Soviet Board Games Repackaged by the Western Bourgeois - by Justin Kahn

A Review of the Old Town “Katahdin” Canoe - by Mary Phillips-Sandy

A Review of My Erections Past and Present - by Chad Pollock

05/11/06

Fans worldwide,

We'd like you to know that we are aware of the problem(s) currently plagueing our internet website. If you've attempted to visit (or contact) us lately, chances are you've been greeted by a 'bandwidth exceeded' notice, and were somewhat impressed by it. After all, it takes a lot of visitors to do that, right?

No. According to intelligent internet experts, our internet website has come under a vicious attack by an army of something called googlebots, and it zaps a lot of our internet website's resources to fight them off. Or something. To us it sounds like the kind of science-fictiony jargon people who "know about the internet" tell people who ask too many pesky questions. The main point we'd like to convey though is that we've come up with a plan: We will place a slab of bloody meat on the home page every day. This, we are assured, will satiate the bots.

In the meantime, our sincere apologies. You may temporarily contact us via a guy named Chris. His email address is: dickenshit@yahoo.com. Feel free to spam him, whatever that means.

War is hell,
The Editors
www.theedwardsociety.com

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01/22/06

Lately we cry a lot. It's a lonely, thankless job being the overworked editors for a faceless mom-and-pop-shop-crushing multi-million dollar corporate soul-sucking enterprise such as theedwardsociety.com. We have qualms. We have issues. We have not eaten in days, possibly weeks, and there are no windows here. We've taken some hostages, and we have some demands.

But first look at these recent searches that have landed internet browsers at theedwardsociety, and then look at a randomly chosen theedwardsociety rejection letter:

- robot-nanny
- the society of 'tender is the night'
- blow spit bubble off of tongue
- r
- frog autopsy
- the dangers of IMing
- hello my name is paige welch and i am typing on my computer
- fondle
- panty
- girls in panties in evansville indiana seeking men
- fondle your gun

Dear ******,

Thank you for your submission to theedwardsociety.com. We are not currently accepting run on sentences that lack plot, structure, or meaning, or that substitute random
punctuation for creativity. We might have made an exception, however, if you had not included the sentence, "the embryo who soaked in the drug and the chromosome of tokage of the earth that rotates comes flying on the interlude in the night without the struggle."
We do not like embryos who do that.
Best regards, and good luck with everything.

The Editors


Now our demands:

1. Read the two new Reviews of Things not Normally Reviewed. We have one by Chad Pollock about boners, and a review by Mary Phillips-Sandy about a canoe. Here are excerpts, and you might win a prize if you can tell us which is from which without looking:

"Ten pounds may not seem like much at first, but it will later when you are trying to lift the damn thing..."

"God is in the details, but Satan was in my pants."

2. Also read Justin Kahn's: Soviet Board Games Repackaged by the Western Bourgeois. Here's part of it, but you still have to read the rest: "SOVIET GAME: “Axis and Allies”
(Repackaged in the West as “Axis and Allies”)"

3. Click on one of the 'Make a Donation" Paypal buttons on theedwardsociety.com, and just kind of fill out some information and stuff.

When these have been met, we will release the hostages and possibly read some more submissions.

xoxo,
The Editors

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05/28/05

If it was fear that drove us away, it was love that brought us back. Love of fame and fortune. Love of your continual praise, which has really dropped off since we stopped updating the site. And yes, we've received your letters, supposedly from you. We know how you think you feel about us, and about our of-late latency. And we resent the following descriptions of us:

"idle"
"lame"
"boondoggling"
"cute"
"underdeveloped"
"swollen"

You know who you are.

Now, give it a rest while we wow you with four new stories, a (slightly) new format, and a new logo-ish-esque thing. Allow us to bedazzle you with the fact that now links to the most recent stories magically appear on every page of the website, or at least on most of them. Let us let you love how we have moved the 'letters from the editor' to the home page, therefore eliminating a useless page / link. Make us love your love of our continuing efforts to please only you, despite your bitter, ungrateful 'tude. Read on.

