Category Archives: photography

The Last of the Coojettes

Posted on November 21, 2024 by John Biscello

She was the Last of the Coojettes. That’s what Rob called her. Rob was my mother’s cousin. My father’s nickname for Rob was The Moron. Rob worked as a postman. My father worked as a truck driver for Budweiser. Rob … Continue reading →

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Nobody’s on Second

Posted on November 20, 2024 by John Biscello

She told me I was crazy. It would be like taking out a restraining order against your shadow to stop it from following you. Then, Edie deepened her voice with judicial authority, and decreed: Shadow, you have been court-ordered to … Continue reading →

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Theme for a High School Dance

Posted on November 18, 2024 by John Biscello

There is a rumor that Laura Palmer is going to be at the dance. While you don’t know her personally, all you can think about is the exquisite mystique of her televised corpse, and how her voice, on a karmic … Continue reading →

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Reel

Posted on November 17, 2024 by John Biscello

It’s like watching a movie. In which you deeply and passionately relate to the main character, who has been wronged. You feel angry, vindictive, vengeful. You want to lash out at the antagonist who has wronged him. Then you pull … Continue reading →

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Honeymoon Killer

Posted on November 15, 2024 by John Biscello

Ralph Kramden sweats and sweats, eyeballs bulging in their sockets. Plagued by the accursed notion that he has become a whale, no, a rhinoceros, no, an inoculated hippo that shows up to birthday parties uninvited. This visual grotesquerie, reflected back … Continue reading →

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The Sorceress

Posted on November 11, 2024 by John Biscello

To be a mother, and to double as a dark sorceress, a cleaver of dried bones, could not have been easy. Especially in the 1950s. They burned witches then, as well as reds and blacks and faggots, and other things … Continue reading →

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How Tomorrow Moves

Posted on November 11, 2024 by John Biscello

   It was a matter of helium-speak, and tomorrow-talk, and bright ribbons of noise amounting to nothing.    We, hanging out on the street-corner, conducting ping-pong volleys and raps, ferocity and verve, building ourselves up—who we were and were not, … Continue reading →

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John Fante

Posted on November 8, 2024 by John Biscello

John Fante splashed vinegar into the eyes of the world. The vinegar was house-made, from his mama’s trusty cupboard. Mama’s cupboard contained a lot, an old-world apothecary glutted with cloves of garlic, deceit, shame, bones, crucifixes, oregano, thyme, rosary beads, … Continue reading →

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Jean Rhys

Posted on November 8, 2024 by John Biscello

Jean Rhys was a bedraggled feline. She’d slink through cobbled alleys, lap up Parisian rainwater. High sky glance the glittering harem of stars, and long. Cats are the masters of longing. Spiders are patient, but when it comes to longing, … Continue reading →

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Kerouac

Posted on November 8, 2024 by John Biscello

Kerouac whizzed and hummed. He lived with smoldering zest a crumbling highway within. He took to this unlighted highway, equal parts tour guide and lost little lamb, nuzzling a candle, believing that even the littlest light would make him brave, … Continue reading →

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