User account

Fiction

Pregnancy is the weirdest condition
Pregnancy is the weirdest condition

I.V. Nuss

The Love in the Convex, in Absolute Roundness and the Sluttification of All Men West of the Bosporus

A face contorted in agony, eyes twisted, whole body shuddering and writhing in pain. Hectic breathing—contractions. Offspring emerging from the male’s abdominal pouch, hundreds of miniature seahorses surging from the father’s belly. These are nightmarish images in Jean Painlevé’s L’hippocampe (1934), black-and-white horror recordings: bursting fathers, autopsied animals bisected all too symmetrically; a scalpel passing over dozens of eggs in the lacerated abdomen. When the knife touches grapelike organs, I shudder. In black-and-white contrast, these critters resemble helpless demons, aliens...
ABO DE
  • homosexuality
  • motherhood
  • contemporary literature
Current Texts

Diane Williams

How about some string?

I said “Would you like a rope? You know that haul you have is not secured properly.”
“No,” he said, “but I see you have string!”
“If this comes into motion—” I said, “you should use a rope.”
“Any poison ivy on that? ” he asked me, and I told him my rope had been in the barn peacefully for years.
He took a length of it to the bedside table. He had no concept for what wood could endure.
“Table must have broken when I lashed it onto the truck,” he said.
And, when he was moving the sewing machine, he let the cast iron wheels—bang, bang on the stair.
I had settled down to pack up the flamingo cookie jar, the cutlery, and the cookware, but stopped briefly, for how many times do you catch sudden sight of something heartfelt?
I saw our milk cows in their slow...

ABO DE

 

Topics
Current Texts

Ann Cotten

The last philosopher. The zen-queen.

– In what way are you a communist – since we need to define this: someone who is convinced that a totally different form of organization of communal life would be good for the human race, –

 

– Isn’t that equally true of monarchists and leaders of sects?

 

– ...with a focus on justice.

 

– but the people should behave differently, right?

 

– They should be totally different.

 

– Are you not simply a misanthropist?

 

––––––––––––––––––––––

 

– No, because there are people that I like, very much even. And I understand all the less why most people feel compelled to be so nasty.

 

– Most people don’t seem to be quite as bothered by this as you are.

 

– Oh really? In my perception, most people are pretty bothered by anything that is different than themselves. That is why we need rules that define how to behave toward people we can’t stand.

 

– You have just been suffering in a...

OPEN
ACCESS
DE
Current Texts
The limp, voluptuous decadence of the place

Bruce Bégout

The limp, voluptuous decadence of the place

  • contemporary literature
  • urbanism
  • short stories
  • avant-garde
  • obsession
  • Venice

 

The world is all that is the case
The world is all that is the case

Françoise Armengaud, Annabelle Buxton

Wittgenstein’s Rhinoceros

The two young men meet up at the Cambridge railroad station. While waiting for the train, they browse the shelves of the station bookshop. All of a sudden, Wittgenstein grabs Pinsent’s arm: “Look at the title of this book!” “What a coincidence!” exclaims Pinsent, “It is perfect for you!” Both start to laugh. They purchase the novel of a famous English detective novelist entitled A Rhinoceros in the Library. Wittgenstein is very excited. “David, listen carefully,” he says to Pinsent. “I already have three things...
  • Wittgenstein
  • logics
  • thinking
  • young readers
Current Texts
Language can never be private

Johannes Binotto

Language can never be private

OPEN
ACCESS
DE
  • feminism
  • language
  • subjectification
  • theatre / drama
  • gender
  • Shakespeare