Sometimes mechanical reproduction is not the most accurate.  In the 1890s, the composer Erik Satie bought seven identical velvet suits, and wore nothing else for seven years. In photos, they look gray: his biographers duly noted that; a record of his music was even entitled “The Gray Velvet Gentleman.”  Later, scholars unearthed several color sketches by […]

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Your butt in back, in front your face: That’s how you move through time and space. I once found a salamander in my family’s yard. Salamanders are harmless; still, my father’s immediate reaction was “Kill it!” Maybe we can spend the meeting Arguing about the seating. If you pay attention, you may notice an increasing […]

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Today I heard a newscaster slip up, and call a “retired admiral” a “retired animal.” The pigeon’s not a welcome bird When it’s in my vicinity. I understand it forms a third Of something called the Trinity. robots in rowboats I saw a children’s book called You Can Drive an Automobile. I want the children […]

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On Sunday, May 16th, hardcore fans of the suggestive braved suspended subway service and a glorious sunny afternoon to take in some harmless smut at the Ullage Group’s “Not Dirty, Just Spicy” event at Jalopy. Doug Skinner started things off by reviewing the rhetoric of extended double-entendre. To drive the point home, he performed the […]

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You too can make your dreams come true: just leave the house without your pants. Don’t ridicule the mockingbird. To sell your story, Make it gory. I’m tired of being downtrodden; I want to be uptrodden. It’s difficult to understand Why we don’t live in Wonderland. So much trouble could have been avoided, if Jesus […]

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Uh oh, here comes a human being. Don’t buy that stuff; You have enough. There’s a snafu with this tofu. When I was a kid, and learned that the real word for “potty” is “toilet,” I wondered what other lies I’d been taught. You know, it is possible that play is more ennobling than work. […]

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There is no God, I’m glad to say: Hip hip hooray, hip hip hooray! What, exactly, do people get out of watching an eating contest? Life can be so very painful When employment isn’t gainful. Sticks and stones may hurt my bones, but words add insult to injury. When I was a teen, my father […]

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Come, let us sit upon the fence; It saves us trouble and expense. Yes, that’s my turd in the punchbowl; you can keep it, if you like. You can’t prove that no two snowflakes are alike; but you can make a good case for no one snowflake being alike. Skinner’s First Law of Economics: Work […]

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When an irresistible force meets an immovable object, let someone else deal with it. Well, of course it burst: it was a bubble. Guy Debord noted that Surrealist techniques had been co-opted by the advertising business: automatic writing became unedited “brainstorming.”  Similarly, early experiments in computer-generated poetry led to the composition of spam. Hey, look […]

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Greater longevity has multiplied our problems; fortunately, scientists are working to make life shorter. Do these pints make me look fat? The Mona Lisa isn’t smiling; she’s smirking. A woman once accused me of limiting my audience by making obscure references: I had mentioned Nostradamus. maggot nuggets Of course there’s a hole in the ground; […]

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