In many of the short story collections I have read, I find that one or maybe two (sometimes more, even) weak stories. In Roxana Robinson’s A Perfect Stranger, I found no weakness. I found gems. I found tension. I found the dusty beauty of life—all its anger and forgiveness, all its shame and reprieve. What you find as you read these unflinchingly tense stories … Read More

poem for 5.30.05: No Place Like Home by Stephen Cushman

My dad brought me to see Jaws the summer it was released. After the movie, I remember how terrified I was as we walked from the spot where we parked our car, down the dark dirt road that led to our cottage. I felt Jaws everywhere–in the woods. And the next day, it took a great deal of convincing to get me into the … Read More

Do Weebles really wobble and NOT fall down? Let’s discuss.

On more than one occasion, Allen and I have wondered if we shouldn’t start some sort of marriage therapy service that involves Sumo suits. We’ve never used them but when we get to one of those situations when neither of us is willing to back down, we have to wonder if things wouldn’t be easier if we couldn’t just strap on our sumo suits … Read More Do Weebles really wobble and NOT fall down? Let’s discuss.

failbetter.com has a new interview with Sam Lipsyte in which they discuss his recent novel, Home Land: I’m definitely not interested in simply being shocking, not for any moral reason but because it’s a dead end. You’ll never be able to shock enough. There are moments of sexual humiliation and moments of terrible violence in this book, but they arise from forces set into … Read More

poem for 5.28.05: The Sun Underfoot Among the Sundews by Amy Clampitt

For the first time in a week, blue sky, sun, water receding. Thoe forecast calls for increasing clouds, more rain. We hope that is place, this micro-climate is spared. The good thing about the rain is that there are toads everywhere and salamanders. You must be careful where you place your feet. And the Gladiola bulbs I bought at the dollar store, sure to … Read More

I did not watch the entire American Idol finale. And for that I am glad. I did, however, watch enough of it to hear the original song both contestants sang (I don’t know the title of it but one of the lyrics is something along the lines of, “I want to be inside your heaven,” which means exaclty what, I do not know) and, … Read More

Rain. It’s been raining steadily since last Saturday. This morning the sun was out briefly, but it’s gone now. The clouds have returned. They say this may be one of the coldest months of May on record for this area. Cold. Wet. Green. The tree trunks are black with rain. The moss, bright green. I am thinking of the desert. The hard ground, dusty. … Read More

Today is also Raymond Carver’s birthday so the poem for 5.25.05 is one of his: Happiness

Happy birthday, Ralph Waldo Emerson: A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it … Read More

Here’s an interesting tidbit–Unpublished Jack Kerouac Play Discovered: An unpublished, three-act play by Jack Kerouac, based on his drunken Beat adventures, has been discovered recently and will be excerpted next month in BestLife magazine. “The part we’re excerpting will show Kerouac and Neal Cassady at a racetrack, and they’re partying and gambling,” Best Life editor-in-chief Stephen Perrine said Monday. “But they’re also talking about … Read More