Smokers Delight
From Sherlock Holmes to Jay Gatsby, the smoker has long enjoyed a largely morality-free platform in literature. Now that the non-smokers have won the war of fresh air versus decadent vice, however, the fictional landscape is surely set for change. Benoît Duteurtre is one of the first to seize the opportunities inherent in this cultural shift, with his sharp and well-timed satire on modern bureaucracy.
Charlotte Stretch reviews Benoît Duteurtre‘s The Little Girl and the Cigarette.
Don’t Miss This Flash
Rachel Kendall takes you to the twisted future in The Pleasure Principle; Andrei Codrescu tells us What Some Of Them Were Wearing; and yours truly serves you Tea at Mama’s, complete with kitchen sex, mango juice, and a five-modifier moon. Find them all–and more–here.
Two Poems
i could probably get done what i do on the internet each day
in a total of 45 minutes not counting my email checking
but somehow it stretches over a 6-8 hour period.
i do not go out very often
unless there is something specifically interesting to do
though there is not often something specifically interesting to do
By Blake Butler.