA YUKNAVITCH It didn’t take Publishing very long to catch up with The Record Biz’ epiphany that…
EHUD SAID TO EGLON: a short story from GERMANTOWN
“I don’t consider ‘Postmodernism’ and ‘Naturalism’ to be oppositional literary (life)styles; they are tools. I keep both in my tool…
YESTERDAY’S INSULTS ARE TOMORROW’S COMPLIMENTS: a short story from EVEN MORE DIFFICULT TEXTS
This is only for the hairy-chested readers (of any gender) among you; if you enjoy the work of…
SOMETHING ABOUT N. BAKER
SOMETHING ABOUT N. BAKER
COSMIC COPYCATS
List of Knobs Who Claimed to be Jesus [ed.’s note: surely Jesus himself needs to go at the beginning of…
RAGNARÖK
When I was a kid of the 9th grade persuasion, in Vegas, one of the most embarrassing things you…
SEX, MURDER and PHILOSOPHY in EARLY 21st CENTURY LIT
Sometime around the year 2002 or 2003 I wrote a novella called THE BAD CZECH. The narrative of that novella is…
COLLECTED APHORISMS of PASTOR PRIME [continually updated]
1. “Convention is the death of possibility; convenience is the death of passion. Modern life is both.” 2. “A Gifted Child…
Sarah Gold or Tempus Fuggit [a short work in progress, 2014-2017]
Snap. Mr Butler grunted and said, “You pick a woman, you pay a little attention to her, you figure…
THIS OLD GOAT BUTTS BACK
Age-ism is the trendy new, socially approved, version of Racism, apparently. I keep reading essays, posts and Tweets in…
