Criticism. Essay. Fiction. Science. Weather.
week:
1A piece removed. 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. 42A piece removed. 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. 56A piece removed. 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. 64A piece removed. 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...
eDate Thread 32871: Send Help!
Judson Merrill
Username: LostDoc / Posted On: 06.11.06 - 13:06:33 / Send Help!
I am being held in a Turkmenistanish prison. Please send help. I am often tortured and beaten within an inch of my life. There is not much time. I do not know why this computer has been left unguarded or why it has been logged onto eDate.luv, where singles meet and connect 24 hours a day. But it has. So, please, you must help me.
Username: SassyKat / Posted On: 06.11.06 - 13:46:21 / Re: Send Help!
I would be lying if I said I never used online dating services, so I'll just skip that part. Your posting caught my eye and I would love to know more about you, LostDoc. What's your real name?
Username: LostDoc / Posted On: 06.13.06 - 23:19:49 / Re: Send Help!
Oh, merciful heavens. Thank you. Thank you. I do not know my exact location, but I am a Kazakhstanian scientist, and I am being held somewhere along the border of my own country and Turkmenistan. My name is Jafreed Magmoush. Please contact my government and send help. Contact any government, even the Russians. I am desperate.
Username: SassyKat / Posted On: 06.13.06 - 00:17:53 / Re: Send Help!
Oh wow! I didn't understand before. Are you really foreign? I live in boring, old Truth and Consequences, New Mexico. That's in America. Did Kazakhstan used to be part of Russia? What's it like there?
ps- My name is Celia.
pps- What do you look like?
Username: LostDoc / Posted On: 06.15.06 - 09:42:13 / Re: Send Help!
What do I look like? I'm tall and dark and I have the appearance of a once proud scientist who is now abused with tire irons thrice daily. I look like a broken man. Please, tomorrow I am being forced to work and, if I am not rescued soon, more than my life will be in danger. Celia of Truth and Consequences, New Mexico, please, I implore you, send these messages to my government. Time is running out.
Username: SassyKat / Posted On: 06.15.06 - 14:37:39 / Re: Send Help!
Confession time: I am at work, too. I'm not supposed to use the internet for non-work related purposes, but everybody does. I have to say, Jafreed, I am a skeptic when it comes to love, but you have a wild sense of urgency that is exciting something in me I thought was dead. I have been reading quite a bit about Kazakhstan. Did you know it has a lucrative oil industry? Are you in oil, Jafreed? What do you do for work?
Username: LostDoc / Posted On: 06.23.06 - 20:02:06 / Re: Send Help!
Oh, you know. This and that. Right now I'm mostly in the getting brutalized field. It's pretty routine. My captors wake me at four in the morning and subject me to electrolysis or near drownings in vinegar and then force me to produce deadly chemical weapons until midnight. Another quick beating and I'm off to bed. It's mundane at this point but I hope in a few months I'll be promoted to rotting corpse and my work will be used to kill hundreds of innocent people. Kisses, Jafreed.
Username: SassyKat / Posted On: 06.24.03 - 07:13:57 / Re: Send Help!
You're in weapons? Defense? I can't believe this! I work for the American Defense Department. Just clerical work, but that is so funny that we're in the same field. Am I silly for taking this as a sign?
Username: LostDoc / Posted On: 06.30.06 - 12:43:11 / Re: Send Help!
Sweet dear Jesus, please, for all that is holy, just pass my name along to your superiors. The right people will recognize it. This IS a sign, Celia. A sign that you must help me.
Username: SassyKat / Posted On: 06.31.06 - 10:22:51 / Re: Send Help!
I was awake all last night because I couldn't stop thinking about you.
Jafreed, I know this is a little crazy, but have you ever considered moving to the United States? There really are some great opportunities here for foreigners.
Username: LostDoc / Posted On: 07.01.06 - 17:09:59 / Re: Send Help!
Dear, dear Celia. Seeing as my days are currently a mixture of blinding pain, alcohol baths, and the knowledge that I will soon be one of the world’s most infamous murderers, I would love to emigrate to the USA. The only problem is the fleet of armed guards who keep me here and the severed achilles tendons in my right ankle that prevents me from walking.
Username: SassyKat / Posted On: 07.09.06 - 10:17:30 / Re: Send Help!
Jafreed. I have met someone else. His name is TigerLily. I know this is sudden but... look, you deserve the truth. Frankly, you came on a little too strong for me, Jafreed. I don't know if you're after a green card or you really do care for me, but your last message spooked me. And while I was spooked, I met Tiger. He's an engineer. It makes more sense, really. I did care for you, Jafreed. Good luck.
Username: LostDoc / Posted On: 07.11.06 - 15:21:43 / Re: Send Help!
Fuck you.
Username: SassyKat / Posted On: 07.19.06 - 13:17:25 / Re: Send Help!
Jafreed. Not a lot of time. Work is under emergency lockdown. Some crackpot from Eurasia has managed to gas much of New Mexico and part of Texas. No one is sure how he was able to get his hands on so much chemically volatile material, but no one is allowed to leave the building. I may not live to see the end of this. And I know I hurt you. I know that, but just now, with death possibly so close, it was you I wanted to write to. You I wanted to be with. But I've been such a cow. If there is anything I can do to make it up to you, just tell me. My resources are limited. I am locked in this building with high ranking military and Defense officials, with only dozens of secure lines to the Pentagon and the White House and high speed internet access to connect us to the rest of the world. But, if it is within my power during these last few days on earth, then -- wait. Now they're saying it's just a smog alert. Oh, thank God. We can all go home. It's just smog. Wow. That was scary. Okay. I'll catch up with you later. TigerLily says hey. Celia.
CoffeeCast with Gloria and Simon
Gloria and Simon
In the latest CoffeeCast, Gloria tries to take the competition down a notch, Simon reveres a little-known founding father, and Timothy English has some competition from the Mecca. Plus: games, trivia, and caffeinated sneakers for your conscience.
You can stream CoffeeCast below or right-click the bean logo to download the show as an mp3. Further, you can click here to subscribe to this podcast with iTunes. (Be warned, iTunes will launch if you click.) Or, if you've already got iTunes open, pull down the "Advanced" menu and select "Subscribe to Podcast...". When prompted, paste in this url: http://90ways.com/coffeecast.xml. The show is fresh every Thursday by subscription but you can get it Wednesdays here at 90ways.
About CoffeeCast - Skimmed from the very cream of Starbucks culture, CoffeeCast features two baristas who are bizarrely smitten with being baristas. Gloria and Simon are based out of a New York City Starbucks and they have real enthusiasm for their work. This weekly podcast gives them a chance to share the things they love: coffee and aggressive, stylized marketing. It's funny. It's also kind of scary.
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.