Janet Desaulniers
Author of What You've Been Missing talks with Alex Shapiro
Every Unedited Thing in the Identity Theory Non-Fiction Box Regarding Facial Hair: June 2-Aug 24 (in reverse order)
Did you shave your facial hair? And if so, were you walking downtown today in a blue shirt, listening to your iPod? I thought I saw you near the Thompson Center.
Don’t Eat Anything With Bacon
Inmates and their families or loved ones regarding (for the most part) life in, out and around Deerlodge, Montana State Prison. Some quotes are abbreviated. Others are in reference to different prisons in America. But all are genuine. Letters and reports from Prison Talk Online and elsewhere. “i was asking a qustion about my son …
Butternut Squash
A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep or taste not the Pierian spring. -Alexander Pope, “Essay on Criticism” Looking at simple things in a cosmic way is the work of a poet. Accordingly, Thaddeus Edelstein made a point of keeping his eyes open. He wouldn’t want to miss the world in a grain …
Nome Sane
Uncle Shelby, Sippy Salvatore, Silent Edgar, Ramos the Bull God, Alejandro the Hammer, Peter the Wolf, The Ghost of Thom Jones, names by which my ilk are known or have been known, all. Name by which I go when I go at night from this place in the hills with my hollow prayer book in …
Giuseppe the Architect
The spark is a good dog. Giuseppe sucks! It is well trained. It heels. Architects call electricians sparkies, They do what Giuseppe tells them! The wall cannot be broken by a fist. Giuseppe sucks! It is a solid thing. It contains. Architects call bricklayers brickies. They do what Giuseppe tells them! The shower has good …
Jiffy Popped Corn and Puppy Don’t Care
Helen Astley and Henry Stein lay cuddled together in bed with the lights off, munching Jiffy Pop, watching an old western flick, For a Few Dollars More. They were no longer each other’s lovers. Five years of hot and cold drama had left the two numb: frostbitten below, scorched in the head. Still, they enjoyed …
In the Rut
At six a.m., I learned the sun god had traded his golden chariot for a pale green corduroy chair. It was a lazy kind of light that coated the mountain. A light that implied comfort and “just another day,” rather than grandeur and the chokecherries swallowed the indignity. The fir tree, cold and thirsty, narrowed …
Angel’s Left
1 "Doggy, dear," says Kari Moore, "fetch mommy up another ocean." "Make it two," says Deb Trigaboff. "Three," says Marguerite Mauvoisin. "Five," says Tristram le Brun, the wickedest of the wicked wives club. Kari has grounded her stepson Doug—aka Dougie, then Doggy, Mutt and Biatch and variables thereof and beyond as the day grinds on—on …
Why I Went to Portugal
Katy and Kyle suggested I take language lessons, but I wasn't going to Portugal to talk. I would speak as I ate and slept—not deliberately; indiscriminately and disjointedly; between slugs of fizzy wine and lungfuls of potent Moroccan hashish; almost by accident. Dee, my girlfriend at the time, joked I was off to try my …