by Brooks Riley

by Maniza Naqvi

Give me a break I mutter. I text—and I text. Incessantly I text. Send money. Now. Send money. More money. You don’t reply. You will. It is Spring and I am young. Everyone around me on the beach is around my age or younger. We are young.

I offer: Let’s chat. Then I wait. Stretching out leisurely I see stretching before me powdery pristine white sand, waves gently furling and unfurling, nibbling at the beach as far as my eyes can see—a cloudless blue sky mirroring a gentle ocean to my right. A gentle ocean—its blue so blue against the sky and the white that I cannot even give it a name—this blue—this blue of abundance. This blue of calm and peace. This blue of happiness. This combination of blue and white—this perfect sweet air, a fresh ocean breeze. And I am high, feeling the buzz—of this intoxicating time. The beach vibrates—undulates and shivers—trembles with life, the shells, clams and crabs– alive. On the distance horizon over the ocean I can make out cargo ships, probably Chinese and Dutch and trawlers, probably Japanese, netting the big fish. Our fish. Read more »

by Dave Maier

I’ve always been a big fan of logic puzzles, especially Japanese ones (heyawake, nurikabe, gokigen naname, hashiwokakero), but I recently ran across another kind of puzzle which has been driving me crazy. So I thought I would share it with you, so maybe you also may be driven crazy. You’re welcome!

I do this puzzle (called “Guess” in this version) on my iPad, and I got it as part of large collection called Puzzles, which means that if you search for it on the App Store, you’ll get a bazillion hits and never find this particular one. Luckily (or not), Guess is easily available under another name, Mastermind, the name of the board game it’s based on. I don’t remember ever playing this game, but the only difference, I take it, is that when it’s played by two humans, one player chooses the tokens while the other guesses, and one scores better or worse based on how long it takes to get the answer (or fails to do so). Guess doesn’t give points, but one naturally tries in any case to solve the puzzle in as few steps as possible — which involves figuring things out rather than simply guessing randomly. Read more »

by Katrin Trüstedt

Political debates in Europe these days seem to have only one subject. At one point or another they all turn to the issue of migration, Islam, and a danger to “the West”, which are presented as essentially synonymous. Germany’s political future seems currently to hang in the balance over the so-called “migration master plan” by German secretary of the interior Horst Seehofer. The polemical campaign of the CSU to win back voters from right wing parties threatens to blow up the German government and thereby endangers the future of Europe. In a time when it is increasingly difficult to deny the immense scale of suffering both in the places from which a majority of the refugees escape to Europe, and in the border areas they find themselves in, the construct of a “Fortress Europe” is being strengthened not only by physical and political, but also by rhetorical barriers. Returning to stereotypes of foreign invasions overrunning a weakened West, mainstream debates are drawing on old images already used in anti-Semitic propaganda of the early 20^thcentury.

Michel Houellebecq’s novel Submission, which recently re-entered the German discourse in form of a movie adaptation, seems to offer the apt allegory for the current phantasma. Perhaps its biggest accomplishment lies in foregrounding the strong but mostly implicit connection of this type of xenophobia with issues of gender and sexuality. The weakened West is depicted here in terms of the decline of the male, bored, and sexually frustrated protagonist who shows uncanny features of an Incel, and to whom the Islamic Other taking over France seems to offer a model for a renewed masculinity putatively under attack in post-feminism Europe. Ultimately, the only solution for the protagonist is a submission to the spreading Islam in order to restore patriarchy and repair his unsettled and offended masculinity with the vision of underage virgins. In all its absurdity, the novel points to an implicit thread of the new right wing discourses presently targeting Islam as the privileged enemy: that of a threatened masculinity. Informed by images of young Islamic men overrunning a decadent West unable to protect itself, the European discourse on refugees is deeply gendered and sexualized. Read more »

“…shimmering through the leaves and out beyond the black lines
of her neighbors’ chimney pots were the stars, beacons whose light
left them long before there were eyes on this planet to receive it…”
…………………………………………….. — archeologist Jacquetta Hawkes

Tripping on Curbs

we who live in deep space and trip
on curbs looking up at stars bound in a mesh
of interstices of lightyears through which
seas of breath and blood pass,
in which muscles are bound by mystic ligaments
to armatures of bone . . .
we’re always mystified by what seems a
phenomenal disconnect,
mindsparks shine here and there,
filaments of personal matter,
electric turns of tissue and dreams,
tiny conscious blips to which
oldest light comes, goes, scatters
and everything is it.
so it may not matter
if shimmering it
will or will not
shatter
.

