by Randall Munroe

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more at http://xkcd.com/

by Edan Lepucki

When I was young I lived next door to a horse. The man who owned the animal came every day to ride and feed him, and to clean out his stall at the edge of the property. My mother said the horse had been living there forever, long before there were laws to forbid that kind of thing, back when vacant plots of land could go undeveloped for years. I knew from school that the horse had once been a colt, uneasy on his legs, and before that, in his mother’s belly, folded up like a somersault. Like people, horses were mammals. The horse next door wasn’t human, but he had big, sad eyes like one.

Rachel and I had an argument and I took a bath. I shaved my legs and left the little black hairs to pepper the tub. The argument had been about the lock on the front door; she was upset because I’d forgotten, again, to deadbolt it before coming to bed. “We’re two women living alone,” she said. “This is the big city.” She threw up her hands in that way she does when she’s mad, like she’s an actress onstage, playing angry. “Who knows what could happen?”

Like most of our fights, it was silly. Later on, after we’d made up, Rachel played me some opera and told me she just wanted us to be safe, and happy. I said I’d work on it.

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By Steve D Owen

Author of fifteen books of fiction, most recently the story collection Fugue State, and the novella Baby Leg, winner of the O. Henry Award for his short story “Two Brothers,” the International Horror Guild Award for his story collection The Wavering Knife, and the ALA/RUSA prize for his novel Last Days, Brian Evenson has quickly become one of the most important American writers of our time. Questioning the epistemology posited by Enlightenment philosophers, Evenson’s oeuvre can be taken as a critique on the traditional values of a realist-dominated American literature. While many of his contemporaries simply assume the possibility of human rationality—endlessly repeating the formulaic (and profitable) clichés of free will and epiphany—Evenson takes the epistemological dilemmas delineated by postmodernism seriously. With a jarring brand of intellectual horror, he explores the problems of human perception, language, and the unconscious, and breaks the artificial boundaries between so-called literary fiction and genre.

Steve: Reading Altmann’s Tongue, my first experience of your work, I knew I’d discovered something unique in the literary world—the dark mystery and humor, the visceral use of language to create startling effects. This was powerful writing that unapologetically shocked with inexplicable violence yet ran deep in its epistemological subtext, that respected genre and employed it to its full intellectual potential. What’s it like to be the inspiration of a whole new generation of writers?

Brian: I don’t know how to answer this exactly. I feel at once flattered and a little afraid, like the next step will be for me to be ritually executed and eaten. It also makes me feel older than I want to feel, but maybe that’s a good thing in that it suggests that I might be too tough and stringy to eat, even ritually.

Steve: Unfortunately, stringiness has never been sufficient reason to escape ritual execution, or eating. But I can promise you that your apostles will attempt to tenderize your flesh before taking their first communion.  Fortunately, a mallet solves most spiritual problems.

Brian: We should move on.  All this talk of food is making me hungry.

Steve: I see your work holding a broken mirror up to reality. I say “broken” because it seems, in principle, your characters have no logical possibility of accessing an objective reality or truth, Kant’s “thing-in-itself.” They are blocked by perception, language, the unconscious. Do you consider your work a critique of literary realism?

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by Randall Munroe

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more at http://xkcd.com/

by David Thorne

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From: Shannon Walkley
Date: Monday 21 June 2010 9.15am
To: David Thorne
Subject: Poster

Hi 
I opened the screen door yesterday and my cat got out and has been missing since then so I was wondering if you are not to busy you could make a poster for me. It has to be A4 and I will photocopy it and put it around my suburb this afternoon.

This is the only photo of her I have she answers to the name Missy and is black and white and about 8 months old. missing on Harper street and my phone number.
Thanks Shan.

