House of Gods, and other Stories
“You mustn’t stagnate, you have to change, you have to amaze everyone, you have to get better and better!”
“I Want to Kiss Ringo Goodbye,” and other diaries
by Hugh Musick
Three narrative collages: "I want to Kiss Ringo Goodbye", "Existential Samurai Noir Cinema", "Insuring Against the Unexpected".
House of Gods, and other Stories
“You mustn’t stagnate, you have to change, you have to amaze everyone, you have to get better and better!”
Softex, 2016
"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."
“I Want to Kiss Ringo Goodbye,” and other diaries
by Hugh Musick
Three narrative collages: "I want to Kiss Ringo Goodbye", "Existential Samurai Noir Cinema", "Insuring Against the Unexpected".
Myriam Gendron
by Sam Dembling
For one tune she switched into a distorted electric guitar. “I used to be in a metal band,” she said. The audience laughed. “It’s true,” she said.
Alla Prossima Volta – A Brigate Rosse Comic Memoir
Excerpts from a graphic novel memoir by imprisoned Red Brigades members Francesco Lo Bianco and Francesco Piccioni.
Eden or Atlantis?: A review of the Computer History Museum
by Malloy Owen
“People who had software would come with a bag full of paper tapes and throw them into the audience to anybody who wanted them." A review of the Computer Museum.
In the Colors of the Times, cont.
Exempt from contempt
Gods may do what cattle cannot
They disassemble themselves
Into the panicked mouths of the manic devout
Gods may do what cattle cannot
They disassemble themselves
Into the panicked mouths of the manic devout
Two Poems
It’s definitely stupid but it explains the cosmos.
It makes me angry that you object.
Did your reverence do much good?
Often our talent blinds us.
It makes me angry that you object.
Did your reverence do much good?
Often our talent blinds us.
The Puppet Man
All this expertly gave a series of metamorphic impressions that the napkin was afraid, tortured, oceanic, calm, fleeing, and liberated.
Oscar Wilde Visits Vicksburg, Mississippi
OSCAR WILDE is to be in Memphis during the middle of June and will be in Vicksburg about the 1st of July, all things being even. He will lecture on the sunflower and the primitive cabbage.
Issue 5 Editor Diary: Skeuomorphic Boat Shoes
by The Editors
Selections from the editors' diaries. Consciousness is episodic. I can’t pretend to the clairvoyance of children.
Kandahar Giant Elegy
Incantation on an Afghanistan war myth. "Yes, a beast. With eyes like this, this many legs, a head, no tongue or tongue wounded, more sacred of you than you are of it and not housebroken."
Tomatoes in East Palestine
Correspondence from Rob Two-Hawks, an East Palestine resident writing to Julia Rock on the massive train derailment: "Yes, the fish, people and other things are very unhappy. Nevertheless, I'll find a way to grow some of the Finest Damn Tomatoes on Earth here."
50 Crazy Facts About Pain (Doggerel Sonnets)
I implored her never to stop making her vases.
We didn’t get married or anything.
But we’re still on a first-name basis.
We didn’t get married or anything.
But we’re still on a first-name basis.
from Focal Point
And thus the procession
The lyrical motorcade glimpsed only by me
Bow — laugh — dance
Behold the king of the muses the carny the revenant
The lyrical motorcade glimpsed only by me
Bow — laugh — dance
Behold the king of the muses the carny the revenant
Long Tow
Natural wonders dulled easily. Knuckle-headed human folly did not dull easily. The final placard recounted the story of a blithe pioneer, a greenhorn Pony Expresser who descended from his mustang...
ZAM! A Review after 40 Years of Heavy Use
by Stephan Shaw
This vacuum cleaner changed my life, made me what I am, but it’s really a piece of shit, has tappets and you should buy some other book. This one is mine.
Launeddas Music
It was empty, that instrument. They could not give enough breath, they could not breathe in it. They have thrown it away. And he, he took it… He was only half a man. He played like a … Madonna Santissima!
Top Gun: Two Critical Perspectives
Tom Cruise knows how to read. He is the star of “Top Gun: Maverick”. He made the movie, he is the movie’s audience, and he is the enemy of the U.S. military.
