6.13.2025 - Weekly Digest
Alright here's some stuff:
My story 'National Bird' was a finalist for Smokelong Quarterly's Award for Flash Fiction 2025, and will be published along with the winners and other finalists on Monday (June 16) in a special edition of the journal.
Haley Sim
There's a lot of great stuff in there and I encourage you all to read and support them. They've been doing good work for over 20 years, focused primarily on publishing in the 'flash' genre (aka pretty short stories).
This is a guess and I haven't looked it up but if I were the gamblin' type I'd wager the name comes from the idea that most of what they publish you can read in about the time it takes to smoke a cigarette.
*looked it up (from their "About Us" page):
The term “smoke-long” comes anecdotally from the Chinese, who noted that reading a piece of flash takes about the same length of time as smoking a cigarette. SmokeLong Quarterly does not encourage smoking.
Flattered and honored to have a place with such kindred thinkers.
Speaking of support: today is the official launch of the Without a Gun paid subscriber option. Most of what I post here (daily posts and the Weekly Digest) will remain free to everyone. Features, however, rolled out weekly (Sunday or Monday evenings depending on the week), will be available to paying members for $11/month, or $2.75 an issue, or an average of about .003 cents per word (!) of original stories and rambling essays. And I won't even interrupt your reading at precisely the worst moment to yell ads at you. Stream at your own pace. Almost like you can't afford not to subscribe, y'know?
You can upgrade by clicking on the 'Account' button (in the upper right if you're in the browser version).
And, one more thing I will ask: please, share Without a Gun if you're reading this (link below if you need it). I'm starting a campaign to promote this thing but nothing's more valuable than recommendations from appreciative readers.
Thank you for encouraging my habit!
That's it for my sales pitch. It's been an interesting week here, even as I try and fail to not be consumed by the U.S. news cycle. Please be safe. Everything in the timestream suggests this will be an historic and momentous weekend--and not just because it's my dad's birthday and Father's Day all at once. Happy Birthday Dad!
Love,
JA
Le Digest:
6.10.2025
In (on?) this cul-de-sac there's at least one illegitimate restaurant. Could be many but that's none of my business. I was craving biryani so I ordered some and what the heck some lemon mint lassi too, was delighted to see on the app that it was being prepared by one of my new neighbors. I pulled the curtain aside: pretty sure it's that building right there. Unpacked some of my stuff, took a shower. Hottest day of the year and I'd spent it moving my possessions across town, from one dark basement apartment to another. My Parisian-Algerian cab driver was very talkative and we covered a lot of topics on the way. His main concern is with how rude and selfish everyone is here. We bonded when our route was impeded by a pop-up road construction crew, about thirteen workers in clean fluorescent vests standing around and looking into a hole, one supervisor type gesturing toward the hole with authority. The cab driver told me a joke - a blague, do you know - yes, I know blagues, I told him. A bunch of people at some generic worksite are standing around and it turns out nine of them are chefs (bosses) and they're all waiting for the one person who does the work to show up. He pulled a traditional wooden flute (gasba?) out of the glove compartment. This is what he plays. Through some linguistic alchemy (English-French-solfege) we agreed that its tuning was in G but I have my doubts. Anyway at the new apartment it was time to pick up my biryani and then I called and it sounded like the lady was in a noisy apartment and she said my order was cancelled and I said that's too bad I bet your food is delicious and she hung up.
6.11.2025
Public transit workers on strike. Stories of commuters pressed up against the gates, closed and locked before the posted times. Shudders. Remembering times the Blue Line would stop halfway between stations and a muffled mechanical voice would come on to remind you that your plans are of no interest to the gods.
Happens to coincide with my decision to relocate to a neighborhood pretty far from the center of things. I can do what I do anywhere so I'm not complaining but it's been an adjustment. In exchange for distance I now have a bedroom separate from both the kitchen and the bathroom and they each have their own doors and everything.
The back and forth does not feel adventurous. Tested a route on the bike and felt like that lady riding a Divvy on the shoulder of 290 in Chicago. Lanes disappear, arrows are meaningless or sadistic in their suggestions. Heavy traffic and barriers known to no map. One once again finds oneself at odds with cars. It's about a fifteen minute walk from here to get a bicycle but with the transit strike there are no bicycles. People need them to get to work. It's a thirty minute walk to the Metro stop which is as useful as me telling you how far it is to the Depanneur around the corner which has been closed since March, says the sign on the door.
6.12.2025
One of their issues is the transit authority is hiring out jobs to subcontractors. Having no patience for such stuff I say strike on. It's not a full-on blackout either, which is polite of them. Limited operations for busy periods and resuming their full and regular schedules for the F1 races this weekend. Meaning: they are reviving public transit to accommodate people who are in town to watch other people drive cars in circles. Henry Ford grins up at us.
The buses around here when active are on a short line, down to the bottom of the cul-de-sac then up the street to another cul-de-sac and you get the idea. The whole setup is a maze. Have yet to find a reliable route even on foot to the bike station by the school. I swear the street names change and avenues shift to become dead ends when you're not looking.
The neighborhood is in a major flight path. Mainly you hear then see the big ol' jet air-a-liners coming in from overseas. Your Crossatlantix, your Abu Dhabi Airs. That's one way to get calibrated when you're lost. Oh there's an airplane so I'm somewhere over on that side of this imaginary line. Reminder to self to purchase a compass if I ever make it to a store that sells them, or anywhere else at all.
6.13.2025
Stranded at the bike rack at this park by the river and my phone tells me it's out of data but I'm supposed to have unlimited data well not today, fucko, and I take issue with that kind of language coming from a piece of tech but of course when I think about all the names I've called it for things that weren't its fault, and some that were, names I felt pretty good about on account of how creative they were and how satisfying it was to say them out loud, things I would never say to another human being, or wouldn't have thought to until recent events and certain sorts of behaviors on the increase put a lot of us in a position to redraw our lines for politeness, like that meme about how many days into the administration and now I'm using fuck for a comma, that kind of thing, and there's that idea that swearing is a sign of intelligence and that book* that linguist wrote about how it's a healthy way to express yourself and anyway the reason I'm out of data even though I'm not supposed to be is that all day wherever I was even in the woods I've been checking the news to feed my feelings of alarm and concern and I'm seriously starting to wonder if coming back when I plan to come back isn't an even dumber decision than leaving when I decided to leave was, like I said to the guy at the barbershop this morning after he gave me a nice espresso and his assistant cut my hair and we had a frank talk about the raids, the parade, the military who don't want to be doing the bullshit they're being ordered to do, and I said you guys do good work here and he said see you again? and I said maybe I'll need another haircut before I go back into the burning house. So the whole thing was I need the phone to unlock the bike but it turns out there's a problem with the solar panels powering the bike rack so instead of abusing the phone I direct my anger at the sun and honestly that makes things a little better.
