May 2013
At the center of Michels’s practice is the Jungian figure of the Shadow, the occult aspect of the personality that Jung defined as “the sum of all those unpleasant qualities we like to hide, together with the insufficiently developed functions and the contents of the personal unconscious.” In “Memories, Dreams, Reflections,” Jung describes a dream in which he was out on a windy night, cupping a...
emmylou harris and nicolette larson — hello...
April 2013
George Jones and Merle Haggard — No Show...
Story Time
Calvin had captured the bearsnail, and now he had to figure out what to do with it. The animal underneath the upturned mayonnaise jar was fat relative to its length and furry, with long antennae. When he placed it in a more spacious fifteen gallon aquarium, he could see that it had an easily discernible face — a cute face, a bear’s face. Its shell looked like a trapper’s hat. It...
I have zero fingernails left to bite after 18 hours of the Boston police scanner.
March 2013
a bright wall in a dark room.: A Letter to Our... →
brightwalldarkroom:
Hello, everybody. This is Chad, the guy behind this site. I am coming to all of you today, directly, because A Bright Wall in a Dark Room has arrived at a (very promising) crossroads—but if it’s to go any further, we need your help.
It has been vitally important to me over the years to…
Being involved with BWDR over the years has been a really special experience....
Very Short Story
Reggie was in the grocery store when he saw a woman in cut-off jean shorts that did not conceal her lumpy bottom. He took a photo on his phone and posted it on Facebook. He wrote a caption that said, “Skankaaaay!”
The next day, Reggie was back at the grocery store because he drank all of his milk during the night and needed more in order to survive. He went to the dairy aisle and saw...
sam cooke — tennessee waltz
Very Short Story
Bob made short ribs. He served his enemies the jelly bits, covering them in lots of sauce. Nobody remarked on it. When everyone was gone, Bob cleared the table and rinsed the dishes. He washed his face before bed and as he dried off, he noticed that his wash cloth was covered with burgundy wine stains. Bob looked in the mirror and saw that his nose had become the stump of a carrot, stewed for five...
February 2013
Error Message 204
ERROR MESSAGE 204: You have spilled hot tea with honey on your keyboard.
slkfjsldkjfskldfjdlskjf
ERROR MESSAGE 204 [CONT]: It’s in here.
!!!
ERROR MESSAGE 204 [CONT]: It really hurt.
:(
ERROR MESSAGE 204 [CONT]: What are you? 30?
Yeah.
ERROR MESSAGE 204 [CONT]: You want to see the launch screen with the weather and calculator and all of that?
No!
ERROR MESSAGE 204 [CONT]: Too bad....
TIME FOR SPRING CLEANING AGAIN
TWICE RECENTLY
I HAVE BEEN IN HOUSES THAT WERE SO CLEAN THAT
WHEN AN ITEM FELL ON THE FLOOR THE PERSON WHO LIVED
IN THE HOUSE PICKED IT UP AND DIDN’T SAY “EW
I’M GOING TO THROW THIS AWAY.”
IN MY HOUSE WHEN YOU DROP
SOMETHING ON THE FLOOR THAT ISN’T MADE OF NON
POROUS MATERIAL OR MIGHT GO INTO
YOUR MOUTH YOU MUST THROW IT AWAY
WASHING IT WOULD NOT CORRECT...
Short Story
Kate uploaded a photo of herself with a handsome man. They were riding camels through the desert. “That’s Christopher,” she typed. “A week after this photo was taken, he died tragically on a boat in Ibiza.”
The post racked up a lot of notes. “God,” said one of the comments, “That’s rough. You guys look really in love.”
...
Watching The ABC’s of Death was an intense experience. I wrote about it here. There are several prosthetic penises involved.
I wrote about 3D printing and the Internet of Things for Grantland last week. I kind of sneaked it in there, since it’s a topic planted firmly outside the cover of the Hollywood Prospectus umbrella, but I highly recommend browsing the 3D printed-object marketplace. The answer to “If you could make anything with new technology, what would you make?” was sort of surprising to me...
January 2013
I always love my job, but I have loved it with particular intensity every Wednesday night (into Thursday morning, sometimes past dawn) for the past four months while recapping American Horror Story: Asylum. An essay I wrote on season one of American Horror Story was one of the first things of mine to run on Grantland (maybe the first? It’s late, and I can’t remember, but I think so),...
Short Story
Joe was a baby. He lay in his bed in the middle of the night and thought, “I’d like to phone a friend.” He did. He called his friend Clarence.
“Hey Clarence, man. What’s going on?” said Joe.
“It’s three in the morning,” said Clarence. “I was asleep.”
“Oh, oh, cool, cool,” said Joe, and hung up the phone. But he was...
2012 was the year you were born. Fireworks up the street, and a garage band next door playing “Auld Lang Syne.”
December 2012
I’m ripping through “Far from the Tree,” a giant (700+ page) non-fiction book that you may have already heard about (ETA: here’s the trailer). I don’t usually use my Tumblr for recommendations, but daaaaaamn this is an excellent read. It covers “horizontal identities” (cultural traits that aren’t necessarily inherited from parents) like Deafness,...
Today was heartbreaking. There is a lot to talk about, and a lot to do. But as a parent, things like this just stop you in your tracks. I don’t think it’s possible to really understand what the families of the victims are going through. The thought of it is shattering. “Empty gestures and meaningless platitudes” is a very cynical way of seeing it: what happened today, like...
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Listen
freexone:
The Commodores
Nightshift
November 2012
Short Story
Tess had gone to sleep at 4:08 AM. She woke up at 7:15 AM and it was freezing cold, although she lived in Los Angeles. She was too tired to make coffee; the idea of making coffee made her feel afraid. She wore four sweaters: three layered, one as a hat. The ghost of November Futures appeared and asked her if she’d like to glimpse into her autumns to come. “No thanks,” said Tess,...
Isaiah Sheffer, the great host and Founding Artistic Director of Symphony Space, has died. He was by all accounts a tremendously nice and special person, and his voice served as a companion to a lot of people during long car rides, gloomy days and solo dinners. The comments on the Symphony Space page are worth a read (click the first link to browse through all of them):
“My disability...
tsexrex:
Stevie Wonder - Signed, Sealed,...