May 22, 2013
Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)
Spoiler follows.

The way they beat Khan is by punching him hard enough.

Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)

Spoiler follows.

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May 22, 2013
May 21, 2013

May 21, 2013

May 22, 2013

Glancing into Damien’s bedroom, she sees that Marina’s luggage is the Louis Vuitton stuff with the repeating monograms, the real and loathsome thing, to which she is intensely allergic. Two very new suitcases are open, spilling what she takes to be black Prada exclusively. On the twisted sheets, the silver oven-mitt comforter tossed aside on the floor, she sees a crumpled military garment in a camouflage pattern that she seems to recall is called tarn—information gathered during her time in the skateboard-clothing industry. She knows most of the patterns, and even that the most beautiful is South African, smoky mauve-tones Expressionist streaks suggesting a sunset landscape of great and alien beauty. Is tarn German camouflage? or Russing? English? She can’t remember. It means something else as well. A Poe word. Dead lakes?

William Gibson, Pattern Recognition

May 22, 2013
Iron Man 3 (2013)
It’s not the script or direction by Shane Black of Lethal Weapon and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, though I am starting to think the man can’t write a movie that doesn’t take place over Christmas. Nor is it the villains—and the twist on Ben Kingsley’s role that is so good you have to be glad the trailers didn’t spoil it. Even the 140-minute running time didn’t cause scenes to drag very much. The issue is: all the characters keep talking about the events of The Avengers. 

Iron Man 3 (2013)

It’s not the script or direction by Shane Black of Lethal Weapon and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, though I am starting to think the man can’t write a movie that doesn’t take place over Christmas. Nor is it the villains—and the twist on Ben Kingsley’s role that is so good you have to be glad the trailers didn’t spoil it. Even the 140-minute running time didn’t cause scenes to drag very much. The issue is: all the characters keep talking about the events of The Avengers

May 20, 2013
A cursory glance through my blueblood college’s class notes reveals a host of additional fantastic names, especially in years ‘36 through ‘72, including but not limited to:



Brit Faunce
Dericksen Brinkerhoff
McGurk MacGruer
Nip Mears
Cue Kellogg
Doc Weeth
Steele Taylor
Dusty Pritchett
Norden van Horne
Treat Arnold
Peter Vandervoort
Wally Bortz
Swifty Swift
Southerland Simpson
Coleman Holmsey
Pim Goodbody
Bruno Quinson
Bill Moomaw
Norm Cram
Chuck Dunkel
Cotton Fite
Quig Conley
Fin Fogg
Gump Gormley
Toes Moseley
Dick Tucker
Westy Saltonstall
Budge Upton
Wink Willett
Punky Booth
Bruce McNutt
Cecily Stone
Cole Werble
Emlen Drayton
Lusyd Doolittle
Mayo Shattuck
Wole Coaxum
Kip Cleaver
DC Dugdale
Donald McDonald
Cappy Ricks
Babe Kirk Unger
Gary Poon
Hugh “Hugh” Oxnard
Chuck Warshaver
Bennett Yort
Story Reed
Helen Mango
Kathy Mountcastle
Cindy Morehouse Bardwil
Dave Futterman
Hope Cookis-McCarthy
Gorham Blaine
Chenoweth Sites Allen
Mopsy Pepper
Alastair Moock
Binney Caffrey
Leigh (Olmstead) Blood
Haynes Cooney
Pippa Charters
Toygun Altintas

A cursory glance through my blueblood college’s class notes reveals a host of additional fantastic names, especially in years ‘36 through ‘72, including but not limited to:

  • Brit Faunce
  • Dericksen Brinkerhoff
  • McGurk MacGruer
  • Nip Mears
  • Cue Kellogg
  • Doc Weeth
  • Steele Taylor
  • Dusty Pritchett
  • Norden van Horne
  • Treat Arnold
  • Peter Vandervoort
  • Wally Bortz
  • Swifty Swift
  • Southerland Simpson
  • Coleman Holmsey
  • Pim Goodbody
  • Bruno Quinson
  • Bill Moomaw
  • Norm Cram
  • Chuck Dunkel
  • Cotton Fite
  • Quig Conley
  • Fin Fogg
  • Gump Gormley
  • Toes Moseley
  • Dick Tucker
  • Westy Saltonstall
  • Budge Upton
  • Wink Willett
  • Punky Booth
  • Bruce McNutt
  • Cecily Stone
  • Cole Werble
  • Emlen Drayton
  • Lusyd Doolittle
  • Mayo Shattuck
  • Wole Coaxum
  • Kip Cleaver
  • DC Dugdale
  • Donald McDonald
  • Cappy Ricks
  • Babe Kirk Unger
  • Gary Poon
  • Hugh “Hugh” Oxnard
  • Chuck Warshaver
  • Bennett Yort
  • Story Reed
  • Helen Mango
  • Kathy Mountcastle
  • Cindy Morehouse Bardwil
  • Dave Futterman
  • Hope Cookis-McCarthy
  • Gorham Blaine
  • Chenoweth Sites Allen
  • Mopsy Pepper
  • Alastair Moock
  • Binney Caffrey
  • Leigh (Olmstead) Blood
  • Haynes Cooney
  • Pippa Charters
  • Toygun Altintas