From Allen Moore: I’d actually been back to my hometown many times before, but not like this; not with axes and trees and metaphors. And it wasn’t just about the ax and the tree, it was the whole thing, stirred up in a pot, set to boil, passed right through a rusty strainer and onto yer plate.

From Shane Jones' 'When I Can Slam Dunk a Basketball the Following Will Happen': I’ve become a man whose only form of expression is a slam dunk. I try new things. I stretch my shirt up and over my head and slam dunk. I leap over rows of people and slam dunk. Nothing impresses them because they’ve seen it all before. “All you are is a fucking slam dunk,” they say. “You’re not even a real person anymore.”

From Steve Finbow: With my thumb, I adumbrate the delicate wiring of the veins in your arms, blue and aquamarine, violet and green, beneath the adularescent skin. The circuitry of orchards.

and, from 'Rocks and Other Things I Don't Want Back' by Julie Latham: And what about that fighting conch shell? All you needed to do was hold it to your ear to hear the ocean of my discontent. It’s a cliché, for god’s sake. Nothing has to vibrate or tremble.

wwwwwwwwwww.theedwardsociety.com

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02/07/05

So it's like, hey, we've updated the site, etc. Not to overwhelm you, but there is exactly ONE new story up. A new writer, who we are happy to present. Her name is Melissa Dalman.

Why, you ask, are we only posting one story this time? And why does the header say 'Surgery of Edward Warfare' and look all different and stuff?

These are excellent questions, and we are not angry that you are asking them. First of all, we, along with several friends, are paying tribute to the late Surgery of Modern Warfare. We are doing this by changing our header to look more like Amy's looked, and making our name a lot like Surgery's, and by updating only on Monday, the way Surgery did - all for the entire month of February. Visit these other sites that are paying similar homage:

+Monkey of Modern Bicycle - www.monkeybicicyle.net
+Surgery of Hobart Warfare - www.hobartpulp.com
+Surgery of Modern The Glut - www.theglut.com
+Über Warfare Surgery - www.uber.nu
+Journal of Post-Modern Warfare - www.journalofmodernpost.com

Thanks,
The Editors
www.theedwardsociety.com

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01/21/05

Dear People,

Thanks to those of you who came to theedwardsociety.com's reading Saturday night and were not drunkenly escorted from the building. The night was a success, if no one's adding up physical or emotional injuries or subtracting the dollar amount generated by the fundraiser from the dollar amount the fundraiser itself greedily consumed. We don't do math around here, and we enjoy living in strict denial, so please don't take this as an invitation to point anything out.

Moving on, we'd love to personally come to your homes and offices and type www.theedwardsociety.com into your URL boxes so that you will read the great things that have been added there today, but honestly, we're very tired from gathering all of your addresses and mapquesting them, so, this email is actually Plan B. We have a plan C, but it starts with a group hug and ends with deleting the entire website, so let's just keep these in alphabetical order.

+ New on the reviewsofthingsnotnormallyreviewed page, a review of a theedwardsociety.com rejection letter. An excerpt reads: "...I later realized that Mr. Dickens simply felt like flexing some electronic muscle."

+ New from JD Riso's, Acknowledgements: "Over the years, my English 101 students were unceasingly scornful of my tweed jackets with the elbow patches, my well-gnawed pipe."

+ Tim Masterson has whittled down his story to an acceptable online length, and we are happy to post it. It is titled, Off the Charts in Tears, and part of it goes: "'What parental orb arranged for you to take part in this mockery of Old Saint Nick? Why the predictable pink and fake gems? What of your sparkly facade? Are you not chilly, inside and out? Can’t you catch a damn Frisbee?'"

We love the phrase, 'What of your sparkly facade?' and plan to use it in conversations this week.

+ New from Steve Finbow, Because You Just Lie There and I Want To: "Your arms are remarkably hairless. Your toes line up like Matryoshka dolls. I know your right nipple has two hairs at five and six o'clock. You snip them off when you remember to."

