Balls O’Clock, 2015 by Hilary Harkness (b. 1971)
“The Wind Bloweth Where It Listeth”
The Editors are spiking most of my copy now, unread. One has described it as “hopeless crap.” My master’s degree means nothing to this pack of half-wits at the Blade. My job is hanging by a thread. But Frankie, an assistant city editor, is not such a bad boss and it was she who, out of the blue, gave me this choice assignment. I was startled. A last chance to make good?
Frankie said, “Get some bright quotes for a change, okay? Or make some up. Not so much of your dreary exposition. Not so many clauses. Get to the point at once. And keep it short for a change, okay? Now, buzz on out to the new Pecking Center on Warehouse Road, near the Loopdale Cutoff. Scoot. Take the brown Gremlin. But check the water in the radiator!” Continue reading “Read “The Wind Bloweth Where It Listeth,” a short story by Charles Portis”
From The Mansion; English translation by Beatriz Haugner.
Tanaquil, 1525 by Domenico Beccafumi (1484-1551)
From Donald Barthelme’s children’s book The Slightly Irregular Fire Engine; or The Hithering Thithering Djinn.
Woman Reading, 1884 by Susan Macdowell Eakins (
Purged some shelves and brought a box of old books to my favorite spot earlier this week. I was looking for books by William Melvin Kelley and Clarence Major but no luck. I picked up yet another Muriel Spark title (I am still hungry for this flavor), and also picked up Samuel Delany’s Nova. I failed Delany’s cult novel Dhalgren, but maybe this earlier novel will work for me. Or I will work for it. Or…you know. Also: Got a bunch of art books today from a neighbor leaving the country. Good for her. (That’s my boy Coyote in the upper left.)
Travelers by Katia Lifshin
Homage to Balthus and Freud, 2017 by Sasha Gordon (b. 1998)
Top Down, 2019 by Jerrell Gibbs (b. 1985)
Virtual Reality, 2015 by Laurie Lipton (b. 1960)
Lines!, 2019 by Samplerman (Yvan Guillo)
Boundary River, 2019 by Liu Xiaodong (b. 1963)
From Citizen by Claudine Rankine
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The new therapist specializes in trauma counseling. You have only ever spoken on the phone. Her house has a side gate that leads to a back entrance she uses for patients. You walk down a path bordered on both sides with deer grass and rosemary to the gate, which turns out to be locked.
At the front door the bell is a small round disc that you press firmly. When the door finally opens, the woman standing there yells, at the top of her lungs, Get away from my house. What are you doing in my yard?
It’s as if a wounded Doberman pinscher or a German shepherd has gained the power of speech. And though you back up a few steps, you manage to tell her you have an appointment. You have an appointment? she spits back. Then she pauses. Everything pauses. Oh, she says, followed by, oh, yes, that’s right. I am sorry.
I am so sorry, so, so sorry.
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The Room of Flowers, 1894 by Childe Hassam (1859-1935)
Lear and Cordelia in Prison, c.1779 by William Blake (1757–1827)
Biblioklept 