The Ten Dullest Authors: A Symposium (1923)
In 1923, nine of the most prominent literary experts were asked by the editors of Vanity Fair to name "the ten great writers whom they found most thoroughly boring.
Three Short Essays
The world swelters, even at twilight on this August Sunday. My great love naps, her hair lank and humid across her forehead. The blunt protrusion of an empty wine bottle from last night’s party,
The Diary of a Forty-Niner
JUNE 29, 1851.—They are going to have a Fourth of July celebration and barbecue at Selby Flat in opposition to Nevada. Half a dozen more families have settled there in the last month. Both of the Missouri girls are married; women can’t stay single long in this country.
The Arrangements
The world is spinning and I realize
I’m the only poet at this Bain Capital party
There is one bottle of each of the best
High end spirits, a treadmill, and an Xbox,
Songs in Helvetica
It begins. It thumps with glee.
A two note school-ruler-on-desktop buzz jam.
Snares crackle, bass drums thud,
And a haunted voice carrying fragile strands of melody
Skeletons in the Closet
Ordinariness has always eluded me. Not that I ever searched for it very hard – it was too much fun to wow my classmates with tales of my rather colorful childhood…
Roman Sonnet
I ask for symbols and you deliver them.
An Iowa shirt, building sign, cup of grappa
at the hotel before an evening walk,
Rings and Slot. Three of the Casinos in Nairobi County.
At Jokers’ Casino I am allowed complimentary grilled-cheese for a 2000 shilling stake any given night. A Fanta in glass was certainly on the table for a day’s bets, but only as a matter of inclination;
