“The horrifying events that took place in the Hoyt family’s vacation home at 1801 Clark Road on February 11, 2005, are still not entirely known” –Tagline From The Strangers.
The other day on TV I watched this film trailer from a upcoming movie called The Strangers. Then I went online to YouTube and watched it again. […]

They hadn’t really shaken off the courtroom yet as they drove down one of New Jersey’s last remaining ‘back-roads’. There’s a strange lasting feeling of uneasiness you get when you spend the day going through the motions of a process that isn’t your own. Rebecca’s high heels lay under the passenger seat and her husband’s […]

Myanmar and China battled it out for the main headline; whose chaos was worse, whose blood spilt thicker, whose lives were worth less? This fractured newspaper had just been delivered when Sam stepped out to begin his day. He didn’t pick it up, New York’s local papers being shit, but took note, as always, of […]

He sat in the back of the large auditorium, quietly, alone, and although never daring to raise his hand, he wished the speaker would just simply–out of a crowd of about fifty– call on him. But you see they were all alone; this fact the speaker’s slides, though humorous, couldn’t hide. The bots didn’t care […]

Yesterday, while two presidents looked on, Jenna Bush–one half of the Bush Twins–was married to someone on her father’s Crawford, Texas ranch. I hope you don’t think there was any underlying irony in the writing of that last statement for I assure you there was not. I truly wish them the best. A child is […]

This man, the artist, the revolutionary, the soldier (of sorts), who only ever gave his name as “Chaos”, quickly picked the lock for the train yards, doing in a matter of seconds what young graffiti artists and punks had spent their whole lives dreaming about. But this was just the beginning, perhaps even the easiest […]

Jeremy arrived at work a few minutes before 8:00am. The young man was good like that. In one hand he had a bag containing a donut and a small coffee, breakfast, paid for with quarters and dimes. In the other hand was a fresh notebook that he used for his job, paid for with the […]

Martin spent his last day on Earth at war with his inbox. He arrived early for his ‘meeting in the park’, taking the extra time to clear out the 300+ emails he had gotten since this morning. There was really no reason for him to do this now, but like most of us he was […]

Politicians and Police Officers are not the only victims of the media age. And why we can look with pity at good ‘ole boy Senators losing their rights to shout epitaphs at rallies and crime-fighting cops getting in trouble for tasing 13 year olds repeatedly, I must inform you: It gets worse. Today, in […]

Let’s be honest: Wilson was, is, a boring place. It seemed like someone took the Manhattan grid, ripped its soul out, and over the old brownstones and tenements built uniform McMansions and tract homes. Yes, soulless–that’s a good word for the place; a suburb where the New York businessmen kept their things and their families […]

It’s been some time now since Jason Moore lowered his pants and took a shit on a canvas. No, he didn’t do it in public (god forbid!), but looking back, he might have been better off if he did. Because, as it turned out, no one gave a shit that Jason shit on a canvas. […]

 

 The Crap Artist: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

“Well! Done!” Mark said, with an embarrassed smile.
“What?” she asked. The music in the bar was so damn loud, it entered your ears and wouldn’t leave or give way for any other sound.
He leaned his head right in to hers. “WELL! DONE!”
“Oh, yeah!” she laughed and held up the drink that some guy had […]

Perhaps it is due to the unhappiness of our times that we’ve become obsessed with being happy, with who’s happy, with who’s unhappy, what groups are likely to be happy, what action and behaviors are certain to make one unhappy. Rarely a week can go by without the media regurgitating some asinine–and completely arbitrary–poll conducted […]

I received a fascinating email today:
Sir / Madam
Its my humble pleasure to contact you personally irrespective of the
fact that you do not know me in person. However, I came to know of you in
my private search for a reliable and trustworthy foreign partner that
can handle a confidential transaction of this nature in respect to my
investment […]

“Port Authority is the most depressing place on Earth.” she says and she may not be wrong. Like so many things in New York, the bus terminal wasn’t built to impress anyone, but simply to serve a very necessary purpose: like helping the two of them, Jamie and Sam, move out of the city.
They sit […]

He came to again for what seemed the 40th time in the last hour. It was amazing how little time actually passed between episodes of consciousness, even though he was sure–each time–that he had been ‘out’ for a year. He sighed, but then–almost–smiled, happy that he had sighed. From the moment he realized that […]

 

 A Simple Agreement: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The thugs jump around lightly in the light wind on the open platform like boxers, hitting like butterflies, not wanting to sting their friends. It’s been a long day. The young Latin girls, their caps’ brims as stiff as the boys from before, whisper about the black men who whistled at them safely from a […]

“Give me back the Berlin Wall, Give me Stalin and St.Paul, I’ve seen the future, brother: it is murder.”
–Leonard Cohen
Urban Outfitters may not be the best place to act as a bellwether for American culture, but if chains can’t represent us, what’s left? The store, which sells t-shirts and other light couture, oddly shaped furniture, […]

The irony here is that I’ve mapped the journey out based on a series of Starbucks’. The first one is but a block from my apartment, the second is four and a half blocks in front of that one, and the third–by far the biggest–is six blocks forward from the one before it. When you […]

The evangelist had finished his speech. Correction: The evangelist had rocked the auditorium. If those sitting in the seats didn’t know before how Web 2.0 would forever change their lives, they did now. As he closed up his laptop, they crowded around: the moved, the curious, the startup-ers, the bloggers and podcasters, the ‘community’. All […]

Sam was found guilty by a jury of his peers. Fine. He had never really denied doing what he did and had spent most of the trial laughing and grinning, completely unconcerned with their rules or with anyone’s rules. But still, the young man shuddered when his sentence was read: Life. The prosecutor looked at […]

If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.
–Abraham Lincoln
For nearly a century, the dystopian writers and filmmakers have painted a picture of a society gone wrong: Of cameras covering every inch of the landscape, of […]

The speech (or defense) that George the Baker had prepared in his mind, on the ride to this secluded bakery, now fell apart like a piece of poorly made cake. All the points he had laid out in explanation, all the excuses, all the fancy words of nuanced expertise, all of it disintegrated upon seeing […]

He didn’t remember ever sweating so much in October. Or his glasses getting so foggy. The subway station’s walls themselves seemed to be sweating, their lights getting foggy. His coat was like an oven, an oven that stuck to his back and his elbows. Damn it was hot. His natural inclination was to pace back […]

 

 The Grind: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

For some, opening a door for another human being is quite easy; like walking or breathing, they never really think of what’s behind the action or consciously plan the elaborate movement of elbow, wrist, and hand. But others–and here’s where I put myself–for whatever reason, were never taught, or expected, to extend this general courtesy […]

Going to the Opera is an admittedly dusty affair. My first few visits were the strangest; filled with all these “Wow, people still do that?” moments. The half hour intermission, the champagne, the encores, the five minute applause, the six hour show, all of it seemed then, and to some extant still seems, to be […]