the Lermontov medal

"It was an old, small, poor country church. The angel was in a chapel on the left, which the priest lighted. The image, buried in jewelry, stood in an iron cage with a padlocked door. The priest opened this and Bascomb placed his Lermontov medal at the angel's feet. Then he got to his knees and said loudly: 'God bless Walt Whitman. God bless Hart Crane. God bless Dylan Thomas. God bless William Faulkner, Scott Fitzgerald, and especially Ernest Hemingway.' The priest locked up the sacred relic and they left the church together."

 ~~ from "The World of Apples" in The Stories of John Cheever

The World of Apples

"Of the four poets with whom Bascomb was customarily grouped one had shot himself, one had drowned himself, one had hanged himself, and one had died of delirium tremens. Bascomb had known them all, loved most of them, and had nursed two of them when they were ill, but the broad implication that he had, by choosing to write poetry, chosen to destroy himself was something he rebelled against vigorously."

~~ from "The World of Apples" in The Stories of John Cheever

this past week's reading

From the June 2026 print a Harper's Magazine, articles I've read include "Tales of Trash: Memoirs of a Garbageman" as well as Kevin Lozano's "Strangers on a Train: The City that Bernie Goetz Made." I've also read Michael Gorra's "Call My Agent" in the June 25 New York Review of Books, several articles from the June 15 print Christian Science Monitor, and the first two short stories from Richard Ford's Sorry for Your Trouble.

Eclectica Magazine's 30th Anniversary

"A Thanksgiving" or "Over Fifty Billion Kafkas Served" will be included in Eclectica Magazine's print anthology of best fiction celebrating thirty years of publishing online. Tom Dooley's magazine will publish a similar anthology of poetry.

The Waiter

"The Waiter" by Alex Kudera appears in Loser I, a print collection of poetry and prose delivered by Mai Bell and Conor Hultman.

One man's home is another man's Florida.

From Tyler Dempsey's interview with Kyle Minor, I learn that Kyle was raised not far from where "My Father's Great Recession" takes place. Around minute 17 of Kyle's interview, Ohio State and Donald Ray Pollock get a mention.