Say What?

Posted on September 7, 2025 by John Biscello

Survival Town was created outside of Las Vegas for the express purposes of being destroyed. The town was populated by mannequin families, who were curated and arranged in homes to model and mimic middle-class American values, ideals, and leisure. Democracy, as a rigged pastime and facile front, became them. An atomic bomb was detonated on May 5th, 1955, or 5/5/55. A newspaper reported, concerning the mock holocaust, that a mannequin child had been blown out of its bed and riddled with shards of glass. It was not reported if the child’s mother or father had survived. The mannequins who did survive the siege never shared what the experience was like. Their silence remains the mute herald of a lost cause.

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About John Biscello

Originally from Brooklyn, NY, writer, poet, performer, and playwright, John Biscello, has lived in the high-desert grunge-wonderland of Taos, New Mexico since 2001. He is the author of four novels, Broken Land, a Brooklyn Tale, Raking the Dust, Nocturne Variations, and No Man’s Brooklyn; a collection of stories, Freeze Tag, two poetry collections, Arclight and Moonglow on Mercy Street; and a fable, The Jackdaw and the Doll, illustrated by Izumi Yokoyama. He also adapted classic fables, which were paired with the vintage illustrations of artist, Paul Bransom, for the collection: Once Upon a Time, Classic Fables Reimagined. His produced, full-length plays include: LOBSTERS ON ICE, ADAGIO FOR STRAYS, THE BEST MEDICINE, ZEITGEIST, U.S.A., and WEREWOLVES DON’T WALTZ.
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