Why Babel Fish?

I’ve been thinking about this theme of Babel Fish for almost a year now, and it’s never stopped seeming like a broad and suggestive portal for the pieces gathered here. For those who aren’t familiar with Douglas Adams’s 1979 novel … Continued

“And Then What America, And Then What?”

—MILTON KESSLER What if California wasn’t the end of possibility? Gleaming out past Alcatraz and Coronado— someplace real to reach, if only you could walk across the water.   Forget Manifest Destiny. What is ever manifest? What is destined? Today … Continued

The Lion Tamer Remembers ||| Witness

Translated from French by Andrew S. Nicholson listen up earthen colors too late your laughter eats the sun for rabbits for chameleons grasp my body between two long lines when famine becomes light sleep sleep we feel so heavy blue … Continued

God of Nothing

This morning I scrubbed a charred spatula. It wasn’t light out yet. I hadn’t been able to sleep through the night so I made myself get out of bed in the dark, made myself go downstairs and hit the kitchen’s … Continued