This poem is an homage to womanhood, to age, to freedom, and to self-love.
Thursday, April 30, 2026
Wednesday, April 29, 2026
An Unfortunate Mothers Advice to Her Absent Daughters
An Unfortunate Mother’s Advice to Her Absent Daughters (1761) was written by Lady Sarah Pennington in the form of a letter to the children who had been taken from her after she asked for a separation from her husband. She wrote the book as a way of reaching out to her daughters after her husband had denied her any contact with them. It was a manual of conduct for young women that covered religion, prayer, dress, needlework, the theatre, marriage, dancing, and other "feminine" pursuits. She also advised her daughters not to bow to “his” command when the time came to marry. The book was widely read and much reprinted.
Monday, April 27, 2026
The Boy Scout - A short story by David Ohle
The boy scout guides his wooden pedal car up the dirt road and parks it, in the shade of my turkey oak, without ceremony. The little car has tin-can headlights and a false grille. He approaches the steps and begins to climb, a box of rice cookies under one of his frail arms. It is a mystery how he crossed the bottoms in this handmade vehicle, how he avoided sinking in the soft mud ruts and being stung by the wasps in the sumac along the ditch-bank. Twice the boy scout drops the box of cookies, backsteps to the ground, recovers it, and climbs up again. He knocks gently, the sound is as though his knuckles are made of hard rubber. I open the door and allow him in. He sits on the sofa with yellow eyes and looks at my feet and says nothing. I offer him a bowl of soy soup, which he declines, casting his glances on the floor. His face is ageless and simple, with precocious whiskers on the jaw.
I build an oak fire in the woodstove and he warms his hands against the evening chill setting in. In the firelight I first become aware of the suggestion of a seam running down the front of him, over the nose from the khaki tip of the hat, across the lips and chin, into the neckerchief. He seems in the odd light to have been stitched together out of two unmatched bolts of cloth. His eyes are like coat buttons, the fists like ripe tomatoes. He smells of sodden laundry. Crickets bump against the tower window screens. The stink of pinesap and legustrum. The clack of crows in the sky.
I take a cold chicken wing from the refrigerator and offer it to him. His head pivots, the lips emerge tubelike from the face. He says no. At least he has finally spoken. We don’t want to sit here too long on the brink of conversation, like wax figures behind plexiglas. Coffee? Does he want coffee? Cola? I move around the living room mechanically, under an odd influence from this boy scout, as though he were a planet and I his satellite, he earth and I moon. Threads of black yarn drape his forehead under the scout hat, a mockery of hair. He has a sewn-on eyebrow above one eye and nothing above the other one, and a faded disk of scar on the chin. I talk about the weather and he listens without comment.
I ask him about a point of scout lore, and although his mouth opens and the dry tongue quivers, he says nothing. When he moves, which he seldom does, there is a faintly audible rasp, as though his joints are dry of lubricant. I ask him if I might sample one of his cookies. He indicates no. I have to buy or not buy without tasting. I give him the required amount in National coupons. I eat one of the cookies, which have no taste and little consistency. I remember myself as a boy scout, driving my pedal car intricately through alleyways in the city, eating bruised fruit when I found it at the backs of government markets. In the rear compartment of the pedal car I kept a change of khakis and extra shoes. If night came on me I’d throw out my bag and sleep wherever I was. I’ve seen tumbleweed, or something similar, blowing past the house recently. A wild pig comes every night and snufiles around for any garbage I might throw down. I consider dropping something heavy on him from the roof, breaking the spine, dressing him out, cooking him over a fire pit. The boy scout has been here several days now. I’ve noticed a spider’s thread from his shoulder to the windowsill. Two days ago he began an extended smile which has not yet broken. When the wind occasionally blows outside, the shiplap siding of the house gets to wailing in a high-pitched tone. The wind sock is full to the south, the awnings flapping. The fire in the stove belly has died hours ago, the sun’s last yellow angle is narrowing on the tower walls. The old clock is ticking on the mantel. The evening wears on. I rebuild the fire as the night cools and wear my flannel robe and long johns. Before dawn I see an orange light in the pines, someone walking with a lamp, Morning again.
An icicle has formed where the bathroom faucet dripped. The sun has come up in a haze. The boy scout is sleeping on the sofa.
The wind sock is deflated and the day is warming up toward noon.
