word:DEAD

HABIT | The Tale of The Turd Fluuuuuuush...Hanif Kureishi jerks our chain. | Suntan Young girl seeks fun in fiery hell. By Mary Gaitskill. | Espresso Enema Grande Mike Albo enters the back door to happiness. | Stab Mike McGonigal gets majorly knifed, then turns into this total drugged-out freak. | The Chess Abyss Qxh7+!! Daniel Pinchbeck swears off chess. | Love and Afferications: The George Kotolaris Story George spent too much time with his mother and some sexy bible texts. Does that mean we should ignore him? Produced by K. Thor Jensen. | Manic An interview with Brett Sparks about how he went insane. | Fifteen Mame McCutchin grows up in a world of monsters. | Info Neurosis Take our quiz! If you find any of these symptoms in yourself, seek treatment immediately. Diagnosis by Stephen Dansiger. | The Road to Wimp Rock, or How I Became a Billy Joel Fan Rob Tannenbaum is not ashamed of his Billy Joel obsession. | Boring: The Diary of Josh Karpf The title says it all. | Hunter Gatherer There is an order of things that makes it completely natural for the Rev. Mike Osterhout to shoot a squirrel, eat it for dinner--and even make squirrel "art" if he so desires. | Infinite Jest Excerpts from the novel by David Foster Wallace. | Buddhist Style Walter Cessna tells you how to be a boddhisatva or just look like one. | Looking for Nirvana Not the rock group, silly! By Diana Winston. | CyberNails Network Roxanna Mennella puts her finger down on the tekin-o-logical revolution! | The Healing Weed Are pro-marijuana activists just blowing smoke, or does this stuff really work? By Harry Goldstein. | The Nod Is it that we who nod have all crossed paths before? Dennis Reid asks the question. | Beauty and the Beast Little FiFi will never seem the same again. Photographs by Karl Baden. | Nancy Graham's Celebrity Dream Gallery Nancy Graham guides us through the symbolically rich realm of the fame-sensitive subconscious. | The Night I Smoked Crack Henry Williams goes on the pipe. | Cocktail Hour Phil James mixes up a strong concoction of bourbon and tears. | Holy Smoke Stephen Berg finds new religion in the worship of nicotine. Junk | What is it and why does Mike McGonigal like it so much? | Superdyke Laura Perry vs. the dorks.
GIGO | Paper Doll Fun! Now, for the first time ever, the cast of Dame Darcy's "Meat Cake" is gathered together, fully unclothed, for you to meet and mildly manipulate. |Kittens Mean drawings by Stephen Thurston and Dale Hoyt. What did the poor little kitties do to deserve this? |New Year's Party A cup of cheer for the good old times! Featuring music by Lem Jay Ignacio. |Dean Martin's Sunny Summertime Horoscopes Sit back, grab a cocktail, and get wise to Dino's astrological advice. Channeled by Daron Murphy. | Halloween Horror Death, horrible death, awaits us all. | Who Am I? Harmon Leon seeks the answer in San Francisco's legendary artist colony, Fisherman's Wharf. | TravNet Advantage Gold "Passport Palm Cards" In a polyglot world, just how does a multi-tasking yet single-tongued powerbroker maintain that profitable person-to-person connection? WORD has the answer. | The Gap Shocking internal document reveals The Gap's macabre market research! With photos by Art Club 2000. | The Eskimos' 100 Words for Snow Let it tlapa, let it priyakli, let it shlim! By Phil James. | Retropolis Sit right back and you'll hear a tale of a galaxy not so far away... by Daron Murphy. | The Letters of Steven Spielberg and Antonin Artaud The surrealist master's only known post-mortem correspondence with the Hollywood elite. Compiled by Peter Mattei. | How I Discovered Who I Am Who's the smart guy who wrote this piece? Stephen Dansiger, that's who! | Dear Calvin An open letter of support to our main man, Calvin Klein. Produced by Walter Cessna and Marisa Bowe. | Spam-ku Poke the pork-like meat product and go wild with Japan's most celebrated form of poetry. Courtesy of John Cho and the Haiku Archive. | The Litter Box: Cat Contest Archives Laura Perry, the Contest Queen, curates feline fantasies. | Home Shopping Network Maybe it's all about loneliness. By Henry Williams. | Key Lime Pie Do not even try to form "stiff peaks." By Elizabeth Margoshes.