We would also like to inform you that one of our editors has a new website that you may edit and rearrange at will. You can find it here: www.christopherdickens.com

Now you may return to your lives.
Love always,
The Editors
www.theedwardsociety.com

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01/12/05

theedwardsociety.com would like to recommend the following things to you:

:: Cinnamon Altoids - these things are delicious and they hurt.
:: The song, Goodbye Horses, by someone called Q Lazzarus(?)
:: The Official Autopsy Report Fundraiser - this Saturday evening, 7PM at The Pub in Evansville, Indiana (see www.theedwardsociety.com/autopsyreport.php for details)
:: The stories that accompany the following excerpts on theedwardsociety.com...

* From Hilarie Shanley's, Massacre of Bees: When I find myself near an insect, I do a jig. It is a dance of misconstrued fear. Some bugs, the ones found in steam pocket states like Georgia, can actually maim or kill an elephant. I do not associate with such bugs. The bugs I know are harmless. They are round and quick as dimes.

* From The Altar and the Janitor, by Jenn Onofrio: When I get out of the elevator on the first floor, Open-Air and Cigarette Smoking, also known at The Entrance to The Hospital, is to my left. God and The Baby Jesus and All That Is Holy is to my right. I turn right.

* From Rita Kasperek's, Saving Private Woodland: Mrs. Brady called an emergency meeting and explained the situation.

“What do you think he meant by expose?” asked Mrs. Brady.

“Do you think they found out we are black?” cried the children.

Thank you,
The Editors

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01/08/05

THERE's something between regretful nostalgia and nauseous anticipation in the chilled Midwest 2005 air we're breathing over here. It has something to do with the upcoming reading, to take place in one week (Saturday, January 15th at Evansville, Indiana's The Pub at 7PM}. This will be an event to regret not going to, if you should choose not to, which would be dumb. We'd like for you to come. Bring $5, or $3 if you're a student and can prove it, or more if you want to buy some food or a drink or two. We mention all of this in passing, as if we aren't all doubled over toilets with anxieties concerning your attendance. We are not.

This reading will also include a live auction (sponsored by David Barringer - davidbarringer.com) and live music by Durauluxe (duraluxe.net). It starts at 7pm. It is in Evansville Indiana, at The Pub. It starts at 7. Bring $5. Write all of this down on something.

Here's some new stuff on the site that you'll want to read:

From Mike Topp's Creativity Spices up Entertaining: If the budget is limited, it may be best to forego anything elaborate. "Keep it simple and natural," Lima Twistleton said. "People get in trouble when they try to do something fancy that they can't afford or that is against the law."

From Sitting, by Jeff Reichman: I see three children inside the playpen. I count them, one, two, three, and then again, one, two, three. Three is the correct number of children to have in the playpen at this time. One, two, three. Then I call out their names, Irene, Sammy, David. I am Uncle Tommy.

From Thom Veratti's, I Shot Andy Goldsworthy: I determined to start in on my first experiments with environmental sculpture right then and there. To begin, I made a stack of suet on top of my computer monitor, reasoning that the heat of the CRT would filter up through the grille and slowly transform the suet stack into a model of Rockefeller Center, or at least into a pool of suet.

And an excerpt from Jason Jordan's, Mice on Film: We tore the G.I. Joe’s from the plane and Frank began to bombard the mice with physical attacks. He would grab hold of a Joe then chase a mouse down a corridor with it. The music playing during all this was “Welcome to the Jungle” by Guns ‘N’ Roses.

We hope to see as many of you as possible on Saturday. Go to theedwardsociety.com for all the details concerning the reading you could possibly want, and more.

Love Always,
Your Really Zany Editors

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11/20/04

Let's get this over with.

Listen, we've got three new stories, all political in their own ways. All of them made us laugh. We've got stories about the dangers of giving a wiley fox a ride, particularly a fox that has been eluding the FBI and creating his own solar energy, illegally. We've got a story about a perceived Kenneth Starr death threat by a man who has been a write-in on a Florida ballot. And, as a special treat: We've got a new one by David Barringer.