By mid-afternoon I am perspiring in the humidity, wiping myself with a handkerchief. The boy scout remains dry and still.
A slow drizzle now, hanging on three days. On the fourth day I see an egg of sun above the tree line. A katydid is dead at the bottom of my teacup. Overnight the weather turns cold again, and the drizzle becomes a wet snow. My mouth is sour, my toothbrush worn down to the plastic. It will be nice to chew salty pork meat, sometime, whenever I can kill the pig. I should raise the awnings before the snow collects and breaks through the rotted canvas.
The wind sock is frozen stiff, pointing south. I see the pig outside, standing in the white. He pisses and leaves a yellow circle on the snow crust. The pedal car is gone, tracks of the wooden wheels leading off down the road. The awnings are frozen and won’t go up.
(Biblioklept)
I build an oak fire in the woodstove and he warms his hands against the evening chill setting in. In the firelight I first become aware of the suggestion of a seam running down the front of him, over the nose from the khaki tip of the hat, across the lips and chin, into the neckerchief. He seems in the odd light to have been stitched together out of two unmatched bolts of cloth. His eyes are like coat buttons, the fists like ripe tomatoes. He smells of sodden laundry. Crickets bump against the tower window screens. The stink of pinesap and legustrum. The clack of crows in the sky.
I take a cold chicken wing from the refrigerator and offer it to him. His head pivots, the lips emerge tubelike from the face. He says no. At least he has finally spoken. We don’t want to sit here too long on the brink of conversation, like wax figures behind plexiglas. Coffee? Does he want coffee? Cola? I move around the living room mechanically, under an odd influence from this boy scout, as though he were a planet and I his satellite, he earth and I moon. Threads of black yarn drape his forehead under the scout hat, a mockery of hair. He has a sewn-on eyebrow above one eye and nothing above the other one, and a faded disk of scar on the chin. I talk about the weather and he listens without comment.
I ask him about a point of scout lore, and although his mouth opens and the dry tongue quivers, he says nothing. When he moves, which he seldom does, there is a faintly audible rasp, as though his joints are dry of lubricant. I ask him if I might sample one of his cookies. He indicates no. I have to buy or not buy without tasting. I give him the required amount in National coupons. I eat one of the cookies, which have no taste and little consistency. I remember myself as a boy scout, driving my pedal car intricately through alleyways in the city, eating bruised fruit when I found it at the backs of government markets. In the rear compartment of the pedal car I kept a change of khakis and extra shoes. If night came on me I’d throw out my bag and sleep wherever I was. I’ve seen tumbleweed, or something similar, blowing past the house recently. A wild pig comes every night and snufiles around for any garbage I might throw down. I consider dropping something heavy on him from the roof, breaking the spine, dressing him out, cooking him over a fire pit. The boy scout has been here several days now. I’ve noticed a spider’s thread from his shoulder to the windowsill. Two days ago he began an extended smile which has not yet broken. When the wind occasionally blows outside, the shiplap siding of the house gets to wailing in a high-pitched tone. The wind sock is full to the south, the awnings flapping. The fire in the stove belly has died hours ago, the sun’s last yellow angle is narrowing on the tower walls. The old clock is ticking on the mantel. The evening wears on. I rebuild the fire as the night cools and wear my flannel robe and long johns. Before dawn I see an orange light in the pines, someone walking with a lamp, Morning again.
An icicle has formed where the bathroom faucet dripped. The sun has come up in a haze. The boy scout is sleeping on the sofa.
The wind sock is deflated and the day is warming up toward noon.
By mid-afternoon I am perspiring in the humidity, wiping myself with a handkerchief. The boy scout remains dry and still.
A slow drizzle now, hanging on three days. On the fourth day I see an egg of sun above the tree line. A katydid is dead at the bottom of my teacup. Overnight the weather turns cold again, and the drizzle becomes a wet snow. My mouth is sour, my toothbrush worn down to the plastic. It will be nice to chew salty pork meat, sometime, whenever I can kill the pig. I should raise the awnings before the snow collects and breaks through the rotted canvas.
The wind sock is frozen stiff, pointing south. I see the pig outside, standing in the white. He pisses and leaves a yellow circle on the snow crust. The pedal car is gone, tracks of the wooden wheels leading off down the road. The awnings are frozen and won’t go up.
