What happened was, I died.
Daddy ripped out my heart, despite Mama telling him not to. They even sent me away, buried me somewhere else.
Then Papa Nos found me.
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Sunday Whoever – The Art of Leila Allison or The Inimitable Authoress by Dale Williams Barrigar
This interview was conducted via email between Bremerton, Washington, USA, across from Seattle, and Berwyn, Illinois, USA, next to Chicago. The interview occurred on twenty consecutive days in the winter of 2025, starting in January and stretching into February. Leila Allison, the subject of the interview, was never given any heads-up on what the question for the day would be ahead of time.
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Week 528: What’s in a Title; The Votes Are In and Genre Overkill
Naming Stuff
I like interesting titles. Now, these are not items to be confused with lying “clickbait” nonsense, but titles of books, movies and songs that stray from the norm. Often, as is the case of the cheap 60’s Spaghetti Western God Forgives, I Don’t, the item fails to live up to the title (but, to be fair, it is an interesting little film regardless). And sometimes certain interesting titles almost guarantee a good picture. The two Sergio Leone “Once Upon a Time…” films are classics, as is Quinton Tarantino’s exceptional Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. There is also one called Once Upon a Time in Mexico that I’ve heard good things about (starring Johnny Depp and Penelope Cruz, both excellent performers), yet I’ve somehow yet to see it (I hope to fix that someday soon).
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The Enormous Pacifier by Alice Kinerk
You’ve probably heard about this already, but one day some kids dug up an enormous pacifier, and in doing so pretty much brought chaos into the world. Apparently the kids were playing in the strip of woods by Route 42, just poking sticks in the embankment there, no thoughts of upsetting nesting bees, preventing future mudslides, or their moms having to pretreat their laundry stains afterward. Because where the dirt fell away, they uncovered something that shouldn’t have been there. A large, old, manmade hoop.
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The Margin of the River by Mitchell Toews
I finished shaving. A $10 coffee shop gift card was in the car, and although I knew I should hit the weights and take my usual morning walk, I also felt like a lazy day was not a bad idea.
Janice nudged me aside on her way to the ensuite.
‘What’s up?’ she asked.
‘Dunno,’ I said while pawing through the underwear drawer for just the right pair—supportive but not too bossy.
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Confessions 1:07 by Kendra Yvette
This is my confessional right here. Instead of an old wooden box full of stale air, I sit on a rickety old concrete porch at a rusty metal table with a stained-glass top. I always stay in room 107. The seashell wallpaper makes me want to die, and the air stings with the putrid stench of vomit, but this room has a perfect view of Main Street. This motel is the only part of this hick town that’s worth a damn. I fill my glass ashtray, stained yellow with wear, with cigarette butts as I spill my sins and people watch.
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The Cave by James W. Miller
The hollowed out and exhausted mother followed by a descending parabola of thirteen brown-haired heads crossed the already dark movie theater, the family that does that, that walks in late through everyone’s view. The animation had already leapt to life, and the children groped behind themselves to find their seats, eyes locked on the towering screen. In a short moment, the mother was asleep, having provided the only rare, small gift she could afford to give to this desperate and fatherless brood.
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Eighteen Ninety-Seven by Pauline Shen
I run my finger along the marker at the edge of our farm. Its wood is parched from time and weather. A locomotive’s soprano voice carries across the prairie. I picture that engine puffing into a station where the platform swirls with a symphony of tongues. I think of families boarding with slumped shoulders and weary eyes. I recall how we, my parents, my brothers and I, stepped onto the colonist car with its sunlit windows and faintly sweet fragrance. Around us, men snored while mothers cooed at young ones latched to their breast. I witnessed my older brother, Wasyl, rub his teary eyes as the train pulled us westward.
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Sunday Whatever – Leila and the Mimeo Revolution by Dale Williams Barrigar
I’m standing in Euclid Square Park as I write this with an orange pen on repurposed paper (probably an angry, unpaid bill). (Later it will be typed).
I’m standing next to a small tree.
Tied to the tree are three dogs who I helped rescue, and who rescued me: Bandit, Boo and Colonel.
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Week 527 – Buddy Love, All Carry On Included And Millions Are So Difficult To Budget With.
Here we are at Week 527!
Before we begin, I’d like to mention an actor who passed away this week and was in three of my favourite films that I have watched numerous times; ‘The Towering Inferno’, ‘The Count Of Monte Cristo’ and ‘The Man In The Iron Mask’.
R.I.P. Richard Chamberlain.
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