Here are the answers to last month’s quiz. Some of you found this challenging. The million dollars is still unclaimed. 1. The gall bladder of an egret. 2. While skiing in the Alps (specifically, in G sharp minor). 3. A trick question! You probably answered “an oil-based compound and morphia combined,” but the actual answer is every Pope [...]
Review Copy
When I picked it up, His manuscript smelled Strongly, of fish. That, he said, must be All the carping criticism
Rejection and Acceptance: As Dealt with by a Poet
REJECTION I received today, your rejection notice Together with the copy of your So-called magazine. Tell me, which of your contributors Are you sleeping with? All of them I suspect, from The quality of your lacklustre journal. I’ve looked at the fiction section And Dickens it ain’t. As for the poetry, I can only imagine [...]
Insults to Be Hurled When Your Star Is in the Ascendant (A Translation from the Persian)
Son of a green wind. Bitch queen of the toilet bowl, Your gonads are like fantastic maracas. You smell of Kurdistan And your intellect is somewhere between medieval And a cabbage Stalk That has been left to populate A regimental latrine. Mix that with your eyelids! Fetid parachutes of flesh Adorn your scrofulous physique. Your [...]
Obituary for Vana Van Vama: Film Actress
Vana van Vama was born Mucha Laya, in the small town of Tapas, in the west of Argentina. While in her early teens, she was placed under the tenor, Roderiguez, an experience which she later described in her autobiography, “Virgin on the Rocks”, as ‘formative’. It was Roderiguez who memorably cast her as “The Angel” [...]