As my home crumbles around us, my fat French uncle tells me again about all the things he secretly fixed in France, him and his clandestine band of merry men scurrying around the tunnels underneath Paris, popping up like moles with mallets and wrenches in the city’s neglected landmarks, fixing things–months on end–fixing things no one even knew were broken. And finally it is too much. “Then why can’t you fix the damn leak in the roof?” I blow after three weeks of his charming garbage. “Why can’t you get the bathtub to drain? With a working disposal, maybe ants…
The Oldest College Literary Magazine in the Nation
From March, 2015
DOA: Defense of Autotune (Blog)
In my younger and more vulnerable years (namely NSOP), I offended a recently acquired acquaintance by stating that one of my favorite Kanye West albums was 808s and Heartbreaks. Though I personally believe that taking offense to such a preference is akin to disliking one for one’s favorite flavor of ice cream or favorite color, I felt like there was a deeper reason for this reaction, which could not be so easily dismissed. I had described the album as “the one where he just sings in auto-tune the whole time.” The person I had affronted was a very accomplished singer.…
“Transparent” is Anything But (Blog)
Josh Pfefferman and his younger sister Ali, both in their mid-twenties, sit on the floor of the living room in their childhood home. He holds a Jim Croce record out to her. “Look at that face. Look at that. They would never let me sign a guy like this right now. Look at that schnoz. You could not get that nose on TV today in a million years.” “I loved him so much.” Ali accepts the record, holds it to her face. “You married him.” “I did,” she agrees. “When I was four years old. We had a ceremony. I’ll…
FourthGeneration4.0 (Poetry)
Krishan Mistry is a writer from the suburbs of New York City who is interested in what might be inappropriately labeled as “conceptual poetry.” He is particularly fascinated by computer generated and appropriated texts and has spent the last two years exploring themes like fragmentation and commodification. He is currently studying literature and creative writing…
Hasty Thoughts on Ryan Boudinot’s MFA Piece (Blog)
If you’re in the mood to bear witness to some pointless Internet rage, look no further than the recent controversy surrounding Ryan Boudinot’s piece on MFA’s over at The Stranger. If you haven’t read it, I don’t blame you. I had never heard of him or the site before this week. Moreover, both the article and the responses to the article seem very much directed at that subset of people who are intensely interested in being “writers,” who talk incessantly about their status as “writers,” who spend more time thinking about the status of “writer” than actual writing, and, in…
Folklore (Fiction)
1 Really, the mountains were everything to me, and I could never understand why they were not to you. I think we just saw peaks differently. For I, purposefully mistranslating Sappho, thought that one could only reach the sky two arms strong. You were always shyer. Perhaps, you were not actually more shy but more open to it. You let your shyness set your cadence, a cadence of delicate steps that were only heard when listened to. I wanted everyone to listen to me softly the way they did you, but both you and they never did because I was…