Author Archives: Alex Shapiro

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Then comes the part when I say, "Boy, you have to lie."

Wake up naked, alone, under a cosmos of faintly glowing star stickers. I am in Betsy’s bed. My bad. But where is she?

That coffee you drank, you’re sort of half-wondering whether it will go better with champagne than toothpaste and orange juice, but you can’t put too much thought into it now as there is a hungry demon on your windowsill doing business as a nut-obsessed squirrel you’d like to photograph. Besides, the meat of your proposal […]