In a long baseball season, there’s always the question of whether any one game matters
Read Kevin Mahler's Introduction to his ongoing 5-part "Portrait Series Paralleling Characters in HBO’s Deadwood with Contemporaneous Pop Country Musicians," and check out previous parts 1 and 2 and 3
Tom Cruise is one of life’s winners. He felt the need, the need for speed, and singlehandedly saved America from those Soviet planes, or something—honestly you never understood what was going on in the second half of Top Gun. In A Few Good Men, Jack Nicholson told Tom Cruise he couldn’t handle the truth, but Jack Nicholson was quite wrong.
Horace Guy Womack was in the employ of four different Major League teams across five seasons, a serviceable bullpen righty who lost as many games as he won, but managed to keep his lifetime ERA a
I will take an infestation, but only if it won’t spread.
Like many youngsters of the era, this author lived in fear that these bees would descend upon his town by the thousands and sting everyone to death.
I wandered around Sam Goody, more likely keeping track of my ABCs than taking inventory of the musical selections I passed row after row. It was December 1996, the beginning of another bleak winter in
You look like a zombie who’s just seen a ghost, the mirror mouthed back.
to Mrs. Burrell
When Ms. Griffin was fired, my mother said
it was because she was too gay, too flamboyant
for our small charter school. I mourned her
ombre dreadlocks and her laugh that swept
Nights shipwrecked / in nameless wanting
The city a floating glass
garden / to be lost in
Banished from the blinked-out streets / we put
our dollar-store faith / in the claw machine
wager
Now, you book an appointment on a whim. But it’s not a whim. You’ve been thinking about this for a while.
All around him the congregation erupted. Tears of rapture. Hugs of friendship. Compassionate embraces. Passionate kisses. Erotic caresses.
Charlie Utter (Dayton Callie) and John Anderson; A.W. Merrick (Jeffrey Jones) and Wynonna; Whitney Ellsworth (Jim Beaver) and Trace Atkins; General Samuel Fields (Franklin Ajaye) and Kenny Chesney; Tom Nuttall (Leon Rippy) and Aaron Tippin
Morning smells like horseradish,
dogshit. The squat toilet in my uncle’s house:
too cramped to hold
a breathing thing. My cousin, barely older
than three, calls me “姐姐, 姐姐,” as she
Are you in my head? Do you know what goes on up here? Do you know what’s preceded all that goes on up here?
Like the other day, when we got into a fight about who was the luckier between the two of us to have found the other.
For Caite’s Sweet 16 we get a couple rooms at the Motel 6 on Cerrillos, not the one downtown with the outdoor pool, the one on the southside between the strip club and the mall, and everyone can pay
Collective Soul have always sucked, but Everclear was once the only band in the world.
On the contrary: I wanted people to see my spectacle. I wanted them to never forget it. Z had wondered: what if the joy of experiment dies with joy itself? If the relationship ends, what if we’re done with it forever?
His subconscious deemed them too short, or not steep enough, or their grass was flecked with yellow and brown. He had succeeded in agitating his appetite and wondered what he would have for dinner.
People hung around outside of convenience stores with their hands over their mouths blowing smoke. Stereos played loud Christmas music.
