90ways - Fiction - Week 29

George W. Bush's resting heart rate and a bum in a green sweater.

Just give me one thing I can play for.

Disco boys on bicycles.

So what if too many times we have been here, both
lost in our machinations...

Poetic Retrospective

The Weather votes for Kelly Clarkson.

Criticism. Essay. Fiction. Science. Weather.

week: 1A piece removed. 2Come eat it.
Or don't. 3Wine, Shoulder, Bolt, Socket. 4Mothbombs 5On the road with your only soul. 6One woman's trash is another woman's treasure 7Aliens! Right here in America! 8It's not as crazy as it sounds
or, music is as music does 91) Sign.
2) Hope for the best. 10A friendship in a bottle. 11A five-year-old tries his hand at action adventure. 12Will the circle be unbroken. 1390ways' first Quaterly Review rages on:
2 samples of Fiction. 14Muscles and fat.
A thin layer of sweat. 15Fiction goes serial. Part 1 has sex and drugs.
You know you want to stay tuned. 16Our fiction serial concludes to cure your
vertigo from last week's cliff-hanger. 17An iced-out 21-speed sensation: The Moves are
all up on your handlebars. 18We're all in this together.
Except those bastards in administration. 19Jilted, laughed at,
and in the air. 20Swirling and swirling... 21You can't make yourself like them, but you have to pretend because they are your family. 22How well do jewel cases retain odor?
About as well as you stink. 23It's black and white. It's old world.
It's photo time. 24Piggy calls, wanting to sell you insurance.
This is what's on the other end of the line. 25A long pause, then, 26Fiction's Second Qaurterly Review
can speak Italian. 27It's only bread, after all. 28It's job search time at 90ways. 29George W. Bush's resting heart rate and a bum in a green sweater. 30Antique weaponry and teenage angst.
Together at last. 31One-hundred-fifty-three syllables
of October fun. 32there is only
self 33She's cold to the touch.
Cold and pebbly. 34Gut-wrenching love.
And wallabies. 35Building a habit out of ivies and orange flowers. 36A 90ways exclusive sneak peak at the
new and groundbreaking Alphabet Book. 37Type it with one hand and
see what happens 38A face any susbsitence farmer could love. 39The Quarterly Review: read it again for the third time. 40For every task, someone is the best.
Sometimes that's impressive. 41I didn't get a computer;
I moved to Indiana. 42A piece removed. 4390ways has new concerns about identity theft. Lock up the children and your sense of self. 44time. eyes. deep sighs. 45I know there's a place 4690 stars are born. 47I had to ask. 48It's about sex.
But isn't that always the way with classical music? 49The epistolary form in the 21st century.
Complete with neuroses and unpunctuation. 50There is no end to the party. 51Rockin to the sweet sounds of prepared food. 52Of or pertaining to. 53Including spaces, this blurb is 90 characters. Ways, words, characters. It is a leitmotif. 54Minnesota. Miami. Poetry in 90ways' Fiction.
It's the best of all worlds. 55It lives and breathes and is hungry for carnival food. 56A piece removed. 57The curtain is being pulled back... 58Up in the Fiction house! It's a bird. It's a plane.
It's an illustralogue! 59The hat, in all honesty, is a private matter. 60Putting up with all the doth. 6190words strike terror into the hearts of the longwinded. 62Return of the illustralogue! 63Take one down, pass it around,
blow your nose. 64A piece removed. 65The First Quarterly Review wants
you to meet its little friend. 66From our servers to your ear buds!
It's misguided enthusiasm, in podcast form! 67Questions for the man himself.
Plus, the podcast adventure continues. 68No one would ever use Starbucks
to define their identity. Right... 69Don't you remember the rose clipped under my windshield wiper like a butterfly under a pin? 70Oh, it's nothing.
Oh, it's life-threatening disease. 71It's not you. It's me.
And my Eurasian captors. 72Root, root, root for the brisk
sale of anything possible. 73Look within the very bowels of the soul.
Or at least your mother. 74We're not strangers any more. 75He knows of what he speaks. 76I find that often times I'm quite
mature enough to enjoy a few beverages. 77He is licking me.
I don't like it one bit. 78Our favorite stuff is coming 'round the mountain, again. 79A wooden-back brush and a homemade bowl of oatmeal. 80A man's home is his... 81Fack to the Buture. 82This dude pulled back on his nose
and mucus and unleashed a city. 83The polls are in. 93% of respondents do not approve of the monkeybone lodged in their lower lip 84Like a thirsty man in the desert 85Taxpayer dollars wasted on broken egg. News at eleven. 86She loves her red octopus.
She will chew it to death. 87Bubbling, gurgling, fighting a moment to stay afloat. 88Molting our pasts into the air... 89The Return of 90 Words 90It comes but once a... ever. 91Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, the end of the Fiscal Quarter. 92The 540 word circle is now unbroken. 93An emptying out of the animus, perceived as tranquility 94All roads lead to South Dakota. Or at least the I-90 does, anyway. 95He laid down his whittling knife and he and his brother took up arms in rage. 96Drinking manhattans made with a good bourbon, and strong. 97Living white and pudgy, I never expected much for myself. Now, I could tell that was true. 98A few gestural lines towards the thought of death. 99Rest in peace.
I know I will. 100And then we played baseball and then we played army and then we were best friends. 101We torn holes in sheets and became ghosts for each other's pleasures. 102I looked at the pictures of you, twenty years old,
sometimes skinny and sometimes your face a soft moon. 103Fingers clutching little trinkets of the day... 104All roads lead to South Dakota. Or at least the I-90 does, anyway. 105Everywhere signs of an interstice arriving. 106What you see and what you believe are two different things. 107It was as if a million literary ghosts poured from its pages, moaning to be set free. 108So what if too many times we have been here, both
lost in our machinations...

