1. September 20th, 2016
The Fire Station
2 stars ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆
We never noticed how often the world was on fire until we moved by the fire station. Station 9. The other night around midnight there was a screeching outside the window so diabolical my wife did a back flip out of bed. The room a merry-go-round of red light and it usually isn’t. A fire truck outside. I woke when she went to the window, slammed it shut, screamed—“I thought it was a banshee coming to kill us!” Again the siren wailed. The fire truck eased into traffic, leaving, off to save midnight from burning down. Anyway! Two stars right now but I’ll probably give the fire station five stars when the trucks and the firefighters and their water come to put out our wicked flames. Right now we are doing fine. Our new place has steel beams, concrete walls, plaster walls.
Being Half Deaf
3 1/2 stars ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆
It’s not so bad when there’s a fire and the fire trucks are whipping around out there. I Just put the ear I can hear out of down on the pillow so no noise from the outside world leaks in and destroys my dreams. Also, being half-deaf is all right because I never have to listen to anyone’s criticisms about anything, I just turn my head a little and the criticism goes away. Sure, I can’t enjoy surround sound, but the movies people makes a big deal about being in surround sound are the ones with a bunch of robot cars slamming into each other and sticking warheads up each other’s tail pipes. I’ve never been able to appreciate music on a nice set of headphones but neither did the entire human race that died before 1960. Brian Wilson was also deaf in his left ear and Brian Wilson did just fine too.
Blue Apron
1 star ★ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
Food was fine. Service was fine. They mail you all the ingredients; you cook all the ingredients. It annoyed me I had to cook it. Canceled and was hurt they sent a simple thank you email and didn’t fight for my affection. Didn’t try to woo me with free turkey taco with fairytale eggplant nor cashew slaw.
When The Shakespeare Recital Got Ruined
15 stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
On Saturday morning we walked over by the church. In the courtyard there was a Shakespeare reading—oh god, a full grown adult in yoga pants, holding a plastic skull. I stood on the sidewalk and listened as he yelled in olde English. What could be worse than this? I turned to look at Rae and share my disgust but she was smiling and listening, and I said, “You’re enjoying this? Really?” She said, “YES I AM! BUT NOT ANYMORE!” We started to fight there on the sidewalk and just then here came the fire truck from station nine and as always the fire truck got stuck in traffic near our building and its siren began shrieking and the fireman were honking the horn and the people doing the Shakespeare reading had to stop reciting MacBeth and they looked over angrily at the fire truck like oh wow if they could shove a nuclear weapon up its tail pipe they would.
Bud Smith reports from Jersey City, NJ.
I really love the format & humor here! A funny coincidental pairing for me after recently reading (and feeling very moved by) this "blender review" piece by Emily Everett: https://electricliterature.com/osterizer-classic-series-10-cycle-blender-an-amazon-five-star-review/ All in all, you're both reminding me to have some good old fashioned, playful FUN with writing every once in a while!! (A reminder I needed tbh!)
4 stars