A True Story of Twenty-first Century Jazz
by
Found in: Issue 1, Poetry
Published in March, 2020

I once got on the train at 125th street by the old Apollo theater that runs express to Columbus Circle (a ten-minute ride). A man walks on just as the doors are closing. Just like Harlem’s buildings, he’s dressed in about seven different decades. The social consternation of a century of accumulated history brings with it an equally rotten taste in fashion. Amidst the fuchsias and scarlets and faded yellows, I hardly noticed he was holding a mint-condition pure gold saxophone.

As the train leaves the station he begins playing a chaotic series of tones. A dilettante’s Mahler it is ‘rough’ and ‘spontaneous.’ Really, ran ricocheted hostile forces in the shuddering metal can ‘til your vital forces (brain and flesh) were reduced to a punchcard.

The man stopped playing and pronounced to his captives:

I AM AN ALIEN

“I am from outer space and YOU cannot know ME! Give me money or I will hurt your ears!”

Alla Prossima Volta – A Brigate Rosse Comic Memoir
by ,
Excerpts from a graphic novel memoir by imprisoned Red Brigades members Francesco Lo Bianco and Francesco Piccioni.
Softex, 2016
by
"I asked Mohammed if I could interview him. He refused and gave three reasons why: first, he didn’t like cameras (though I didn’t have one); second, 'I like to be mysterious;' and third, no one would listen if he told his story."
Dadspotting and Its Discontents
by
Sad, young, online people talk about Marianne Williamson, about their parents, and about animals with the same pathos with which one mourns a lost childhood.