PAY | Ornaments of Joy Love and good cheer for everyone. | The Magical Holiday Angel A nice poem. | The Tumbler there was a time when former featherweight boxing champion Jorge Paez was on top of the world. And while he was there, he wore women's clothes. By Marc Gerald. | Bike Messenger A short-term job for deranged people or a way of life? Jason Milligan tries to decide. | Dear TeenGirl Spirit Never in a million years would Daron Murphy have thought to seek employment at a magazine written expressly for 14-year-old girls... | gURL How Esther Drill & Rebecca Odes learned to stop hating themselves & get over the girl mags. | Safari Brother Why would a wealthy white couple request the services of fourteen black men to cater their party? Dennis Reid finds out. | The Secret Life of a New York Truck Driver How "mastery of the delivery arts" saved Paul Vee from junkiedom. | Gimme Shelter Jim Servin goes to peoples' houses and writes about them. | Tales of Work Related Stress The case of Tom Vick, industrial engineer. A clipart comic by Sabin Streeter. | [sic] A portrait of the artist as a young manic. Excerpts from [sic] by Sean Landers. I Was a Telephone Psychic Dionne Warwick ain't got nothin' on the Great Shamu (aka Harmon Leon). | Antisocial and Insecure Social Security's about as secure as a hole in your pocket. Devon Jackson explains. | The Gap She Fostered Amber Hollibaugh climbs away from home on a tower of books. | Mano a Mano Jack Thorn is a collection agent. He'll get you to pay...even if it hurts. | A**hole Nick Zieminski gets charged with sexual harassment. | Clo$e Ups Cool pictures of money blown up real big by Moyra Davey. | Chasing Deadbeats in Guam Richard Ellison, A.G.'s ex parte default memorandum of unrealized incarceration and the universal commonality of sleaze. | Birth of a Salesman Barry Zeger goes from zero to hero in the Siberia of sales. | My Experiment With Bourgeois Drag For John Bowe, the "normal-guy look" never came easy. | The Greymarketeer's Guide to International Travel An introductory lesson in the economic and spiritual benefits of personal world-wide trade. By E. Michael Schlein. | Student Loan Letters "Art" by Sean Landers, a wiseass deadbeat. | I Knew I Was Poor Mo Gaffney explains why being poor sucks. | Copperheads A testimony to the slow and subtle mutilation that only time and use can wreak upon an innocent icon of our sixteenth president. By Moyra Davey. | Hello Clouds, Hello Sky! Simon Egleton realizes he can exploit the ticket to humanity that makes us all equal. | Selling Encyclopedias The time is 1973 and Phil James is bringing it door to door, wearing a sky-blue leisure suit (while smoking way too much pot). | Instruction Person Mike McGonigal cooks with imitation crab meat the same way he would with ordinary crab meat. | Working Woman Marisa Bowe doesn't want to be the downwardly-mobile slob that she is. | The Stevie Nicks Experience Jim Servin on the super-personal, super-fertile soul stuff that is "Stevie Bonding."
MACHINE | Don't Worry and Information America Let the oh-so-sooooothing voice of "technological feral child" Julia Scher guide you along the glistening hallways of our cyber-future. | The Nightingale A cautionary tale about a virtual bird, written 150 years ago by Hans Christian Andersen. | Freeway Jeff Gates takes really, like, awesome pictures of this huge road in L.A. | Pink Elephants How can you be gay and Republican? Andrea Bernstein asks the Log Cabin Republicans. | E Pluribus Unum There are those for whom the idea of a single self does not apply. By Jim Baumbach. | Robot Armageddon Go super robot! Fight other robots! By Harmon Leon. | Utopia Redux Meet the new brave new world, just like the old brave new world. By Karrie Jacobs. | alt.hate Intolerance and hate in cyberspace examined by Clay Shirky. | Hello, Utopia Calling? and Airplane Messiah Graham Rayman takes a look at pre-cyber hyper-hype. | Talking Painting Dood. Like, there're these paintings by this guy named Michael Bevilaqua...and like, they speak in the voice of John S. Hall. Dood. | Yankee Inventors In 1867, history's most eminent technologists gathered for a retreat that would change the face of "Water-Powered Staplers in the Construction of Worship Structures" for years to come. By Phil James. | Abu-Jamal v. Pennsylvania Everyone had an opinion but nobody had the facts. Here they are. All of them. Produced by Sally Chew, Clay Shirky and Graham Rayman. | Cyberporn: Real or Hoax? Peter Mattei takes a hard look at the Web's most shocking x-rated material. For mature readers only. | The Unabomber's Manifesto The unedited writings of that guy who sent those letter bombs. The one who lived in the cabin. | Galatea 2.2 Excerpts from the novel by Richard Powers. | The Life and Times of the Miracle Compound How Freon brought you frozen dinner rolls and major ozone holes. An x-tra large feature by Philip Dray.