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From: David Thorne
Date: Monday 21 June 2010 9.26am
To: Shannon Walkley
Subject: Re: Poster

Dear Shannon,
That is shocking news. Luckily I was sitting down when I read your email and not half way up a ladder or tree. How are you holding up? I am surprised you managed to attend work at all what with thinking about Missy out there cold, frightened and alone… possibly lying on the side of the road, her back legs squashed by a vehicle, calling out “Shannon, where are you?”Although I have two clients expecting completed work this afternoon, I will, of course, drop everything and do whatever it takes to facilitate the speedy return of Missy.
Regards, David.

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From: Shannon Walkley
Date: Monday 21 June 2010 9.37am
To: David Thorne
Subject: Re: Re: Poster

yeah ok thanks. I know you dont like cats but I am really worried about mine. I have to leave at 1pm today.

———- Read the rest of this entry »

by Jason Conde

I already had a blender that worked just fine, but I bought a new one anyways. I couldn’t help it. I was only supposed to buy a new set of cutlery as an early birthday present to myself when I saw the blender glowing under soft, recessed lighting. At home, my wife asked, “Another blender?”

“It’s also a combination food processor,” I said.  “It’s multi-functional.”

“What about the old blender?”

“We’ll sell it,” I said. “Or give it to a friend.”

“And the old processor?”

“We can give that away too.”

But we didn‘t. The old blender I placed on top of the refrigerator, alongside old jars that once held pasta sauce and jelly preserves, and the old processor I put under the sink with the half-empty bottles of disinfectant. They collected dust and grime and even little feces pellets from the brown mouse my wife named Diphthong.

The new blender sat on the counter where the old one once did, and in the old processor’s spot was my new teak block of kitchen knives. I made pesto the one time I used the new blender and let its glass jar sit dirty in the sink for a week. When I finally got to washing it, I found little pieces of Diphthong’s presence, hardened bits of brown like ants at a picnic.

I once set traps for Diphthong, but he was too smart for that. I’d find the bait gone but no body, just feces. There was once half a foot left in a trap. Seeing the curled, clawed toes, my wife decided Diphthong had suffered enough. I left the traps where they were and got rid of the foot. I told my wife I threw it in the outside trash bin but really I chopped it up in the garbage disposal.

One morning, I saw Diphthong in the kitchen, hobbling around the doorway from behind a stack of newspapers. It was his right front foot that was gone.

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by Randall Munroe

more at http://xkcd.com/

by Aaron Davidson

(an FMC original)

The best part of Harmony Korine’s new film, Trash Humpers, was Harmony Korine’s introduction. It was the first west coast showing, at the Nuart Theater in western Los Angeles. An article in the Weekly piqued the interest of anyone still interested in Harmony Korine, enough people to sell the show out. My roommate read the article in line for tacos, and an hour later I caught a Facebook post from a friend getting rid of two tickets for reasons involving a bus station. I moved to LA a few weeks before, and this seemed like as good an option as any for a warm Friday in a new city.

The lights came up after the previews, and Korine shuffled down aisle to replace the Matthew Barney humanoids ghosted on my retinas. Korine thanked everyone for coming then explained that we weren’t really about to watch a movie, but “something else.” He said the Trash Humpers project manifested from taking photos of his wife and friends wearing “silly” masks and committing misdemeanor vandalism and other pranks around Nashville, including defecating in driveways and fornicating with trashcans.

Korine transitioned to an anecdote about a neighbor he doesn’t trust, the man that “invented the Choose-Your-Own-Adventure.” This guy, apparently, has trash bins full of VHS tapes in his backyard. One bin, according to Korine, had every hour CNN aired in 1988. Korine wanted to make something that might be found in such a bin, or (and I’m paraphrasing), “lodged far up in the guts of a Jonas brother.” The crowd ate this up.

Korine explained he couldn’t stay for the film, because he had “important people to meet.” (This was misheard by some, who thought he said “porn people to meet.” The idea of a Korine-helmed porn remains intriguing.) He offered to do a Q&A anyway. It didn’t matter that we hadn’t seen the film, Korine said, because for those who’d seen the trailer, the movie was “more of the same shit.” Big laughs. Read the rest of this entry »