It was late July, those days in Chicago when summer is past its prime and everybody's waiting around for a bit of fun.

I grow our loneliness in my mouth, feed you— / sweet and bleak— under a halo of buzzing stars.

The snow is beautiful and I want to die. Who could / refuse this softness?

They had taken all the milking cows but left us the wheat fields that fed them. Only Boy handles our cow creamer with two hands, respectfully, as we consider it a new-religion relic. He is too

Stephen Malkmus
Stephen Malkmus
February 13th, 2001
Matador Records
12 songs, 42 Minutes

I ripped this CD onto my half-dead laptop in the dingy radio station studio deep in the

The photo I'm about to share is a sandwich, on a big brioche bun, cheese dripping out the sides, and juicy roast beef, beet red and bloody, two inches thick. I stick in two toothpicks, with blue

Weird day at work. Serving at Maria’s, couple walked up to me, looked like they’d been crying, gave me one hundred dollars. Five twenties. 

Than the plastic donation kiosks in a mall / shaped like a funnel. You walk up and roll / your change and watch all of it spiral down

My son is obsessed with points.

An interview with Anna Noyes

Do you ever make pieces of origami, folding a sheet of paper over and over intentionally? Do you feel silly? Do you question each fold, or trust that the folds will add up to the frog or the bird you were promised?

We were clowns playing death metal. That was our gimmick: whiteface makeup, red rubber ball noses, rainbow-colored wigs. We called ourselves Puke Bucket, but in his review of our first big gig

Due to a clerical error, 265 students registered for my English 101 course. 

I am all the way turned on; turned up. Nerve-hiss-skin. There is a story here, and I am running interference.

First, he ARRIVED – like the swans at Capistrano, or aliens in the desert, or, more likely, a flaming dessert.

“Who is that?” my friend Noelle said, poking me in the ribs; her inflection, a

It isn't natural / for a thin stem with fruits / to sprout up – / they're heavy, / they're supposed to just hang.

You don't know it yet, but I gave you bad directions, and now I can't find you. For this, I am truly, truly sorry.

We’re all going to be late, for everything, and the people we keep waiting will add this to their mental list of evidence that we are not careful or observant or accountable.

I dream myself into a field that is lime green. There is a branch in my lungs, and I can’t love like I used to. This is a ghost story.

Welcome to Hobart Photo Stories, a one stop shop for photos that will excite the brain, the eye and the heart.

—Tara Wray, photo editor 

"I Believe (In None of This)

They may even remember that while the game licensed team names, logos, and stadiums, and specifically licensed Ken Griffey Jr.'s name, statistics, and likeness—they did not license the names of Major League Baseball's other 699 players.

After thirty days in rehab, you are “coined out.”

Dress Code

I’ve got this friend who’s passionate about dress codes. Her name is Sharon. Most of the jobs I’ve had, when it’s come time for a boss to enforce the dress code, they do so

When I stay over at Amelia’s there is a poster of Devils Tower over her bed and we trace the volcanic neck with our fingertips instead of sleeping. I give Amelia a Xanax and floss between each of her teeth.

For instance, I had the line “But I was talking about lightning” in my head for the first line of an essay, but I had no idea what that essay was about. So I started to write about lightning and do some Wikipedia-ing, and eventually the idea of looking at trauma and human relationships through the metaphor of lightning started to emerge. From there, I just followed my brain around as the essay started to form.

Radio Tower, 4yrs old

The radio tower had big cones on top. We were in the car and I said to mom, “What are those?” She didn't know so she said, “Oh, that's where Mickey Mouse lives.” I was