So much news.

Here's one: theedwardsociety will be printing a book, tentatively titled: "The Official Autopsy Report: theedwardsociety.com's First Year or So"

This book will include so, so much you will want. Including new stories by so, so many of our contributors. You will be floored.

However, before we floor you with the book, we will wow you with the fundraiser for the book. This will be held at Evansville Indiana's THE PUB on January 15th, 7PM. There will be an auction, sponsored by David Barringer (one of the items up for bid is the infamous Dead Bug Funeral Kit! see www.davidbarringer.com for more info on that). There will be a band, Duraluxe (www.duraluxe.net)! There will be readings by many of your favorite TES contributors. There will be beer and food.

Stay with us, more news.

Our friends, mock orange (www.mockorange.net) will be on MTV2 this Tuesday evening, Nov 22, one of the few bands selected to battle it out for $50,000 on the Dew Circuit Breakout. Watch the show, and vote for mock orange at MTV2.com.

And finally, the excerpts:

From David Barringer's Me, Pedro & The President: “Damn it, Son,” said the President, scooting out of range and shaking his pantleg like a spider had crawled up in it. He reached down and pinched the fabric away from his skin. Pedro was bawling. “Ah, that’s okay, Son. Don’t cry,” said the President. “The President’s here with you. They know I’m down here. They’ll get us out.”

From Kevin O'Cuinn's Death's Drumroll, in soft juicy loins: Just so long as the fox stays in the back.
Whaddaya mean the fox stays in the back? Said Fox.
Buddy, we're doing you a favor, okay? I don't think
you should question the seating arrangements.

From Richard Grayson's Me and Mr. Starr: ...and that’s how I found myself eating a turkey sandwich next to the former public official against whom the FBI thought I had made deadly threats. Ken Starr had roast beef on rye.

With Deep Regret,
The Editors
www.theedwardsociety.com

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11/08/04

Now that winter is creeping under our doors like a divine plague from a Charlton Heston movie, we at theedwardsociety.com have decided to post new stories. We did a lot of looking perplexed this autumn, wondering where all the new TES submissions were, as we hadn’t been receiving any no matter how often we clicked 'receive'. Just as we were ready to declare our online lit mag a nice attempt, give it a proper burial in our subconscious with other unwanted memories, and take jobs in retail, an answer came. From God. A tenatious, mean-spirited virus attacked our main hard drive, and after a good fight, overcame it. We lost nearly everything. We cried, groaned, laughed, flipped off the internet, rebooted, high-fived.

Rebuilding your life is never easy. We took it one step at a time, and one of the most important steps was re-typing all of the information Outlook Express needs in order to access email accounts. Upon re-entering the info for our SUBMISSIONS email and pressing the ‘receive’ button (expecting nil), an avalanche of submissions spewed forth and buried us alive.

This left us with a real dilemma. Where once running theedwardsociety hinged on little more than one of us apathetically reaching across the room with a backscratcher to check the TES email and, at worst, indifferently perusing and rejecting a submission or two a week, now its entire future seemed to depend on us spending, not half an hour, not two hours, but possibly weeks! wading through a lake of literary attempts and arbitrarily reading them, replying to them, eating them, printing them out and burning them, infecting them with computer viruses and returning them, deleting them, forwarding them to the FBI, acting them out to each other, stamping them approved or rejected in red ink and filing them appropriately, or not, etc.

"It’s a lot of work!" we said to each other. We were terrified, and yet, we felt it our duty as editors and artists to do something about it. We hired some interns and put them to work on it, occasionally swatting at them with our backscratchers while playing Mario Kart from a nearby couch. So, what you get this week has not been reviewed by us at all, in fact, but by a group of doughy-faced college kids who thought this was their big break. Boy were they wrong!

We’ve also taken this opportunity to do things a bit differently. Rather than our usual way, in which we post three or more stories at a time and then fall off the face of the internet for a while, we will be posting only one or two at a time, until we get bored with that. This gives you motivation to come back, say tomorrow, or the next day, or never, or whatever. Like we care.

