I’ve got sixteen thousand books, alphabetized to the second letter… upstairs, downstairs, all around the house. Whenever a kid moves out, L-M-N-O-P moves in!
Ann Arbor Thrift Shop, 12:00PM, 3/20/2025
after Mark Dunn, no AI–or perhaps all AI–
writing with limits is intrinsically artificial. it is a rapid trial, a radical thrill. it gnarls a typist’s script and mars a stylist’s paint. it is an infant child’s Christmas gift, a first kiss, a last wish. addicting—is it?
a man’s brain is marginally plastic, and static rigidity will stymy skill. insipid filth brings implicit bliss—this is a fact that all “first-drafts” will highlight. a rising military captain, lacking instinct, will miss critical tactics; an aspiring artist, lacking clarity, will stain fancy paintings. war, art, and writing: a barbaric trinity that pairs familiar fabrics with variant stitching. anticipating a lack in standard instills faith in a man’s final ability, balancing titanic affairs as if by magic.
They can’t call it KFC…
Why not? It’s Korean fried chicken!
Stamps Auditorium, 12:30PM, 4/11/2025
the recipe book is scrawled in shorthand, and you have left me to decipher it. a witches’ brew, a distortion of the highest order: in the bowl i mince garlic and seashells, add sugar to taste, substitute mint for jalapeño. a slap–to bring out the aroma, tainted or otherwise–and i don’t ask where you’ve learned it. a flutter of resistance: you tilt your head in the same way your mother does, did you know that? a scribble that asks for a constellation of lemon and thyme, no bigger than a pinch, no stronger than a drop. a signature, a token of unrequited silence, a butterfly beating its wings across the backdrop of the night.
What’s a DILF? It says that on the shirt over there.
Don’t worry about it.
Michigan Union, 2:30PM, 4/18/2025
the present tense is a disaster of unprecedented magnitude. whether it is labeled a tragedy or a comedy lies in the aftermath: what has ever been borne out of company except misery? we are pulling the weeds and uprooting the corners of the house, a currency assigned to choice. the spiderwebs have long vacated; the ones that escaped are the first to be buried away from their ancestors. the neighbors are identified by the dogs that they walk–who is the one that is truly leashed?
