Ali Aschman Matt Bell Crispin Best Jason Bredle Ben Brooks Kim Chinquee Bryan Coffelt Irana Douer Phil Estes Ari Feld M. Thomas Gammarino Jennifer Gann Loren Goodman Karen Gentry Mary Hamilton Amy King Clay Matthews Rich Murphy Ron Padgett Rebecah Pulsifier Lena Revenko Bradley Sands Pete Schwartz Paul Siegell Beth Thomas Bonnie ZoBell
Hey all you sweet things and cosmonauts, we're going lapdog for illustrations. That means we're a little low on the slick for NOÖ [10] and we'd like you or your friends to send us some drawings and photographs. What kind of art do we like? Check out a few of our past issues for clues; that's the best answer. Stuff that is or transfers well into B&W is key. I've decorated this blog post with a photo from NOÖ 9. Think of it as a clove into the orange of your inspiration. Send us some art! Thanks. Email us at submissions@noojournal.com with those badass ovals and drips.
We're happy to report that pieces from NOÖ appear in both: Carrie Spell's "It Was Only Two Months" is in the Wigleaf Top 50 and "Babyfat" from Claudia Smith will appear in Best of the Web 2009.
Not only that, but Nick Antosca's "Rachel Mia's Existence", Noah Cicero's "Two Hard Workers", and "Babyfat" all appear on the Wigleaf Top 200. Meanwhile, Magic Helicopter authors Jimmy Chen and Benjamin Buchholz both have pieces in Best of the Web 2009.
Many other wonderful past NOÖ contributors appear in both collections, but it's up to you to find them. Scavenger hunt!
Congratulations to everyone and many thanks to Wigleaf and DZANC for their terrific work in putting these anthologies together. Go net lit. Net the lit go.
How can a person have a problem When their body is a breath machine? I want to own a house, no I want to meet a tetherball queen.
There's a ladybug in my Cheerios But it doesn't even creep me out And though it rained all on my xylophone That silly thing was never even really very loud
I / need you / more than you / need you If you wait wait wait then you'll know that's true If you wait too long then I'll dream of you
You never bite my hair when I Really want to bite your hair I been to Nevada but I've Never overpowered a bear
There's a little lamb skull in my microwave But I'm saving it for my roommate There's a hitchiker in a Superman cape But I wanna drive alone and sing along with all the rain
Oh oh no: don't listen to me All I do is walk around confused and tickled pink Oh oh no: don't listen to me All I do is walk around confused and tickled pink Oh oh no: don't listen to me All I do is walk around confused and tickled pink Oh oh no: don't listen to me You oughta get some pizza with Motown Benny
No One Ever Works On Trying Anymore. There's Just Too Much Sun Or Something. by Bryan Coffelt
for T. Leaven Nympho
I.
The rise and fall of physical media -- an Xbox + Camus. A creed is dripping on my shoes a little. The doubling of the heart finally happens as the sun is directly above Old Navy. It's like you've chosen to ignore God's AK. Now we must bear all consequences of the lack of God's AK.
II.
Um, a priori, "finding out Hot Topic is not for you." So we learn to "conquer ourselves," conquer our whole Comic Sans bible study. You will become pregnant with two sharp blows to the head. Call them Husqvarna and Fox Racing. These will be burned to discs and stored in your safety deposit boxes.
III.
Choosing an attitude towards bearing children -- maybe a "switching off." Stashin' the nina when the cops are in my heart. Like watching a chat room happen and saying a/s/l all the time. Wondering (all the time) what Ellen Page would actually look like when she's preggers.
IV. Choose one of your children as the coward and one as the hero, and, um, well, they'll choose if you don't. "Camus will have none of this anthropomorphism." The jailhouse of Kantian eBaynomics. The friend-shaped keloid scarring disaster.
V.
Existential stumbles / in line at Wendy's. Your conception of condition and freedom, your Baconator. Your filthy obstacles, your backwards numbering. Your scientific truth is the washing instructions for your new Banana Republic jeans. We will name flowers after you when you die.
There's something wrong with a voice. How any word is just your air massaged, whether you compliment a new scarf or read a son's name off a telegram. How we borrowed the command for quiet from wind, so when people say shhhh, what they want is for you to feel cold. How, when caught by light, we shut up. What any voice is out to say is wait, over here. And once they can see you, who cares to make sure they heard right? Still, you turn up the jar boy's wail. You shout goddammit to the white out on the freeway. The phatic function of language changes like taste in rhythm, so the parents go If, gee, say, a zebra and my girlfriend says It's all like, like calumniation of original intent and shit. She's right. Praise is no more than a pinfeather and prayer has no color but a space for color. All enough to make you feel silly ordering people to feel better and too self-conscious for long distance sex. But you talk. Ta-talk. Hock up phlegm just for enough room to spit out no, that's not what I meant. And then you talk about headless girls naked and asleep in a fleece of pine sap, or the price of Milk Duds, how you made out with a cottonmouth bite, precious instructions to barbers and pepper wielders, all your opinions on all of the sky's insurmountable whims. You plead and cavort and joke and affirm and lecture and mewl and bray and slip in and warn and cheer and clarify and say good night which means I want to be alive more and I want part of that life to be with you. You look out over the crowd and say Thank you, it's really great to be here! which really means it's great to say what you've made to say, like to say The sentence is a house of language that wants to be such a good home no word ever leaves. But everything lives, if it can. You scream a name and creekbeds answer. You learn to go hum down the sidewalk just for you. Whatever you do, you don't interrupt the phonebooth band. In parkas and shoeless, the members hunch all over town with strings of digits, and they whisper come on now. They listen for someone to hear them. Most of what they do is tap on things.
