Criticism. Essay. Fiction. Science. Weather.
week:
1The disadvantages of having a hole in your
foot, a cat named Buckley, and falling in love. 2Come eat it.
Or don't. 3Wine, Shoulder, Bolt, Socket. 4Mothbombs 5On the road with your only soul. 6One woman's trash is another woman's treasure 7Aliens! Right here in America! 8It's not as crazy as it sounds
or, music is as music does 91) Sign.
2) Hope for the best. 10A friendship in a bottle. 11A five-year-old tries his hand at action adventure. 12Will the circle be unbroken. 1390ways' first Quaterly Review rages on:
2 samples of Fiction. 14Muscles and fat.
A thin layer of sweat. 15Fiction goes serial.
Part 1 has sex and drugs.
You know you want to stay tuned. 16Our fiction serial concludes to cure your
vertigo from last week's cliff-hanger. 17An iced-out 21-speed sensation: The Moves are
all up on your handlebars. 18We're all in this together.
Except those bastards in administration. 19Jilted, laughed at,
and in the air. 20Swirling and swirling... 21You can't make yourself like them, but you have to pretend because they are your family. 22How well do jewel cases retain odor?
About as well as you stink. 23It's black and white. It's old world.
It's photo time. 24Piggy calls, wanting to sell you insurance.
This is what's on the other end of the line. 25A long pause, then, 26Fiction's Second Qaurterly Review
can speak Italian. 27It's only bread, after all. 28It's job search time at 90ways. 29George W. Bush's resting heart rate and a bum in a green sweater. 30Antique weaponry and teenage angst.
Together at last. 31One-hundred-fifty-three syllables
of October fun. 32there is only
self 33She's cold to the touch.
Cold and pebbly. 34Gut-wrenching love.
And wallabies. 35Building a habit out of ivies and orange flowers. 36A 90ways exclusive sneak peak at the
new and groundbreaking Alphabet Book. 37Type it with one hand and
see what happens 38A face any susbsitence farmer could love. 39The Quarterly Review: read it again for the third time. 40For every task, someone is the best.
Sometimes that's impressive. 41I didn't get a computer;
I moved to Indiana. 42The deepest of mistreatments, in three. 4390ways has new concerns about identity theft. Lock up the children and your sense of self. 44time. eyes. deep sighs. 45I know there's a place 4690 stars are born. 47I had to ask. 48It's about sex.
But isn't that always the way with classical music? 49The epistolary form in the 21st century.
Complete with neuroses and unpunctuation. 50There is no end to the party. 51Rockin to the sweet sounds of prepared food. 52Of or pertaining to. 53Including spaces, this blurb is 90 characters. Ways, words, characters. It is a leitmotif. 54Minnesota. Miami. Poetry in 90ways' Fiction.
It's the best of all worlds. 55It lives and breathes and is hungry for carnival food. 56Manhandled, womanclutched, or otherwise attended. 57The curtain is being pulled back... 58Up in the Fiction house! It's a bird. It's a plane.
It's an illustralogue! 59The hat, in all honesty, is a private matter. 60Putting up with all the doth. 6190words strike terror into the hearts of the longwinded. 62Return of the illustralogue! 63Take one down, pass it around,
blow your nose. 64All any of us want is a little approval and some light stalking. 65The First Quarterly Review wants
you to meet its little friend. 66From our servers to your ear buds!
It's misguided enthusiasm, in podcast form! 67Questions for the man himself.
Plus, the podcast adventure continues. 68No one would ever use Starbucks
to define their identity. Right... 69Don't you remember the rose clipped under my windshield wiper like a butterfly under a pin? 70Oh, it's nothing.
Oh, it's life-threatening disease. 71It's not you. It's me.
And my Eurasian captors.
72Root, root, root for the brisk
sale of anything possible. 73Look within the very bowels of the soul.
Or at least your mother. 74We're not strangers any more. 75He knows of what he speaks. 76I find that often times I'm quite
mature enough to enjoy a few beverages. 77He is licking me.
I don't like it one bit. 78Our favorite stuff is coming 'round the mountain, again. 79A wooden-back brush and a homemade bowl of oatmeal. 80A man's home is his... 81Fack to the Buture. 82This dude pulled back on his nose
and mucus and unleashed a city. 83The polls are in. 93% of respondents do not approve of the monkeybone lodged in their lower lip 84Like a thirsty man in the desert 85Taxpayer dollars wasted on broken egg. News at eleven. 86She loves her red octopus.