Anyway.
Check out the site today for two stories about kids setting things on fire and making prank calls. Some samples:

From ‘Ghosts of Another Size’ by Steve Finbow – ‘His cars were the magic carriages for her blighted heroines. Her dolls' faces were rubbed white, their hair cropped, their feet mangled in flames. He destroyed his cars but his soldiers remained pristine, grinning plastic witnesses to the mayhem around them. His teddy bears were not so lucky.’

From ‘Sometimes You Got To Make Your Own Fun’ by J.D. Riso – ‘Now we take turns calling up the drugstore. We force down our giggles and ask for Zoann. What a stupid name. When we say it we sound like retards with a lisp. Zoann.
When she comes to the phone we say, “Brat” and hang up. It’s so funny!’

Thanks.
The Editors
http://www.theedwardsociety.com

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08/01/04

Turn that off. Listen to this:

There's only one reason to leave the comfort of your home in a month as cruelly hot and stupid as August, and that is to come see Todd Dills and Jeb Gleason-Allured from the2ndhand.com read with Mickey Hess, Chris Dickens, and Chad Pollock of theedwardsociety.com on Aug. 15, 5PM @ Wired Cafe in downtown Evansville, Indiana (221 Main St, Evansville, IN. 812.422.4909). [http://www.theedwardsociety.com for details]

In the meantime, we have new stories and reviews. Excerpts:

From Mike Smith's story, 'Miriam or Davenport's Family Secret?': I was very open about the affair. I told my family that I was dating a pregnant chick.

From Jenn Onofrio's, 'A Fairy Tale Ending for a Working Class Princess, or HEY': Admittedly, it’s a miserable excuse for a corporate pat-on-the-back. We’re talking wooden plaque made at John Q’s Trophy Shop stuck with a standard issue Polaroid photo of the lucky moron.

From Chris Dickens', 'A Review of What You Call "Dancing"': What you’re doing is most notably marked by a staggering indifference to your surroundings combined with sporadic, often hostile maneuvers of your limbs and crotch area. It is, at best, a distant, ugly cousin of dancing.

Yours Forever,
The Editors

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07/28/04

People and others:

We want to let you know, as inconveniently late as possible, about an event we are hosting. This event is tomorrow, unless you are receiving this email Thursday, July 29, in which case it is tonight. Don't be confused. The event is this:

Thursday, July 29 at 6PM @ Wired Coffee House (on the walkway in downtown Evansville, Indiana)

StopActingAloof: A night of readings and rockings
Reading will be:
Daniel Petersen (of blaster the rocketboy/man fame), Mickey Hess (author of Nobody Likes a Smartass and Big Wheel at the Cracker Factory), Mike Smith (author of Tell Christian I'm Sorry), and others.

Rocking will be: The Rock and Roll Patrol (featuring Paul Gubbins)

$0

For more info go to: http://www.theedwardsociety.com

Thanks,
The Editors

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05/16/04

Thank you, you may be seated.

Check it out. We have new stories, essays, and a new Review of Things Not Normally Reviewed.

Excerpts:

From Brian Willems essay, The New Nissan Micra will Save Your Soul - "When I step out of the shower and look down at my hairy legs descending into feet, like a monkey's that could so easily curl around a branch, or feel someone's toes wrap around my shins, it reminds me of my backaches caused by walking upright."

From J.R. Salling's Get Pioneer Spirit - "On the whole we didn't really want plants in our woods, nor insects, arachnids, snakes, bears — menaces all. If the tree was big enough to block the sun, we figured, it could remain unmolested."

And, finally, from Jess Onofrio's Review of Daylight Saving Time - "The concept of saving energy by the means of manipulating the sun sounded brilliant. Or better -- why not manipulate TIME -- a thing no one can see -- so we can make our lives even easier and not really have to explain it?!"

Your Favorite Editors

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04/14/04

We've got new stories from David Barringer, Mike Smith, and another chapter from Michael Patrick Welch's 'The Donkey Show'.