(Biblioklept)
Adult Swim By Corey Van Landingham
Let them eat corn dogs. Let them
peel from its sack a freezer-burnt popsicle,
lime, green as an alien gem.
Let them pluck from the strung garland of chips
Sugaring their lips with the fine gritof Sour Patch Kids, these strange children
lift to their mouths those soft little bodies
and chew. They forget, for just a moment, the water
from which they’ve been banished.
Then a pause in the guard station’s country radio—
they pirouette back and begin,
again, to sulk. Gawk. Let them.
It’s nearly time to reclaim
their pool. Each day, each hour,
they have dragged their soaking bodies
from its coolness and allowed their mothers
the reapplication of lotion and the petting
of their wet, tender heads.
their pool. Each day, each hour,
they have dragged their soaking bodies
from its coolness and allowed their mothers
the reapplication of lotion and the petting
of their wet, tender heads.
No agony is greater
than theirs. Never have I felt so powerful.
Aren’t I magnificent,
floating on my back dead center? Aren’t I
a kingdom of one?
I could grow new gods.
Small princes.
(My grandmother’s voice—if you own nothing,
you are nothing—as she handed me, at Christmas,
a fresh certificate of stock. But she was an unhappy woman
and is dead.)
A whinny of pain
from a skinned knee, quick flash
of white before the blood. Not my wound
to treat. Another boy explaining to his mother’s magazine
how every day, every single day,
God puts out the sun by dunking it in the ocean.
Like a match dropped
into a glass.
Where does the next one come from,
he wants to know.
One up to his thighs already
until the strict whistle, the chorus
of booing beside him,
a leap back.
Lined on the plastic rim, the boys stare differently
than the men they will become.
Where are the wild things?
The boy worries.
Who promises tomorrows to a whole needful planet,
restrikes that match?
Who bears that next fiery sphere?
Who will remind this woman
she’s not some queen
acquiring a country estate—ruby brooches, oiled leaves
of topiaries glistening in midday sun—
while the real rural citizens starve. Fountains
upon fountains and a small pond
to reflect back her dais. Crystal plates
of petit fours. For which,
history admonishes, she was beheaded.
(Corey Van Landingham is the author of “Antidote” and “Love Letter to Who Owns the Heavens.” )
Tuesday, April 21, 2026
Thursday, April 16, 2026
More than 100 writers quit French publisher in protest against rightwing owner
In an unprecedented walkout, dozens of writers including the acclaimed punk feminist novelist Virginie Despentes and the philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy, signed an open letter against Bolloré, 74, who is close to far-right figures.
“We refuse to be hostages in an ideological war that seeks to impose authoritarianism everywhere in culture and the media,” they wrote. “We don’t want our ideas, our work, to be his property.”
Wednesday, April 15, 2026
The Lost Girls of Rome by Donato Carrisi
Tuesday, April 14, 2026
Dear Monica Lewinsky
Penguin Random House audio from DEAR MONICA LEWINSKY by Julia Langbein, read by Alex Sarrigeorgiou. A wise, funny, and wildly original examination of female desire and the price women pay for giving in to their appetites.
Monday, April 13, 2026
Shelley Winters - A Poem by Tim Dlugos
Shelley Winters
Shelley Winters you’re such a pig I love you
Not “even though” you’re ugly and never shut up
and dress like the wife of a cabbie who won
the Lottery, but because of it!
I think you’re a miserable actress, and didn’t
even care when you drowned in The Poseidon
Adventure, it was a terrible movie and you
were just wretched all the way through.
I agree with Neal Freeman that, objectively, you
are ALWAYS unsatisfactory
And incredibly tacky: I know someone who
saw you stinking drunk and stumbling down a
corridor in the Traymore, now you always
remind me of Atlantic City, and that’s dreary.
Every time you’re on Dick Cavett I get embarrassed
for him just watching you talk.
You never answer the questions. You never remotely
answer the questions.
Shelley, sometimes I don’t think I can take it you
depress me so, but you fascinate the hell out of
me just the same
And I say with a sigh, “It’s okay, it’s just the
way Shelley is.”
I’m so young, you’re so dumb, it never could work
still I watch you every chance I get and love
you, you’re such a mess
—Tim Dlugos
What is the Best Literary Film Adaptation of the Last 50 Years?
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