She will chew it to death. 87Bubbling, gurgling, fighting a moment to stay afloat. 88Molting our pasts into the air... 89The Return of 90 Words 90It comes but once a... ever. 91Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, the end of the Fiscal Quarter. 92The 540 word circle is now unbroken. 93An emptying out of the animus, perceived as tranquility
94All roads lead to South Dakota. Or at least the I-90 does, anyway. 95He laid down his whittling knife and he and his brother took up arms in rage. 96Drinking manhattans made with a good bourbon, and strong. 97Living white and pudgy, I never expected much for myself. Now, I could tell that was true. 98A few gestural lines towards the thought of death. 99Rest in peace.
I know I will. 100And then we played baseball and then we played army and then we were best friends. 101We torn holes in sheets and became ghosts for each other's pleasures. 102I looked at the pictures of you, twenty years old,
sometimes skinny and sometimes your face a soft moon.
103Fingers clutching little trinkets of the day... 104All roads lead to South Dakota. Or at least the I-90 does, anyway. 105Everywhere signs of an interstice arriving. 106What you see and what you believe are two different things. 107It was as if a million literary ghosts poured from its pages, moaning to be set free. 108So what if too many times we have been here, both
lost in our machinations...
Mrs. Carmichael and Me: an Investigation of Stench
Joshua W. Jackson
Erica Carmichael: (picks up phone) Hello?
Me: Is this Ms. Erica Carmichael?
EC: Yes, it surely is. Who is this, please?
Me: Would you happen to be the same Erica Carmichael who checked out
Branford Marsalis's Requiem and The Essential Charlie Parker from the Los Angeles Public Library on June fifteenth and returned them on June
30th?
EC: Who is this?
Me: This is Josh Jackson. Am I speaking to the right Erica Carmichael?
EC: Yes, I suppose you are. Do you work for the library?
Me: No. I was wondering if you'd-
EC: How did you get access to my library record?
Me: It was much easier than you'd think. I was wondering if you'd
noticed anything strange about the two CDs at any point during your
time with them.
EC: Strange?
Me: Abnormal.
EC: No, I can't say that I did. This telephone conversation strikes me
as a little abnormal, though.
Me: So you didn't notice, say, any particular odor on the CDs or their cases?
EC: An odor?
Me: Yes.
EC: On the cases?
Me: That's right. Or on the CDs.
EC: No. I didn't.
Me. Hmm. Hmmmmmmm. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Mmm.
EC: Are you with the police or something?
Me: So at no point during your time with the CDs did you notice a
horrible body odor stench teeming off of them?
EC: No. What can I do for you, Mr...?
Me: Ms. Carmichael. Erica, do you yourself suffer from body odor?
(CLICK)
(RING RING)
EC: Hello? What? What do you want?
Me: I don't think you needed to hang up on me. It was just a simple
question. Do you have BO?
EC: No, I don't have BO! What the hell is this?
Me: When you're walking down the street or past somebody in a grocery
store aisle do you ever catch a glimpse of a stranger's face
contorting uncomfortably?
EC: What?
Me: My feeling is that many people who are... odiferous aren't really
aware of their stench.
EC: My feeling is that I'm going to call the cops in about ten seconds.
Me: That won't get you far, Ms. Carmichael. You'll still stink and
I'll still lack the information I'm seeking.
EC: What makes you think I'm stinky?
Me: The CDs. I was the next person to check them out of the library, see.
EC: And they stink?
Me: Oh, most definitely. It's terrible.
EC: Of BO?
Me: Now you understand my befuddlement.
EC: So what makes you think this has anything to do with me?
Me: Well, you were the last person to check the CDs out before me. I
planned on calling my way down the list to find the owner of the odor,
but you were the last person to have them and you didn't notice any
odor when you checked the CDs out.
EC: Maybe I just didn't notice?
Me: Oh, you'd notice. This is some foul, potent shit. Unless, of
course, the odor was on the CDs when you got them, but you smell the
same way as them, so nothing about them would strike you as irregular.
In which case, according to my hypothesis, you probably contributed to
the smell.
EC: Hey, I shower often. I don't stink, okay.
Me: Often?
EC: Often.
Me: What I want to know is, how did the smell of your body wind up on the CDs?
EC: My body doesn't have a smell. It didn't end up on any CDs.
Me: Are you so pungent that the CDs just soaked it up by being in your
home, or was there some rubbing involved?
EC: Rubbing?
Me: Or perhaps you fell asleep one afternoon with the cases on your chest?
EC: Look, I smell normal, okay? This conversation is over.
Me: Do you suppose we could meet in person?
EC: What? Why?
Me: I want to see if you reek.
EC: Have a good afternoon.
Me: Let me get a whiff of you! It's in our mutual best interest!
(CLICK)
Me: (Siiigh)
Just give me one thing I can play for.
Disco boys on bicycles.
So what if too many times we have been here, both
Poetic Retrospective
The Weather votes for Kelly Clarkson.