All Stories, sunday whatever

Sunday Whatever. A Readers Guide to Bukowski;

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Or: To Know Buk Better You Need to Know Buk’s

Or: Start with This First

I’m tired and sick of people who slam Bukowski without knowing what he’s really all about.

If you don’t know, don’t say. An apothegm that should apply to all areas of life. And, think about whether you really do know it before you say it. And analyze what you said afterward, too. Not obsess over, not ruminate upon in a psychologically distressing fashion: ANALYZE. Harold Bloom said that Shakespeare invented the human by showing us how his characters listen to themselves, not to each other, which I never really understood until right now.

To Buk himself I say, these MISUNDERSTANDINGS I’m snarling at must be partly the wages of having become so well-known, sir, like you both did and did not say you wanted to. By the end of the century, you will have outgrown Hemmie (but he will still be there).

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Latest News, Short Fiction

Week 588 – Has America Enough Tennents? You’ll Need More…Seriously, Import more!!!

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Well here we are at Week 588.

I was going out on Tuesday to a swanky restaurant and I thought about wearing a tie. Not just a tie, I’ve been in trouble for doing that before. I realised that apart from weddings and funerals, I only think about wearing a tie but never do. I think a tie is smart. I have quite a few. I’ve lost three stunning black ones due to loaning them to people for funerals.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Hell by Michael Smith

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Today’s one of those team-building exercises, you know the sort. Sales are down, management wants to raise morale (and hence production (and hence profits)), so we’re all here to waste a day, listening to a team of consultants (hired at great expense, no doubt) impart some modern thinking upon us, “injecting cutting edge vitality”, I think they said.

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All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller

My Little Dump by Christopher Ananias (Adult Content)

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I am slipping again. All of my thoughts are filthy and negative, and the dishes are stacking up. The TV is a blurb of sounds and flashing light in the cramped clutter of my living room. An occasional face draws me into the moment, reminding me of the past.

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All Stories, General Fiction

The Call of the Bacchante by Matias Travieso-Diaz

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No retreat offers someone more quiet and relaxation than that into his own mind, especially if he can dip into thoughts there which put him at immediate and complete ease.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

She was foaming at the mouth. Her eyes dilated rolled.
Her mind was gone–possessed by Bacchus– she could not hear her son.

Euripides, The Bacchae

Marcus sat alone, cross-legged, in the quiet of his studio, having dimmed all lights. He sought to set his mind at rest by deeply inhaling and exhaling; as errant thoughts floated into his mind, he considered each one for a moment and dismissed it.

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All Stories, Fantasy, Humour, Short Fiction

Simply Sinsational by Leila Allison

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After eating, drinking and making more of themselves, Raccoons live to roller derby. It comes naturally. You don’t need to use magick to make them like it. Just bring a pack of Raccoons to a roller derby track, supply a generous heaping of beer and snacks, place Rachel Welch’s brilliant Kansas City Bomber on the dvd and the critters know immediately what to do without spell casting or even training.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Should Be Seen and Not Heard by MJ Burns

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The father didn’t need to give the orders anymore ‒ the curtains were to be closed at four o’clock. Even if it was sunny. The boy blinked in the chilly shadow of the lounge and watched his father sink into his chair. The father sat where he always did: the single armchair by the hearth ‒ the deep-winged, plum one that blinkered him left and right. The boy sat opposite.

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All Stories, Editor Picks, Latest News, Short Fiction

Week 587: Sometimes it Helps to Hear Another Voice

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(Elliott the Pigeon is on Vacation this week; Daisy Kloverleaf and her brother Fenwick are the header stars. Daisy is on your left)

One of life’s burdens involves processing repetition. Some people are sensitive to it, others meet it with the awareness of a cantaloupe. I am not always smarter than produce, but I have a keen sense for repetition. Therefore I know that the eternal concepts of Good and Bad dictate the perception of welcomed and unwanted repetition. A woman who keeps peeling off twenties is obviously a good thing to have repeated at you, but unless she is gaining something worth it the peeler may have different feelings in her cold little heart–that emotional storage bin that imploded eons ago and is so compressed into inner dimensions that it takes three journeys through as many event horizons just to reach the outskirts of her kindness. You may assume that she, the peeler, has developed a sense of negativity for the old “again and again.”

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All Stories, Fantasy

How to not keep a Vampire out of Your House (in Eight Easy Steps) by Bob DeRosa

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STEP 1 – When the undead thing scratches at your window and asks if it can come in, say no.

STEP 2 – When the thing says something that stirs your soul and awakens your senses, and when it promises that it doesn’t want to hurt you, it just wants to be with you, and when it asks to come in so you can have a really good talk about it, say no again.

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