PLACE | 1-800 History The people of the past are a bummer. By Tom Vanderbilt. | Russian Prison Tattoos In Russia, convicts use their bodies as a last refuge of self-expression. By Alix Stewart Lambert. | Holiday in Cambodia In a war-torn country, Thomas Beller sweats at beauty pageants and gets rubbed down by blind people. | Hour by Hour Marc Trujillo, who spends a lot of time at rest stops and in frozen foods sections, painted these pictures. | The Blue Room Rudolph Giuliani welcomes Graham Rayman into a world of hack journalism and pancake makeup. | Guyana A six-week trip through the jungle with Bob Braine, Mark Dion, and Alexis Rockman. A mammoth web documentary produced by Marisa Bowe. | Kurds If it weren't for Snickers, Patrick White would be dead right now. A true-life drama, straight outta Kurdistan. | The Wonderful World of Worms The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out. You suffer. By David Lazarus. | Old Town, New Town, Hash Town Two towns, two brothers, too much. By Jesse Gordon. | Big History David Lazarus wonders if Auschwitz is really the best place for a mall. | Burnt John Gabriel discovers that you can't go home again, at least not when all that's left is charred linoleum and crumbled memories. | Bide-A-Wee Karl Baden pays tribute to the combination animal hospital, dog pound, and pet cemetery of his youth. | Sahara Journal Sand, sand, sand, sand, existentialism, sand. By John Bowe. | Williamsburg Seizure Sites Chris O'Connell revisits the little black holes where the linearity of his consciousness came to an abrupt and violent halt. | Cuba Revisited Kurt Hollander wanders around Cuba, drinking rum, talking to people, and then trying to figure out what all of that means. | I Hate You My Love Henry King watches the big soap opera in Havana. | Viva Las Vegas Jim Servin gets swallowed up by Debbie Reynolds and her weird museum. Then he falls in love. | John Wayne's Big Boat "What a piece of work is man," quoth Hamlet, and it's certainly true of the Duke and Dan Barden. | Marchand's Magic Mall Let Phil James loosen the elusive "ingamy knot" and transport you to a mystical realm where shopping is a mere excuse for complete transcendence. | Jeffrey Kane's USA Let Jeffrey Kane show you his America. | Columbus, Columbia Style Ace college reporter Tomas Clark gives us the skinny on the current state of anti-imperialistic, pro-hamburger ideology in the Ivy League. | Big Wheel Tiny child versus guitar-wielding hippie. A timeless conflict witnessed by Mike Peck. | A Tale of My Two Cities Kurt Hollander tries to figure out whether he's cooler in Mexico City or New York. | Travel Diary: Morocco In which John Bowe experiences existential angst at the loss of his Ray-Bans. | Jackson Hole, Wyoming Nature's fool, A. Podell, wanders among the fake cowboys. | Ambire Realm Three DJs spin bitchin' tuneage from a galaxy far, far away. Featuring DJ Spooky, Mr. Decent, and Sheldon Drake. | Ruins Marisa Bowe takes a few moments to reflect from inside a diorama of her adolescent habitat. | A Skin in Berlin Kurt Hollander goes to Germany and wonders what people there will think of his haircut.
DESIRE | Diary of a Garterbelt Feminist Presenting...full frontal intellectual nudity. By Lucinda Rosenfeld. | Unsafe Peter Tractenberg falls in love with an ex-hooker. | Balls, Beeswax and Chicks: Tales From The Kinder Years Nancy Nathan recalls the unbearable horniness of her youth. | The Dentist Jill's obsession with a mild, pale, middle-aged man who did not return her ardor swelled into a great live wound that throbbed at night and deprived her of sleep and thought. A short story by Mary Gaitskill. | Gay Self-Help Propaganda Gay self-help books are a big sloppy wet kiss from the comfort machine. Daniel Harris elucidates. | Head in the Clouds The best orgasm Harmon Leon ever had happened 10,000 feet over San Francisco. | Sex Kindergarten A workshop for people who think they know it all. By Don Shewey. | Gay Recruiting Cards Many hip heteros have already made the switch. As for the others, here's a nifty tool to help you with your "gay duty." Set 'em (not) straight! Courtesy of Truman Schwarzkopf. | Blind Isn't Love Mia Lipner (who can't see) remembers her most obnoxious date (who couldn't see beyond himself). | Phonecall Elizabeth Margoshes learns that her alter-ego sucks. | Memories of Sexual Development Kurt Hollander tells us what it's like to be a disgusting pervert. | Man for Sale Michael Peck knows what today's woman wants. And he's got it...for a price. | Confessions of a J.O. Clubmember Claire Connors is a male homo trapped in a woman's body. | Guy Talk Just what is it that guys talk about when they're alone? Edward Hutchinson answers the question. | On the Loose Thurston Moore tells the story of how he came to know a girl named Kim.