America's Most Critical Journal since 1999
By Bruce Lader 21 July 2017 No excuses, I won’t take anything away from Death, he’s a true Champ, but I let him impose his will, and twisted my knee a bit in round five—we were clinching against the ropes so I couldn’t move with my usual lightning spee... More »
By Steven Michaels 18 February 2017 Blue states hate me! Mick Mulvaney, where’s my inauguration band? Crazy eyed, party lines, we’ll tarry our four year plans! Pudzerino, you must have known, oh, there’d be dancing in the land! And now it’s all ME,... More »
By Bruce Lader 12 February 2017 Reserve far in advance for this restaurant named after the last Pyrenean ibex. Celia’s authentic wildlife atmosphere of real wolf heads, Blue Hyacinth Macaws and Saint Francis’ Satyr butterflies definitely merits the set gra... More »
By Catherine Harnett 20 January 2017 You will make America Great Again! The poet of tweets, master hash-tagger. The giver of speeches, the riler-upper of crowds The hider of taxes, the slapper of tariffs, the grabber of pussies; the keeper of Tic-Tacs, just in... More »
To: Irving R. Sheen, Tax Inspector From: Saint Nicholas of Myra, alias “Sinterklaas”, “Santa Claus” Taxpayer ID: 000-00-0002 Date of Birth: 5 December, 343 A.D. (12-05-0343) Occupation: Bishop Emeritus Subject: Amended Tax Return ... More »
By Andrew Kuhn 5 December 2016 Vanity, vanity, all is vanity— Or countertop, or cabinet, Or sit-down all-stone shower-bath With pulsing sensurround adjustable flow— But even these: vanities, all. For in the showroom of the world All things are as floor sam... More »
By Martin H. Levinson 27 November 2016 South of Brooklyn west of the Hudson there’s a land packed with pissed off men and upright women who don’t like things the way they are in rust belt towns, exurb villages, red state, alt hate, millions of Muslims ... More »
By Andrew Kuhn 18 September 2016 Her tidy rump perched on the tri-corn seat, whose long nose rests where his yet longs to be. . . . That under her own power she should leave— So lately his alone, yet so easily Now flying from him—appears barbarous, Unthink... More »
By Andrew Kuhn 28 August 2016 (With apologies to Wallace Stevens) For if betimes this polymath of paregoric fumbled for a formula as apt as that which summed his seldom-ciphered sibilants— englobed as gorgeous lexic embolisms bobbing in a bouillon sie... More »
By Martin H. Levinson Anderson Cooper sticks a mic in front of my face on Central Park South in New York City, cues the camera, asks “Why are you voting for Donald Trump?” as if he cares about what a nobody from from Bensonhurst Brooklyn really thi... More »
By Martin H. Levinson If we all owned guns we’d get faster service at the DMV, be listened to more respectfully in the office. Muggers would think twice about robbing Jesus on the street because the son of God could be packing a pistol and passersby might ta... More »