Dan Turello: Craft your own renaissance with tips from Boccaccio’s Decameron
A few years ago, on a crisp winter afternoon, I found a beautiful bound translation of The Decameron at the Black Swan bookstore in Staunton, Virginia….I bought it immediately and took it back to a friend’s cabin where a group of us had gathered for the weekend.
Meg Pokrass & Jeff Friedman: Wig
The wig arrived in a pretty pink box. I’d ordered it online from a wig shop. Silky, blonde and long, it felt as if I were entertaining a movie star in my hallway. Grace Kelly in a box on my couch. So nice to meet you, I said, slipping it on.
Peter Makuck: Recycled (corrected version)
His girlfriend sat in the car. The other cop was at the passenger door, probably shouting for her to exit the vehicle with your hands above your head where I can see them. I watch too many “Law and Order” reruns.
James Joyce: Thus the Unfacts
Someday duly, oneday truly, twosday newly, till whensday.
Video: Thirsty Kevin’s Big Date
Kevin goes on his first date in 20 years, but makes one disastrous mistake.
Patricia Jabbeh Wesley: Our Casualties
We were living at the Mount Clinton Internally Displaced Refugee camp outside of Roseville the day his death news came in. It struck something throughout the camp of thousands, like an axe cutting through hard wood…
Tony Magistrale: When Viruses Collide: Covid-19 Meets Stephen King’s The Stand
Published in 1978, The Stand, a narrative that centers on a pandemic virus that decimates 99% of the world’s population, has perhaps hit a bit too close to home.
Mike Schneider: Against Walls | John le Carré (1931-2020)
Among reasons we’ll remember le Carré, not least is his 1963 breakthrough novel, The Spy Who Came In from the Cold. Set in Cold War Berlin, it’s a classic story of love and espionage centered on the Berlin Wall, both as physical reality and symbol of separation between people — a wall that resonates with 21st-century politics.
Video: After Anyuta
In this modern reimagining of Anton Chekhov’s short story “Anyuta” (1886), a young woman spends the day posing as a life model for both a medical student and a neighboring artist.
Michael Simms: Civilization and Her Discontents
On the morning of the important day, Civilization woke up on the wrong side of bed again, rolled over and fell on the floor.
David Huddle: What is Unknown
When I tell her I’ve fallen for What Is Unknown, my mother’s face brightens. “She’ll be a good girlfriend for you,” my mother says. “Not stuck up like that trashy Well Known.
Michael Simms: André Breton and the Birth of Surrealism
The Poem was worried. He’d heard rumors of Rondels in other lands being infested with illogic, and there was no known cure.
Vox Populi 