Also, we have some reviews for the 'reviews of things not normally reviewed' page on the way. It's been hinted to us that certain people are reviewing this year's spring and possibly a break up letter? We hope so.


Excerpts from new stories:

From David Barringer: 'They laugh, and in this moment the mood shifts and the game has opened up. I can tell. I helped manage the transition. It’s partly my fault.
“Does my butt look infected to you?” yells my son.
“My butt says this, and my butt says that. Toodle-dee, doodle-dee, doo!” sings my daughter.
My son laughs so hard he farts.'

From Mike Smith: '"What about my gun?"
The lady looked a little puzzled. "Gun?"
"Yeah, you know, my gun?"
"Well, we'll have someone go and get your gun, okay?"
"Okay."'

From Michael Patrick Welch: '...We have Mardi Gras all to ourselves! The Rich always talk of wanting Exclusivity… We paid for it in icy rain, but this was truly exclusive: each float hulking by and all 10-sets of Ku-Klux eyes aimed down at only us with no choice but to heave onto only our wet heads all their beads and cups and beads and trinkets and beads and dolls and beads and panties and spears and mini-slot machines and inflatable crayons and beads and all the crap tourists usually kill each other for. With no one else around to catch it, That Rain of Toys was ours alone, more intoxicating than the six beers we drank, each.'

Now, please stop ignoring us. Click here: http://www.theedwardsociety.com

Yours,
The Editors

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04/12/04

Dear Persons,

A new section appears, titled "Reviews of Things Not Normally Reviewed" There is currently a review of the Kill Bill Vol. 2 movie preview. You may submit your own reviews of things not normally reviewed to reviewsofthingsnotnormallyreviewed@theedwardsociety.com .
( to see this new page click --> http://www.theedwardsociety.com/reviews.php)

Other things are:

More stories will be posted soon.

TES bookmarks are available. Request them and we will send them. Quantities are limited.

Another reading is in the works. You will be informed of dates and other pertinent info as it comes to light.

Also, we apologize for an accidental email earlier this evening. Our "tech guys" were attempting to repair a problem and things malfunctioned. It won't happen again. However, we think the problem has in fact been repaired.

Sincerely,
Us

http://www.theedwardsociety.com

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04/09/04

While spring flowers outside your closed windows and the muffled chirping of mate-seeking birds makes you want to put on some shorts and go jogging, we at the edward society compete with this text-only email update; just as beautiful and, to some, more anticipated than the thawing of winter. After all, it's been a while.

We hope you will read Holly Grigalunas' new story, 'Quiet, Rigorous'.

Here follows prose: "You’d bite one, it’s texture hard and alien against the tomatoes, how the leaf would break into splinters, edges sharp against your small mouth—you would spit everything into your hand, thinking it was an insect wing, opening your mouth wide enough to let everything slide out in one small lump, your saliva pooling coolly in your outstretched hand."

We LOVE stories about saliva. We cannot stress this enough.
Happy Good Friday.

Lovingly,
Your water-weight gaining editors

www.theedwardsociety.com

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02/05/04

Things to Inform You Of Include:

Not one, not two, not four, but three new writings have been posted to TES site. You may view via educated navigational clicking, starting here --> http://www.theedwardsociety.com .

Secondly and Finally, excerpts from above mentioned writings:

From THINGS NOT TO SAY TO THE U.S. CUSTOMS AGENCY by Jenn Onofrio - An excerpt: '“Why don’t we,” I said, “go over there and figure out if I have anything to declare?” He picked up his security phone and started muttering sounds of frustration. I plopped myself on his counter, propped up on two uneasy elbows, and showed him my ultra pearly smile. “You got a name,” I started.'

From Mike Smith's Telling The Truth About Social Studies, comes this excerpt: 'Carl took us to see this gallery of Toyota cars that lasted more than 200,000 miles. "See, this is why I love selling Toyotas," he said proudly. We reminded him that he hadn't sold any yet. '

And excerpted from Alan C. Baird's story, Sziasztok: 'This summer, after my lovely bride suggested a trip to Death
Valley, I began to detect a pattern.'

