Byline: Conor Gannon

“Push, Push, in the Bush”

When browsing classic disco blogs—always maintained by sweaty, foreign men, a tendency I have learned from the pictures of themselves they publish inexplicably—one can only judge the quality of the records by their album covers. There are no band biographies, no album reviews, no other photographs: it is a cultural archive without history or salesmanship. Determining quality with so little information is a delicate but logical process, the mechanics of which can only be explained by example.

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*Life Story* starring Jeff Goldblum

*Life Story* starring Jeff Goldblum
The mystery has a name, Jeff Goldblum.

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Prose Poem

Editor’s Note: What follows is composed from features published in The New Yorker between September and December 2010. No alterations beyond rearrangement were made to the texts, excepting those that ensured gender, tense and number agreement.

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No Direct Speech Allowed

The case for Anne Carson’s _Nox_ might begin with its box (that’s not binding): grey with white binding (that’s not binding) and a single silver sliver, in which stands a boy diver on grass maybe forty summers ago, wearing superhero … Read More

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Obama on Afghanistan

Live Blogging of the President’s address on December 1, 2009.

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Creole

“All gone Quinn.”
“Who sir?”
“Shy Anne.”
“You sure?”

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Debate Scorecard

GREATEST INVASION IN FOREVER—NORMANDY
In the undisputed declaration by McCain, the American invasion of Normandy in World War II is “the greatest invasion in history, still to this day, and forever,” although he promised, snickering, that his future land war in Asia would give it a “run for its money.”

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With Piano

It’s the little things you remember when you die. The children. The moments. Your face after achieving multiple simultaneous orgasms. The orgasms. The presidential campaigns, the incipient volcano underlying the western half of the continental U.S. It’s the little things … Read More

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The Helmand

Bam. B-r-ck, b-r-ck. No one is dead. No one is here.
This is a poem about my brother in Afghanistan.

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Mr. Poem

Mouth taking the form
around like the moistening apple core
which deforms peculiarly
in the way of these things,

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Experimental History

As _Avatar_ gradually accrued its second billion dollars in the last few weeks, coverage of the film itself (rather than its receipts) sank from complacent praise to idle speculation. Was the film racist? Well, accidentally. Is there going to be … Read More

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Scan His Rhymes

If great hip-hop artists produce minor hip-hop artists, as RZA brought us Method Man and Biggie Diddy, Gucci Mane may achieve greatness on October 5th, when Waka Flocka Flame attempts to achieve with _Flockaveli_ what OJ Da Juiceman sort-of eventually … Read More

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