Fiction
The Barber: Issue 1
On the roof of a skyscraper that floated like an island among the dazzling multihued lights of Manhattan, the superhero known as the Barber patiently explained yet again why he wasn’t just a regular barber. “I’m a superhero, not just a barber. They call me the Barber because I can do everything a barber can,” … Continue reading
Clockwork Argument
Jorge sat down at the breakfast table. He was feeling good; he had slept through the whole night, and woken to gentle rays of morning sun curling their fingers around the window curtains. A bird sang in the distance, and even though it had been programmed to sing this song, he found the rising ditty … Continue reading
Dust Jackets
The 1977 film Capricorn One posits a flight to Mars being faked on a film set. What Dr. Robert Pritchard’s book presupposes is, what if it were a hoax? What if this movie was, in fact, never filmed, and the true hoax was not the flight to Mars but that someone hoaxed a movie about … Continue reading
The 39 Fluid Identities
The Scene: An isolated manor house on the windswept Yorkshire moors, 1920’s. A: Don’t you realize, Margo, that this sarcophagus is the very one stolen from the British Museum on the same night that the dastardly master criminal Rene Dastard escaped from Reading Gaol? B: But Lamont, surely you don’t suspect… A: But I do, … Continue reading
Captain Ethnic
Garbed in a white polar bear fur parka, with his trusty harpoon Innuvalieut in his hand, the Icicle gazed across the vertiginous topography of Manhattan with an icy gaze from the igloo on the roof of the Hudson’s Bay Company Building. Somewhere in that city the evil mastermind known only as The Viking was preparing … Continue reading
A Few Good Chincillas
It isn’t all fluffy bunnies and puppy dogs in the animal control biz. Well, there are a lot of fluffy bunnies and bathtubs full of puppy dogs, but there’s a darker side, too, and not dark like some nice shade to get out of the sun before you catch a raging case of melanoma, but … Continue reading
Mr. Bokchito
In the cool morning air, Mr. Bokchito boarded the computer-run monorail and settled into a seat. He unfolded a newspaper and read it while the train accelerated with whisper-quiet efficiency. Through he was completely familiar with the landscapes of his daily commute, he glanced out the window from time to time, and it was after … Continue reading
DFW RIP
Even now, it’s hard to believe he’s really dead. Not because his suicide is a priori implausible, but because the Liberal Lamestream Media™ can’t be trusted. When a shooting star falls, we mourn its loss, even though we know it’s in a better place—namely, incinerated during its passage through the atmosphere. Where was I when … Continue reading
Shopping List
1) Several hand towels. 2) Several rolls duct tape. 3) One liter bottle of halothane fast-acting soporific.
Epileptic Trees
Some masterpieces can only be appreciated by digging deep beneath the surface by superintelligent persons such as myself. If you’ve seen these movies, you probably thought they were straightforward, because you are not as smart as I. You just have to watch really, really carefully. It’s all there!