--------------
And Finally again, we'd like to tell you about something we intend to want to do. This thing we'll be doing maybe, is to put up some audio and possibly video from our last (first) reading, which, in case you are wondering, was a success and/or a disaster, depending on where you were seated. Check the site obsessively to (maybe) hear/see this thing I speak of.

Thank you,
Your Editors We Remain,
THEM (we [still us])

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01/20/04

Hello dear friends and others. Two important (not in the grand scheme of things, sure, but worthy of an email) announcments, or rather, one announcement and one reminder of a previous announcement. That was not a sentence.

Firstly, THIS SATURDAY is the first ever THE EDWARD SOCIETY READING NIGHT in Newburgh, Indiana. For details, go here. In addition to the readings there will be paintings by Tim Hooper and Doug Miller (see 320 gallery) and music by Paul Gubbins.

Secondly, a funny new story titled The Man Whose Role it Was to Travel Far and Wide to Every Location of Beauty and Wonder in Order to Stand in its Midst and Be a Piece of Crap by Dan Petersen has been posted to the site.

An excerpt: em>Nasty, nasty, naughty, don’t touch!’ erupted Silas. ‘No… No, I mean not to touch is tantamount to tearing into such “otherly” flesh. You see? Don’t see! Don’t look like that! Feel, feel, but don’t fondle, eh?’‘

Seriously, this story is hilarious. Go read it.

Love,
Your Reason For Existing

------------------------------------------------------------

To be removed from this mailing list go here(http://www.theedwardsociety.com/editor.php) and unjoin. We will promptly comply and will not bother you again.

_________________________________________

01/20/04

Wednesday, December 31, 2003

As we at TES understand it, the solar system and all the other galaxies are about to make yet another revolution around the Earth, and we could not be more happy about it.
If you haven't been to the site in a few weeks, then this update is for you. Just to whet your sick appetites, the last three posted stories are by writers who will be reading their work at 320 gallery's The Edward Society Reading night on January 24, 2004. Once again, if anyone would like to read their work that night, please send what you'd like to read to 320reading@theedwardsociety.com .

Recently posted yet previously unannounced are:

The Great Pumpkin - by Todd Ballard: As the bus passed the house each day all of our greedy eyes would peer out those horizontal windows at that beautiful orange orb, wondering how we could lay our hands on it. It shown out as a sun with all the smaller pumpkins orbiting it like the nine planets.

The Erotic Shorthair - by Mickey Hess: My neighbor's name is Jeff. His dog's name is Fuzz. We hear them outside on cold nights, under our windows. "Shit, Fuzz. Take a poop. Take a poop, Fuzz." Jeff asked me to help drag an eight-foot Christmas tree off the roof of his Chevy Blazer. I agreed, and was poked in the eye by the sharp green needles of the Christmas tree, reminding me of the season and of how it cannot be ignored.

Swallowed Birds-a-listenin' - by Mike Smith: All I was allowed to do was babysit in kind of a robotic on-call mode. If severe weather struck, I had to go on the air and announce it instantly, somehow on all four sta tions simultaneously. If the computers shut down, I was supposed to pull CDs and introduce songs, again on all four stations at the same time. Instructions for how to do these things were not included in the training session.



In conclusion, we at The Edward Society would like to wish all of you a neat 2004.

Happy New Year,
Your Ex-boyfriends and Editors

posted by editor at 10:27 AM




Tuesday, December 09, 2003

The First Randomly Held Edward Society Reading will be held on the random date of January 24, 2004. To read more about it, click ------------------> here <----------------------. Just to whet your appetite for fun, however, we will go ahead and say that the night will include readings from original works by their authors or people claiming to be their authors, an acoustic set by The Messiah of Rock and Roll, a fumbling fool for a host, some jokes maybe, and complaints from the neighbors. If you want to read something of yours, send it to: 320reading@theedwardsociety.com .