Nora Brown
by Sam Dembling
Garrulous tunes are resurrected as introspective reveries: they’ve left behind the din of the square dance for the privacy of the attic.
Editors’ Letter 4: Kenneth Rexroth’s Tombstone
by The Editors
“Poignant means stabbing--we forget that these days”
Stupid Black Bull in the Dark
I'm afraid to hurt someone. Why would I hurt someone for no reason? I'd rather sit around and gossip. But I don't feel ashamed to be totally exhausted by life.
The American Dream/Fear of Cars
by Arlo Bernard
In fact, what you really need is a minivan—one that will fit your four kids on a hot day while you drive in circles at the mall. But you can’t go in yet, only quiet children get to shop.
Christmas in Pariang
by Joshua Craze
Correspondence on the civil war in South Sudan.
"Knowledge for knowledge’s sake is not a meaningful posture in a warzone."
"Knowledge for knowledge’s sake is not a meaningful posture in a warzone."
Getting There: A Review of Michael Heizer’s City
by Jack Calder
I do not understand Dhruv, but I trust him completely.
A Few Bedtime Stories
For years, Raf collected the pieces of balloon left behind from his brothers' pranks.
Our Last Summer
by Lisa Borst
Death is fake, and time has collapsed! Ghosts of 1979 intrude on the present and they all do karaoke together.
The Green Woman
Tell me, do they wear dark suits, and do they brandish sage and sticks of rowan when encountering a spirit?
Sanibel Island
by Andrew Dietz
I was enamored with her wrestling skills and talent for catching lizards (mostly Six-line Racerunners, I think).
The Typewriter
"Don't you think people can be cruel because of the narrowness of their point of view and failure to consider others?"
"No."
"No."
Minutes from The Forum, Fall 2020
by Kit Ginzky
The “little university on the green sod” where hundreds gathered then tens, then a handful
Notes from the Cave: No Exit
by Ariella Katz
He seems rather meek for a contract murderer, but what do I know — he is the first one I’ve ever met.
Observations and Inferences Regarding the Curious Residents of Animal Crossing: New Horizons
by Ashley Chupp
Island of nerds and simps. I fear you will never break the cycles you came here to escape.
The Death Slide
by Unknown
Th' next act, folks, will be the death slide. The real thing. You won't go away disappointed. We kill a man every performance.
Attention: A Visual Essay
by Amelia Soth
A visual essay on attention. "There is a certain kind of attention we offer to works of art. We need to be invited to turn that kind of attention on other sights. The object above is a tool for evoking this attention. It’s called a Claude Glass."
Advertisements and Notices
by The Editors
BUY THIS SPACE! Get the latest announcements from Mouse partners and sponsors!
The Dawn of Time
We all care about the dawn of time because it is fun to mention, of course, but we also like the dawn of time because it was the start of time.
Zeus in the Accusative. Jazz in Silhouette.
by The Editors
Selections from the editors' diaries.
"I'm flattered to be a destination from which my friends may post flirtations."
"Newspaper poetry is heavy on metonymy and avoids the passive voice."
"I'm flattered to be a destination from which my friends may post flirtations."
"Newspaper poetry is heavy on metonymy and avoids the passive voice."
Works by Joseph Dole, incarcerated artist and activist
by Joseph Dole
Art by incarcerated writer and artist Joseph Dole, who is serving a life sentence at Stateville Correctional Center.
Branko
Branko noticed, on his digital map, a more valuable creature called a Serbox. It was extracting and retracting tongues from its hands. It was dancing like a Cossack outside of a destroyed public housing project.
Material Truth
by Malloy Owen
The contemplation of Christ’s broken body and shed blood does draw us in towards ourselves, then, but not in Kantian contemplation of the moral law within.
Crossword: It’s Perfectly Unambiguous
A crossword by Nathaniel Sandalow Ash: "Subcontinental Sovereign." "Crepuscular Hamster Alternative." "Putz."
Justice Under God Volume 2
We regret to inform you the following classes have been cancelled this year. Trigger warnings were too strong this fall and we could not keep up with them.
