It’s not so easy to talk about identity. First of all, the concept itself is an abstract one. What does it mean for something to be something else, anyway? And even beyond the discomfort that can result from talking about… Continue Reading
Some writing is born of a dogged faith in the undiminishing power of language. Still more is nursed in the dark, alone, alternately answering and conceding to that most crippling of writerly skepticisms: that words are only ever themselves; that… Continue Reading
When I was a kid, video games meant watching as much as they meant playing. It’s not that I didn’t love to play—and didn’t play plenty—but that, as a youngest brother whose closest friends wereyoungerbrothers,
The kitchen was in complete commotion. Everyone was running back and forth, kissing and chopping, dicing and dropping and generally making a mess. A girl with fiery red dreadlocks sliced cucumbers, tomatoes,and carrots on the rickety plastic table. A trio… Continue Reading
Occupy Wall Street occurred as I was laid up, recovering from a shoulder surgery in my parents’ house in suburban New Jersey. From there, across the river, the movement appeared a chimera of ideals, naiveté, and anger. Media accounts emphasized… Continue Reading
Here at The Bad Version, we’re interested in people who not only start new conversations, but also redirect existing ones. Take, for example, Dan Oshinsky, a self-described “creator of awesome stuff ”who is producing journalism of a different stripe through… Continue Reading
I can imagine it. The night of June 14, darkening, deepening, edging ever closer to the morning of June 15, ever closer to that witching hour. Dark shadows, robed shadows, gathering in the streets, assembling before fluorescent movie houses and… Continue Reading
At first, I wanted to write a response that would be a pastiche of Mariev Finnegan, but I simply haven’t smoked enough “saliva.” One suspects that her fictional world is a little too complete (right down to the consistent linguistic… Continue Reading
“Small Complications” is a simple and direct poem that takes simplicity and directness as one of its subjects, and yet it is also surprisingly nuanced and self-conscious. From the beginning, the poemthrowsout
My favorite part of this story is a little line in the middle, when Francesca is about to truly attach herself to the goofy yet heartbreaking Norm, her closest friend. She is away at college, and he has driven seven… Continue Reading
The idea of vampire deer. The image of a grown man staring at the stars with his hands “pleated” over his eyes. Timothy’s phrase, “they’re lost in the headlights of your gaze.” These are the things that stayed with me… Continue Reading
A poem doesn’t exist solely on the page. It projects from the paper onto the world. Think of it as a recipe. If it is poorly done, you start off wanting to make eggplant parmesan and wind up with pizza… Continue Reading
After reading Luke’s retelling of the story of Actæon, I sought another, more ancient source than Bullfinch: the Metamorphoses of Ovid. Even Ovid draws attention to the ambiguity that surrounds this episode, as if it is a tabloid-reported story discussed… Continue Reading
I hate talking when I leave a movie. My friends know this, and for the most part, they let me be. When the lights come back on, I don’t want to tell anyone if I liked it, or how good… Continue Reading
There exists in a near-forgotten book a description of the Land of the Pomegranate. Its inhabitants are singularly marked by incest. Their progeny are either incredibly beautiful or remarkably repugnant.The beautiful are removed in infancy and placed in “The Garden… Continue Reading