Jim Culleny
11/04/16

by Brooks Riley

by Amanda Beth Peery

by Gabrielle C. Durham

“In receiving this award, I thank my parents, Zsa Zsa Gabor and Mr. T.”

This is my twist on the importance of the serial or Oxford comma, the comma that should follow “Gabor” and precede “and.” I was indoctrinated at a young age, which as we know is the best time for a spongy brain to take in nebulous rules that will dictate the rest of one’s life. The catechist was grammar and its incumbent style guide. Style guides rule the world. They frame the content you read, no matter if you notice it. You probably only become aware of it if the framing is inadequate or a convention is broken.

In a just and decent world, everyone would use the Chicago Manual of Style. That august association does not give me any money, but I would give (and have given) them some for the joy and clarity that publication and its website have bestowed upon me. If you’re looking for some syntactic comedy, check out their reader comments. It’s not a Chris Rock special on premium cable, but you might have a titter.

Chicago has everything. If you cannot find an answer in Chicago, either you did not phrase it correctly or it is not worth asking. Even a worthless question, the magnanimous souls at CMS will find a way to answer and give solace to the asker’s weary mind. Read more »

Blowing Her Lungs Out into a Clay Oven

Mother leans
against the island
in the nanosecond kitchen
at Farouk’s home
in New Rochelle,
marveling
at a Miracle Icemaker
as half-moons
tumble
into a glass bowl.
She spins

a Lazy Susan
with glee,
clicks the fire
fountains on & off.
“Atomic food
makes stomachs ache,”
she warns,
alarming
the microwave.
“I remember,”

she says,
“squatting
in front
of a clay oven
blowing
my lungs
into a slim steel pipe
to light a fire,
my smoke-singed eyes,
your father’s anger—
She pulls out

an empty tray
from the oven,
whispers,
“For 50 years
I created
a home
only to see
your father’s
new wife
inherit
it.”

by Rafiq Kathwari / @brownpundit

by Brooks Riley

by Max Sirak

Long before it ever even occurred to me to be a writer, I accidentally adopted the quirks and habits of one…

If one sits in my dining room, they can see it. There is literal writing on my wall. What once stood empty, with its deep red paint, is now plastered with Post-Its. My dining room features a Word-of-the-day wall. It took over five years to complete and started as many things do, by chance, during a drunken game of Scrabble.

Word-of-the-day-wall aside, there’s another writerly habit this column pertains to.

I can’t honestly tell you when I started my notes. Soon after college is all I’ve really got. Many moons ago I began highlighting passages in everything I read and typing them up. It’s a labor of love born in hopes of retention.

I learned at university that if I wanted to commit something to memory I needed to do more than simply read it. Remembering, for me, requires an action element. So, in the name of not forgetting everything I was learning from books, I started my notes.

Weighing in at damn near three-quarters of a million words, over 1,500 pages, and spanning 200 different entries, my notes are the closest thing to a life’s work I’ve got. Read more »

Subway Haiku

Five times doors open
And five times they quickly shut
The Speaker crackles

Crossroads of the world
Four languages on my bench
Train to JFK

Many tired folks,
Long hours and they can’t rest yet,
“start spreadin’ the news”

Every type of eyes:
Closed, squinting, staring, empty,
Downcast, roving, hard

Dude: Yankees’ cap,
Whitest sneakers known to man,
Brand names head to toe

“No way” says a kid,
Mom grabs his DS away,
He stares silently.

Man wears a kuf,
On his neck: Star of David,
Eating some pork rinds

Man in uniform,
Knows how important he is,
And now you do, too

Women gently sleep,
The train lurches to a stop,
They ain’t sleeping now. Read more »