In desperate times, desperate people head for ...
John-Patrick Ayson somehow connects Wall Street predators and ravens in "atrophy."
We inaugurate our newest category -- essays, articles and interviews by, for and about pop culture -- with an interview with writer Harold Jaffe.
Our newest editorial, "Slouching Toward Bedlam," predicted the rise of the Mad Tea Party.
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Armageddon Buffet is looking for speculative fiction and nonfiction writers who write about the theme: Armageddon. This does not mean we believe in the Biblical Armageddon -- we leave that to the True Believers -- but we have definitely noticed that the End Time has arrived. Learn more about our submission guidelines, or submit an article or story to Armageddon Buffet.
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John-Patrick Ayson / atrophy
in the heart of defunct financial districts are mile length lines, comprised of men & women with grumbling stomachs, penniless pockets & zero confidence, making their way thru decagon shaped buildings, into storage rooms padded with five layers of styrofoam — where three foot tall stacks of manila envelopes, piled on top of third grade plastic tables, are attended to by persons wearing matching snake skin suits & berets, handing one envelope to each man & woman — who will find a document inside, which reads:
we are an all for profit organization whose objective is to protect our land from perpetrators & their intrinsic quests to disrupt our way of life.
these perpetrators are, but not limited to:
º ravens (& other creatures resembling them)
Interview / Harold Jaffe
Enforced accommodations are demeaning, but in some instances the accommodation compels the writer to open up previously inaccessible spaces in his or her consciousness, such that the necessity has unexpectedly become a discovery. Accommodation without sacrifice is my governing mantra.
Editorial / Slouching Toward Bedlam
In short, what has come to be called "conservatism" has de-coupled itself almost completely from the reality-based world. The magical thinking that dictates you can make something true just by believing it and repeating it -- e.g., "We not only know Hussein has weapons of mass destruction; we know where they are," or "We can slash taxes and balance the budget," or "There is no global warming," or "Obama is a Kenyan communist" -- has saturated the mind of the Right like syphilis.
Stephen W. Potts / Zone of Silence Allison was in the middle of a message to Ryan when her phone stopped working. She had just thumbed in "b/c don't u just h8 it" when the tiny screen went completely black.
She tried to remember if she had heard the beeping that meant the battery was low on charge. Maybe she had been so engrossed in her texting that she had missed it. It was the reason she had missed her bus as she messaged Courtney from the girls' room about getting together that evening for homework and Beverly Hills 90210. You would think that Courtney, who had been on the bus in front of their high school, would have texted something about its leaving.
Harold Jaffe / Warr Games Night after night throughout the wrecked city contingents of US troops in cartoon new-age uniforms hunt for hidden roadside bombs.
On a recent night, a unit from Company B of the Fifth Engineering Battalion, out of Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., met in a darkened tent to prepare for their road-clearing mission in a 27-foot armored vehicle called the Cowpoke.
At the end of their meeting, Staff Sgt. Jessie McGah, 31, of Greenville Arkansas, led his team in prayer . . .
William Terry / Affection Interchange Program Just the strange blue gray color of the affection interchange building is enough to make you feel alone.... The outline of the building is so unfriendly that sometimes I'm amazed that I don't get cut into organic ribbons just walking through the doorway. It's like a blender with a doorknob. This is my third time to apply for the love stamps program. If by some miracle they accept me I will be able to receive a federally funded amount of government approved affection from a person matching my demographic profile. Fluorescent shadow boxes hug every corner of a linoleum hallway as I escape a near death entrance though the slice of the revolving door.
Chapter 9: A Patient Darkness Outside, the view of the Del Mar-Pasadena Stratum from thirty stories up: dirty skyscrapers, staggered in alternating shades of gray, a grid-work of concrete walls that pretended at calm order. The surfaces of the buildings crawling with ads. It felt, to Goldstein, not so much like a vantage point outward into the world at large, but rather like being claustrophobed in a small room with no floor or ceiling. Nothing out there but falling small.
Chapter 8: Backflash The mall was a still, almost meditative place for him; other than the small sounds of people walking in large spaces and the occasional shout, it was quiet. Quieter than outside. Quieter than his apartment.
Chapter 7: Scars & Angel Wings A British expedition found it in 1923, atop a steep and jagged temple, encapsulated in jungle, in the Yucatan. At that time, it was a black stone disk, two meters in diameter. A calendar.
Chapter 6: PR1Σ$+ The dumbot opened a window inside his own window, showing the puzzle box. The puzzle box opened, revealing yet another window. Windows within windows within windows. The call was blue. Voice only, no vid.
Chapter 5: Fierce Orbits Shakti lay prone on the pitching deck, her mother-form pleasantly soft, her ankles crossed. Before her she had opened a portal through the bottom of the data barge; she trailed the fingers of one hand in the static of The Middle. The touch brought whole worlds flashing through her. She saw everything. Worship, engineering, flesh and fists.
Chapter 4: Dead Playboys Chazz was on his knees, giving the gretch what it wanted, taking what he needed. He held its hips and rode it, stuffing its noisy face into the pillow with each thrust. The view was unambiguously supreme.
Chapter 3: Tabula Rasa On the TV, nothing but flesh and flesh and rhythm. Wet sounds and curves and open mouths. It was not nearly as narcotic as cartoons, but it would do. Porn filled his empty head, keeping his few memories neatly compressed.
Chapter 2: Blood Sneeze The last truck landed, disgorged four anxious godcops. Goodkind called them over via laser. They huddled, snapping their visors up for face time, smoldering cigs pinched delicately in little servo arms.
Chapter 1: Screams Like Meat Shakti was riding her favorite body. Around her, the glassware and voices of the patio bar compressed into a confusing mush of single-channel, low-kilohertz noise. She always rode with full tactile and kinesthetic feeds; with the spine turned all the way up, sound and vision suffered. Pleasure was a pig for bandwidth.
Prologue: God's Dogs I will kill everything that eats children.
Editorial / The Guns of August This August we watched angry gangs invade town hall meetings with torches and pitchforks -- actually, worse, surround them with assault weapons and pictures of Obama as Hitler. Democratic congressmen were hanged in effigy. The President was accused of planning to impose a Nazi-Communist-Satanist death program aimed at killing off seniors, veterans, unborn children, Republicans, and Trig Palin. He was accused of being foreign-born and thus not actually president, suggesting his plot against America was an alien plot.
Editorial / The New Minority We are now six months into the Obama presidency, and the honeymoon is over. Fortunately, we are still a long ways from marriage counseling. Many of the President's supporters are less than happy that more change hasn't happened faster, or that this administration refuses to investigate the crimes of the last one, or that it has accepted compromises. If Democratic voters and their ideological allies haven't gotten everything they want so far, the Republicans and their fellows on the Right have gotten much that they don't want.
Editorial / The Last Christmas Carol It was the night before Christmas, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring except W. The single frosty window in the relatively modest room showed only darkness, though outside Camp David was covered in snow. Inside, settled on the sofa before the television and fireplace, W. felt cozy in his presidential pajamas and robe. He cradled a bowl of pretzels in his lap, desultorily munching one even though the taste of the turkey dinner he had eaten hours ago lingered on in the occasional belch.
Editorial / Obamarama Ever since the Supreme Court elected George W. Bush as 43rd president in the last year of the last millenium, a host of true believers have proclaimed the Coming of the End Times. Bush the Burning would bring on the Final Battle and the Final Judgment, and the faithful were gaga with the certainty that they would experience Rapture and Christ's return in their lifetimes. The Bush League did not discourage such speculations, and indeed Karl Rove figured the faith of the "nuts," as he called them, into his electioneering strategies.
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