From the category archives:

Short-shorts

The Murky Fringe Interviews Hydroquinone

July 10, 2010

Murky Fringe: Aren’t you ashamed of yourself. Hydroquinone: Don’t start. Don’t even start with me. You don’t have the first clue. MF: Michael Jackson, Sammy Sosa, and those are just the most famous examples of… HQ: What do you know about negritude, white girl? MF: …the kind of horrible disfigurement that… HQ: Fanon, Said–what do [...]

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New Product Meeting

July 1, 2010

We’re not calling anything an Ass-blaster. That just isn’t going to happen. I’m just saying, there’s a remarkable uptick in interest in our twelve-to-eighteen-year-old demographic when anything has the word ass in it. Also, Patriotic As Fuck is probably not going to fly. I told him. I also told him that having a shirtless Uncle [...]

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DIY Double Bicyclist’s Internal Monologue

June 22, 2010

But really, what good can the individual do in the current democratic model? Past, of course–what did she want from Trader Joe’s? Some knishes, yes, but what else?–voting, donating time and money to those causes the individual supports, attempting through involvement in groups of like-minded persons to make the single voice a chorus, but–shit, and [...]

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Parents Day Goes Horribly Awry at St. George Day School

June 15, 2010

Mom, look, you guys used to be married. Can’t you do something? What? I think it’s cute that he’s involving himself. It’s more than he did while we were married, I can tell you that. He just used the phrase I fancy myself a bit of a thespian. I mean, getting drunk and hitting on [...]

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Runners-Up in the 2010 Heublein Spirits Worst-Named Drink Contest

June 8, 2010

10. The Subdural Hemotoma 9. The Dirty Windshield 8. Shame and Regret in Liquid Form 7. Gary Coleman, The Later Years* 6. Big Jim’s ____________. 5. The Dangling Participle 4. The Rusted Turnbuckle 3. The Shart 2. The Creepy Uncle 1. Punxsutawney Phil’s Revenge * Too soon?

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Fire and Rain (and Lightning)

May 2, 2010

Whenever my dad sings “Fire and Rain” around the campfire he always adds and lightning to the chorus, winking at either my brother or me. I hate it. My brother loves it and always mouths the words with him. It’s their thing. And lightning. I can’t hear that song without those extra two words, without [...]

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A Man Answers His 12-Year-Old Daughter’s Questions About Lolita

April 6, 2010

Well, there’s a girl on the cover because the main character is in love with her. His name is Humbert Humbert. Yes, it’s the same word. No, he’s not her age, he’s older. Much older. No, more like 37. Well, I’m 41 so it’s a little different. Yes, she’s about your age–in the beginning. Later [...]

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Superhero Penis Envy

April 1, 2010

CONTRIBUTED BY DANIEL MCDERMOTT (Boston,MA) “I say Spiderman. It’s gotta be Spiderman.” “Spidy? No way. What makes you say that?” “Are you kidding me? Have you seen the bulge on that nimble little bastard?” “What bulge?” “Whadda you mean, what bulge? His suit is like one millimeter thick; just look at him.” “That’s not a [...]

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My Brief Affair with a Lion Tamer

March 31, 2010

Our spot was the Best Western near the airport. Cliche, I know, but he insisted. Let’s stay out of the way, he said. You don’t really want to hurt your husband. He was right. We met at the Circus. After the show. He let me hold the chair while he whipped the air around the [...]

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Pigs Don’t Fly

March 30, 2010

You didn’t believe me when I told you that bears eat moths, that bears can fatten up on them. You told me that I was thinking of bees, that bears swat at bees as they eat honey. You made some joke likening bears eating moths to whales eating krill. It was the kind of joke [...]

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Fighting with Carlos Fuentes

March 29, 2010

Following a quote in which Carlos Fuentes addresses the fact that he will never win the Nobel Prize for Literature because Gabriel Garcia Marquez already won it… ME: Maybe you’re not going to win the Nobel Prize because you’re just not that good. Fuentes: What did you say? ME: I said, “Maybe you’re not going [...]

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Vera and Rachel

March 26, 2010

CONTRIBUTED BY AMY HANSON (Connecticut) Vera rarely said anything true. “How are you?” “Delightful, thanks.” Vera owed her therapist seventy dollars, had an empty gas tank and her next paycheck wasn’t coming for two weeks. The previous night, she saw her ex girlfriend holding hands with a voluptuous brunette at her favorite used bookstore. “Glad [...]

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In Varanasi

March 25, 2010

My boyfriend promised that when we got to Varanasi, he’d bathe in the Ganges with me. He lied.

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Let Me Tell You Something Else About Battering Rams

March 23, 2010

Son, you’re old enough now that you see the obvious connection between our battering rams and penises. And yes, in a certain sense, when we’re ramming that large tree trunk into the closed drawbridge of an enemy castle we are ritualizing the act of coitus, albeit through frenzied violence, our weapon a giant phallus, etc., [...]

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Acknowledgements

March 17, 2010

First and foremost, the author wishes to thank her parents who forced her to read about the Bolshevik Revolution when the other girls her age were sneaking into movies and playing Bloody Mary at sleepovers. She also thanks her first boyfriend, Ron, for his unyielding faith in the impossibility of succeeding without connections. She would [...]

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