May 20, 2013
Decades Later And Across An Ocean, A Novel Gets Its Due

nyrbclassics:

NYRB Classics series editor Edwin Frank was interviewed, along with Anna Gavalda, by NPR’s All Things Considered, about the amazing success John Williams’s Stoner is enjoying throughout Europe.

Once again: this is a book you must read or else.

May 20, 2013

The president’s coma had taken a turn for the worse: she was dead. The VP shot himself before they could do the oath. Whoever came next in line met the void, called the wars off and undid the draft. Those of us in the last week of boot woke at dawn, synchronized, to find the top brass had already split.
First thing we did was whoop it up. Then we showered and set out for the women’s barracks to get it on. The women had had the same idea. We collided over the mortar range, which was dry and pockmarked and not ideal for fucking, but in the party that ensued we all got laid except Taylor, who despite running fifteen miles a day could just not stop being fat.
Taylor’s fatness was a joke at first, when he couldn’t keep up, but soon the joke became myth. We punched him on the pretext that he couldn’t feel. A lady soldier half-wearing my camo rode me in the hot dead grass, and I saw Taylor taking shade under the only tree, massaging feet that must have hurt like hell under all that weight.
The party depressed me after two days. By then I honestly couldn’t believe I was me. I hiked to the airbase and hitched a plane to Jersey. Except it was resupply to Jersey the goddamn island. I got to London and fit a southy crew that mugged tourists in the Elephant & Castle pedways. Other gangs raped down there; we mugged. We’d rip cams and phones from helpless fingers to fence in Camden for hash. I beat up an Italian for his hat.

“Drone,” a new story in 3:AM Magazine. If this opening doesn’t hook you I should maybe resign from fiction.

The president’s coma had taken a turn for the worse: she was dead. The VP shot himself before they could do the oath. Whoever came next in line met the void, called the wars off and undid the draft. Those of us in the last week of boot woke at dawn, synchronized, to find the top brass had already split.

First thing we did was whoop it up. Then we showered and set out for the women’s barracks to get it on. The women had had the same idea. We collided over the mortar range, which was dry and pockmarked and not ideal for fucking, but in the party that ensued we all got laid except Taylor, who despite running fifteen miles a day could just not stop being fat.

Taylor’s fatness was a joke at first, when he couldn’t keep up, but soon the joke became myth. We punched him on the pretext that he couldn’t feel. A lady soldier half-wearing my camo rode me in the hot dead grass, and I saw Taylor taking shade under the only tree, massaging feet that must have hurt like hell under all that weight.

The party depressed me after two days. By then I honestly couldn’t believe I was me. I hiked to the airbase and hitched a plane to Jersey. Except it was resupply to Jersey the goddamn island. I got to London and fit a southy crew that mugged tourists in the Elephant & Castle pedways. Other gangs raped down there; we mugged. We’d rip cams and phones from helpless fingers to fence in Camden for hash. I beat up an Italian for his hat.

“Drone,” a new story in 3:AM Magazine. If this opening doesn’t hook you I should maybe resign from fiction.

May 17, 2013
A couple of storefronts in my neighborhood never become actual stores because every other month some film or TV production hastily remodels them for exterior shots. More often than not, they turn this one into a simulacrum of a barber shop. Today marks the first time I’ve wished the fiction were real.

A couple of storefronts in my neighborhood never become actual stores because every other month some film or TV production hastily remodels them for exterior shots. More often than not, they turn this one into a simulacrum of a barber shop. Today marks the first time I’ve wished the fiction were real.

May 17, 2013

“Freedom Tower,” a little text I wrote for Lawrence Lek and The White Review’s Pyramid Schemes instillation in London, as rendered in the accompanying fold-out program, all of which you can scroll through sideways as if actually touring a city. Is this cool? It’s cool.

May 17, 2013

“The fuck’s the moon’s doing there?”

“Yo, the moon is always there.”