Two Poems

Shayne Hansen

15 NW to 23rd Avenue

it was a rainy day in June
I had just bought a laptop computer and was waiting for the #15 bus
I stood under the shelter
at Morrison and MLK
a bum approached me
he was about 45, seamed leathery face, red hair
bulbous nose, green sweater
he smiled and said "can you spare some change, please?"
so I gave him fifty cents
he went into a nearby convenience store
came out
much to my surprise, he was not carrying spirits
but a bottle of orange Gatorade
he came back to the bus stop
"may I sit here for a little while?" he asked
"sure, my man, it's a free country"
he sat down and looked up at me,
"yep, I'm an alcoholic," he said, in a matter of fact tone
he seemed resigned to his problem, I don't think he wanted pity
"listen," I said, "here I am, half-Irish, and I don't even drink,
how shameful is that?"
he smiled, looked at his shoes, looked back up and said
"well, every day when I go to take a piss, I see a big red freckle on my dick, that's how I know I'm Irish"
we laughed
the bus came, I bid him farewell and got on

I'd be lying right now
if I said I didn't miss that rummy

Meet the New Boss

Say what you will about President George Walker Bush
retard, megalomaniac, war-mongering cowboy
one thing I envy and admire about the man is his resting pulse
it is about 55 beats per minute
for a man his age, that's very good
excellent, actually
he is as fit as a fiddle
I will be 39 soon
and my resting pulse is in the low to mid eighties
I like the idea of a President who is more fit than many world leaders
this is something to rejoice
sometimes I get ideas
I am told by a few that I have the gift of the blarney
and that I can play the drums halfway decent
but I would trade all of that
to have the resting pulse of George Walker Bush
and the ability to moonwalk like Michael Jackson
then I would find a way
to conquer the world

don't harsh my buzz, man

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Tallis and Byrd, Haydn and Mozart, Schumann and Brahms-- these are pairs of composers who were friends. In each pair, the former is older and writes in a more pure, direct style. For example, one cool old guy I met said of a Haydn symphony, "It's so fucking human!" The latter in each pair revered his older friend and writes in an intricate revision of the same style. They include more emotional ambivalence. Compare the ranging emotion of Schumann's C-major symphony with the superimposed emotions of Brahms' D-major. Anyway, these artistic relationships are very exciting. They give us *two* looks at the same musical territory. Two whole ouvres. This is way better than twice as good. To some extent, Schubert carries on the Haydn-Mozart thing and Dvorak carries on the Schumann-Brahms thing. Bill McGlaughin points out that these Bohemians bring a wonderful kind of dream logic to their respective lineages. *Three* is just beyond awesome.

Tallis and Byrd, Haydn and Mozart, Schumann and Brahms-- these are pairs of composers who were friends. In each pair, the former is older and writes in a more pure, direct style. For example, one cool old guy I met said of a Haydn symphony, "It's so fucking human!" The latter in each pair revered his older friend and writes in an intricate revision of the same style. They include more emotional ambivalence. Compare the ranging emotion of Schumann's C-major symphony with the superimposed emotions of Brahms' D-major. Anyway, these artistic relationships are very exciting. They give us *two* looks at the same musical territory. Two whole ouvres. This is way better than twice as good. To some extent, Schubert carries on the Haydn-Mozart thing and Dvorak carries on the Schumann-Brahms thing. Bill McGlaughin points out that these Bohemians bring a wonderful kind of dream logic to their respective lineages. *Three* is just beyond awesome. Rollover for entire idea.

-Thought up by Ben Heasly.

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