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Winter/Spring 2003

From the Editor
Thom Didato

Nick Hornby
interview

"Strike Anywhere"
fiction by
Antonya Nelson

"Answer to a Personal Ad in the New York Review"
fiction by
Marc Estrin

"Charlie Chaplin"
fiction by
Jason DeBoer

"Consider The Sky"
fiction by
Matthew Dillon

"Lie to Me"
"Big Top"
poetry by
Tracey Knapp

"Hania"
poetry by
Stephen Oliver

"Not Like The Movies"
"Bookshop Blues"
fiction by
Susan Richardson

"Everything in Store 60% Off"
poetry by
David Starkey

"Bathysphere"
"Universal Rundle"
"Lowering Sky"
"Nocturne"
"Ghost Birds"
paintings by
Josh Dorman

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Marc Estrin is a writer, cellist and activist living in Burlington, Vermont.

His debut novel, Insect Dreams, The Half Life of Gregor Samsa,

Buy a copy!
© Berkley Pub Group

has recently been released in paperback, was named a notable book of 2002 by the Christian Science Monitor, Publisher's Weekly, and the San Francisco Chronicle, has twice been a Booksense 76 selection, and recently inaugurated the Utne Reader Online Bookclub. Other work has appeared in Exquisite Corpse, In Posse, Slow Trains, The Land-Grant College Review, and the New England Review. He has been a Fellow in Fiction at Breadloaf, and at the Wesleyan Writers' Conference.

Answer to a Personal Ad in
The New York Review
(ad clipped to copy of response)

A VERY SPECIAL WOMAN, tall, enthusiastic, creative, warm, wise, lively and active, who is open and psychologically aware, is looking for a man who needs and appreciates the need for a close connection, who can laugh, enjoy himself and others, and who is warm, generous, thoughtful and wise, and is also psychologically aware. My interests are diverse, and include psychology, literature, music, nature, medicine, history and politics. My preference is for a non-smoker, age range from upper 30's to low 50's. NYR Box 7227.

840 Grand Concourse, Apt. 6F
Bronx, New York, 10472
April 20, 1992

Dear Goddess,

I call you that because you surely think of yourself as such. But what, my dear, are you hiding? (You asked for psychologically astute.) Let me see. You didn't mention your age. So you must be older than you would like to advertise. You want someone between 37 and 53, so you must be past forty, and that was hard for you, wasn't it. Turning forty without a man in your life? All those little wrinkles around the eyes? The flesh on the underside of your arms getting a little baggy?

And speaking of flesh, you must be one of those "Rubenesque" women. I don't notice anything about thin, or trim -- the two most common words in opening statements of all female ads in the NYR. Isn't print wonderful? You can hide so much that isn't buoyant behind adjectives that are. But what happens when you entice a man to come have dinner? How embarrassing that moment when he knocks on the door, you open it, and you see the disappointment deep in his eyes! How many more times can you go through a dinner-that-has-to-happen-in-order-not-to-embarrass? Well, he'll probably pay the bill. At least you get a free meal out of it. Save enough to put that ad in for another week.

Do you think I'm being cruel? I'm not. I'm just trying to get our relationship off to an absolutely honest and realistic start. How we hide from one another in these verdammte ads! $3.95 a word! Only Satan could have set such a rate. Let's see. You're in for 85 words X $3.95/word. That's 335 dollars and 75 cents, if my trusty calculator fails not. That means you're enormously wealthy or enormously desperate. Which, my dear, which? Perhaps both?

Well, you can breathe easy, tall, enthusiastic, creative, warm, wise, lively and active woman, open and psychologically aware. I can assure you that I am older, fatter and uglier than you are. Wait. Stop. Not yet the circular file. Some open, psychologically aware thought will reveal the benefit of such a partner: You can be superior, the more attractive one. You can be sure I will not be tempted to graze on greener grass. You can count on the world's judgement: yourself as magnanimous, spiritual enough to ignore mere physical manifestation. You can copulate in the dark and imagine whomever you care to -- in fact, I will help you fantasize partners you might never have imagined. You can assuage your barrenness (I see no mention of children), by mothering a social reject who will return your love without reserve, and with man-sized organs -- every woman's fantasy for her male child.

In this, my offer, you may recognize someone "warm, generous, thoughtful and wise", ready to submerge himself, without being threatened, in the multi-leveled superiority of another, not needful of lording it over some fat, ugly, Jewish girl, grateful for any attention. I know my place, my dear, and that is more than can be said for our screen stars or religious and political leaders.

You may prefer an non-smoker, but the first lesson I bring you is that you can't have everything you want. I am a two-pack a day Marlboro man myself (sans firm jaw, leathery hands and chaps, to be sure). Hard pack, if not hard abs. Think of Bogart, George Raft, all those cigarette-lipped forties types that once made female hearts go pitty pat under heaving bosoms. Little by little, if you are as open as you advertise, the 2nd hand smoke will perform its addictive wonders, and you will find yourself beneficiary to all the benevolence of Nicotiana tobacum, great gift of the much-vaunted native Americans, helping you deal with stress, calming down your tension, pepping up your lethargy, helping you to concentrate, and overcome unpleasant feelings with a mild state of euphoria. Deep in our smoke-filled rooms, you and I will create a hazy world of seamless, creative harmony unknown to the abstemious. Let them divorce one another and abandon their children. Our union will be the stable oak in the great forest, faithful and content till premature death do us part.

I'm sure you are not afraid of a little death, my dear. Your interest in literature, medicine, nature and history (not to mention politics!), if not superficial, should have taught this lesson: we must befriend our wily enemy, our redeemer, our relief. Such is the wisdom of the ages brought to you, free of charge, by your humble servant, Alan Krieger, who anxiously awaits your reply. I trust by now this letter has distinguished itself from the many others in your gloating, but anxious, pile. Do you have the courage to respond?

Sincerely,
Alan Krieger

P.S. Send photo, please. I need an image on which to fasten my affections.

7/5/92 Not answered. Maybe write her again.

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Issue 13 - Spring 2004

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T. Coraghessan Boyle
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