In Arboreal Time, A Collection of Photographs of Me Standing in the Middle Of Nowhere
oh look, oxtail soup,
oh look, throng in corridor,
oh look, leagues of Sung Tongs pustule,
oh look, lake como play tide in a movie,
oh look, of all stripes pruning the hedges
oh look, throng in corridor,
oh look, leagues of Sung Tongs pustule,
oh look, lake como play tide in a movie,
oh look, of all stripes pruning the hedges
Animal Variations
by Sam Dembling
“Come into animal presence. / No man is so guileless as the serpent.” Denise Levertov - “Come into Animal Presence” (1961)
ZOSO (Overture)
keep in mind the potters teach / keep in mind the pots and bottles hold / what the days and trading hearts intend / Oh to touch the dream / That hides inside and never's seen
Innovative Express Care
In the Uber ride to the clinic, I convinced my driver to get vaccinated and helped him schedule an appointment. The clinic brands itself as a one-stop-shop for INNOVATIVE and EXPRESS care, delivered on-demand. The Uber driver identified the location as a former Mini Cooper dealership.
University of Chicago Folk Festival to Bob Dylan: “You ain’t it, babe!”
by Kit Ginzky
Mouse Magazine has reason to speculate the snub of Bob Dylan by soon-to-be dropout college commies is what inspired the famous spite ballad “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” and changed music and American history, forever.
Museum in the Basement of the Swimming Pool
by Mana Taylor
Beyond the entrance of the swimming pool and down the stairs we descended into the museum dedicated to the people of this valley.
The Brazilian pavilion at the 1889 Paris Universal Exposition
A photo album from the Brazilian Exhibition at the Paris Universal Exposition of 1889.
from In the Colors of the Times
Just when I thought the milieu of emptiness
Was at the end of its patience
They violate this material and it is only a body
It does not have the principle of its movement in itself
Was at the end of its patience
They violate this material and it is only a body
It does not have the principle of its movement in itself
Attention, 1948, Gelatin Silver Print
by Fen Inman
This kind of attention always invites fulfillment in further attention, further holding-open of space for its object.
The Union of Salt and Sand
by Amelia Soth
The affliction took many forms: one man refused to sit down, afraid he’d shatter his buttocks; another tried to fling himself into a kiln, in hopes of being remade as a goblet.
From Bohemia to the Black Arts Movement (and Beyond)
The roots of the ’60s Black Arts Movement lie in the same period of urban transformation that encompassed urban renewal and the rise and fall of the earlier bohemia. Hundreds of thousands of Black migrants from the south arrived in several waves before and after World War II — and until 1948, racist restrictive housing covenants and other forms of discrimination kept them concentrated in a South Side “Black Belt” and a West Side ghetto where homes were subdivided and increasingly unlivable.
From the Heart Drops Blood
The shiver of regret walks into me
And joy to be Terenti Graneli.
A chasm before me, black fog all around.
And joy to be Terenti Graneli.
A chasm before me, black fog all around.
VR MLK
A review of Time Magazine and American Family Insurance's Martin Luther King virtual reality exhibit.
Questioning Cameron Knox Day: A Reader Response
by Daniel Ortiz
If he is still searching he could consider if his two week flirtation with the Bride of Christ had more to do with certainty than he thought it might have. I will be praying for him.
The Plot to Destroy Mouse Magazine Revealed
by The Editors
In the age of “fifth generation warfare” operations, educating the Mouse constituency constitutes the best defense.
Three Times
by Fen Inman
and time! / like a breech-presented foal’s neck in the birth canal, / it telescopes, / a gentle snap, / to fall dead in the hay and mother’s foam. / “I am the dawn,” it says, / “be grateful. / Few things come so willingly at your call.”
Clank of Light
In dividual cells a virus works on wires as well.
It is so easy that once caught it will be common as flesh or stupidity.
It is so easy that once caught it will be common as flesh or stupidity.
Raspberry Canapés
Systematic racism and capitalism were also related via thematic arguments to the creation of the canapés. In their “glib” and “hurtful” stance toward death, the little creams had endorsed the city's divergent life expediencies.
Notes from the Cave: Part 2
by Ariella Katz
But now, in bed, it was too warm to assume the proper posture of grief.
