‘Selecting the right kind of a tomato was crucial for the scam to work.’
My father had always been hard of hearing. Nothing was wrong with the old man’s ears, mind you – he could hear perfectly well when he wanted to – but he had this knack for going deaf at will. Whenever it suited him, as a matter of fact.
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‘We meet at various points in the great swathes of the past that neither of us were alive to witness.’
Allen Bratton on a daytrip to a castle with his older boyfriend.
‘Listening to three white poets, whom I suspect are academics, talk about the state of poetry.’
Oluwaseun Olayiwola eavesdrops on an older generation.
‘I’d been dubious about his company at first.’
Sarah Moss on watching Shakespeare with her twelve-year-old son.
‘She didn’t trust us because, to her, tenants were like children.’
Kate Zambreno on negotiating with her older landlady.
‘A moment now swallowed in embarrassment, I asked a question only a young person might ask an older one.’
Lynne Tillman on trying to understand what makes a generation.
‘Culture has been bound up since the beginning with extraction.’
The editor introduces the issue.
‘Many people in the country seem happy to accept mercenaries in exchange for stability.’
James Pogue on the Wagner Group in the Central African Republic.
‘After making sure our guests all had the drinks and/or drugs they required, I put on a Sun Ra record.’
A short story by Benjamin Kunkel.
‘Like all money, Bitcoin is valuable only to the degree that people believe in its value.’
Photography by Danny Franzreb, introduced by Atossa Araxia Abrahamian.
‘I am on the hunt for the Russian Empire, or what traces might still exist of its colonial enterprise.’
Bathsheba Demuth travels the Yukon river, following the history of the fur trade and the Nulato massacre.
‘I am aware that according to present-day criteria, the story I am about to tell contains several shocking scenes which fall within the realms of sexual harassment and cruelty towards animals.’
