Brad Zellar “Nobody has ever lost basketball games in more novel settings than Klotz. He’s lost in a leper colony, on an aircraft carrier, in a bullring, a prison, the deep end of a swimming pool. He’s lost before kings and queens and four popes. He’s lost in 50 states and 117 countries. He hasn’t lost in … Read more
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask. I understand that much of this material –such as it is– falls under the category of inscrutable. Some have gone so far as to call it impenetrable. At any rate, I’m willing to acknowledge that the bulk of what I have to say is more … Read more
A retired railroad brakeman named Eliot Show was cleaning his barbecue grill one afternoon when he inadvertently spilled a bucket of ashes and loosed a swarm of jinns on the neighborhood. A cleric who was later summoned for advice on dealing with the infestation informed the neighborhood council that jinns had long been disposed to … Read more
I’ve spent all night trying to find the words to describe the way I felt when I heard that Kirby Puckett was dead, and to describe what his life –primarily as a baseball player, but also as a complex, larger-than-life character– meant to me. Because he did mean something to me. He meant more to … Read more
—Michael Thompson —Michael Hernandez De Luna Bad Press Books, The Stamp Art And Postal History Of Michael Thompson And Michael Hernandez De Luna The Museum of Bad Art Soviet Children’s Picture Books From the Twenties and Thirties The Golden Age of Iron Men Dictionary of Hobo Slang Vintage Drug Ads Thump Queen: Meryl Truett Photography … Read more
Surely you’re aware that there are dreams all around you. You’re moving through them everywhere you go. They’re on every block and corner of the city you live in, and flickering behind the curtains and shades up and down every street. Open the Yellow Pages of your local phone book –what is that if not … Read more
In this moment my body wants to evacuate my skin, rattle its bones, and, dancing, dream itself free. Or dreaming, dance itself free. But my mind swings so wildly, and in this moment –a moment later– I feel like I am blindfolded, with a broken broomstick in my hands, flailing at a cement pinata. Meanwhile, … Read more
To be a good man. To do no harm. To see clearly. To do my laundry. To keep an open heart and mind. To acknowledge my blessings, to share them. To eat something. To give away happiness even when I have little or none to spare. To feel the pain of others. To laugh at … Read more
The King was widely regarded as a complete jackass: a foolish man who traded his Kingdom and his wondrous gifts for a chain of muffler shops. The Queen had left him immediately, and was followed in short order by his retinue (for he had, in fact, once had a retinue). A few desperate and greasy … Read more
There was a time, not that long ago really, when a lonely and obsessive-compulsive man, unable to sleep, might have spent hours on his hands and knees, raking and grooming the floors of his apartment with his fingers, venturing into corners and hard-to-reach places to gather handfuls of hair, dust, random miniature tumbleweeds, and wispy … Read more