Epstein Brain: an interview with Ashley Chupp
Trying to tackle something like ritual billionaire sex abuse through this tiny lens of liberal girl boss feminism... you can't do it.
Zosima
by Jack Calder
More of the silent apartment, the enormous window, the light that came and went. Sometimes at night I would cry and say simple phrases like “is this it? Is this what’s left?” Then I read something in the Brothers Karamazov.
Siren Virus, and other Sound Pieces
by Maya Nguen
Chicago ambulance sirens stretched in time, a speech on racism submitted to a modified noise gate, five countries most susceptible to rising sea levels, layered words of a subaltern scholar.
World Music
Fifty wasps got my ass in Malaga, Spain,
So I limped to the hospital clutching my booty.
In the waiting room, our song; I winced in pain.
Some kid said it sounded like Death Cab for Cutie.
So I limped to the hospital clutching my booty.
In the waiting room, our song; I winced in pain.
Some kid said it sounded like Death Cab for Cutie.
Privet
by Ariella Katz
You’d be surprised how little freshmen question things if you great them with a confident “Privet!”
My World Tour
In Russia by the arctic pole / a nut can brood and have a soul. / A soulful nutshell there may tan / the hide for fun of any man.
The poem goes on…
The poem goes on…
Literalization
by Malloy Owen
I’ll admit I sometimes entertain the horrid suspicion that the sky has fallen and crushed us.
Editors’ Letter
by The Editors
To us, it would be just as much of a shame if you spent your life siloed with comrades as if you gave up the commitments that made you want comradery so badly.
I Was An Internet Catholic
At a time when the older avant-gardes come across as tired, co-opted, and insufficient responses to contemporary crises, Weird Catholic Twitter feels like a true counter-culture.
To Wait for You
by Haeyin Zho
the street will be full of stifling,
muttering horse weed after you leave
muttering horse weed after you leave
Eleme Men
by Jack Calder
Their compensation is determined entirely by the speed with which they deliver. This gives them a unique, scrambling gait, as they shift between different states of panic.
Cucaracha
The still circle of them looked to me like a gathering of Soviets in brown greatcoats around a fire.
Christmas 2019
In this country, it is an epidemic of loneliness is what I call it. Like a sickness that spreads. Yes, especially with the elderly.
Don’t Leave Your Room
Don't leave your room, don't make a mistake.
What do you need the sun for, if you've got cigs?
What do you need the sun for, if you've got cigs?
Stinctual Summons
by Ted Davis
In a dusking parking lot, he steps too far and his stride springs back, adhering to the substrate that sticks of a certain property in Kansas.
Proposal for the Yearly Construction and Destruction of Skyscrapers
We immortalize a dream for a few years, with something that looks like a phallus no matter what it is supposed to represent, and then we tear it down.
A True Story of Twenty-first Century Jazz
by Erin Hagood
I am from outer space and YOU cannot know ME! Give me money or I will hurt your ears!
Notes from the Cave
by Ariella Katz
Notes from nine months in Moscow, teaching creative writing to people transitioning to life after prison, and people in a homeless shelter called Noah’s Home of Industriousness.
The World About Nothing
The rose company is back in business. The rotten tomato company has never worried about business!
Change the Color of the Sky
by Erin Hagood
WHEREAS, the sky is the same color every day, and
WHEREAS, the sky need not be the same color every day
WHEREAS, the sky need not be the same color every day
Work Poems
Human beings are horrible bat-monsters, flying around using sonar, hoarding rotten food in their coat pockets, scratching insults into bathroom walls, having sex with dead people etc.
What must be done?
What must be done?
One to Mix the Mortar, One to Shape the Bricks
i yell over the drone of machines to keep the word chicago
out your mouth
out your mouth
The Theme Restaurant At the End of History
by Fen Inman
Decadence looks around, sees nothing but rotten fruit, and gathers it in sticky armfuls to distill into liqueur. It does this in an informedly fatalist manner, taking pride in its self-awareness but without the hope that such insight will provide any way forward.
The Work of Tragedy in the Spirit of Music
Michael Jackson wasn’t just a musician, but a musical divinity. This is less charitable than it sounds.
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