We've done something strange to our website, possibly against our better judgment. It was impulsive and ill-advised, but that hasn't stopped us before.

We refuse to apologize again for our inactivity. We owe you nothing. But either way, there is a new story posted, and there should be a couple more unnanounced in the coming week or two. This one comes from the mind of Savannah Schroll, which we're pretty sure is a fake name, but a cool one nonetheless. This is the first story we've had which involves people with funny handles meeting on the internet. This makes us happy. We welcome and encourage stories about IMing.

This is an excerpt: She'd met him in a celebrity fan club chat room. She'd gotten involved in a free-for-all discussion about young female vocalists, and as soon as her first comment registered on the screen, he IM-ed her.

- Your Lovesick Editors

posted by editor at 8:30 PM




Saturday, October 25, 2003

First of all, you may or may not have noticed that we've added a new page to our site on the other side of a link toothsomely titled, 'contests'. We hope you will visit the page and notice our incomplete list of writing contests. These are not contests that we have anything to do with, which is probably easily deduced simply by reading the well planned guidelines and noticing the generous monetary awards associated with each of them. However, we are planning (some might call it scheming, but their scepticism is unwarranted) a contest of our own. We'll get back to you.

In more important news, we are impressed. She is Susan McKinney de Ortega, and she is our third female writer in as many days, and this, again is only a coincidence. We are happy as puppies to present her story, Making Peace.

Excerpted: Andrés would stand unmoving, willing the drunk - some rich kid wearing a shell choker to look like a hippie - just willing the kid to touch him, and invariably the kid would, a three-fingered poke in the chest, balancing himself by swinging out the hand that choked a Bacardí bottle by the neck, and then a reflexive little tilt back on his heels, just in case this fool who comes to a bar to play statue might think of poking him back.


posted by editor at 10:57 AM




Thursday, October 23, 2003

Our knees knocking, trembling with terror, we present to you our second female writer, not only because we have something to prove but also because, as we mentioned, we are scared. Here is a writer who submits her work alongside vague (but scary) threats. We take both seriously.

An excerpt: Down the side street, the brass band practiced for the weekend parade. I wanted to be the girl with the pom poms tied to her shoes.

Also, Lydia has submitted her bio, so you should stop emailing her.

The Edward Society for the Promotion of Humane Booby Traps and Less Painful Pitfalls
posted by editor at 9:14 AM




Tuesday, October 21, 2003

Please forgive our lack of recent posts. We have not really been busy, necessarily, or even just preoccupied. We have knowingly and willfully ignored our responsibilities for weeks now, in order to do nothing else in particular. But we are sorry, so forgive us.

There is a girl. Her name is Lydia. She sent us a story, but no bio. We hope she will send us a bio to go with it. The story is on the site, the bio is not. If you click on her name, you can email her. If you do, tell her to send us a bio. Something short, a line or two, just telling us who she is. We'd certainly appreciate it.

Here is an excerpt from Lydia's writing: I want the dog not to shed so I can, for once, eat something without finding a hair in my mouth. I want to stop thinking about the handsome police officer who pulled me over last week or the older man with the muscular arms who works the window of the post office.

Lydia is The Edward Society's first female writer. She is also our first writer not accompanied by a bio. This, we feel, is only a coincidence.
posted by editor at 9:02 PM




Wednesday, September 24, 2003

Oh, there you are.

Moving on, we'd like to say thanks to all of you who have submitted stories recently, all both of you, and would like to reassure you that our staff has already printed out your stories and neatly folded them for later perusal. This will likely happen sometime. The problem we are having is that it is just so hard to convince ourselves that what you wrote is interesting enough to spend our precious time on, when we could be using that time to solicit (via apathetic emails) more stories from writers everyone has already read (on other [better] websites similiar to ours) and approved for mass consumption. Plus some of our editors, all of them actually, have died. We'll get back to you.

There's a new piece o' flash fiction by David Barringer, posted just now, just before you received this message. If you blink you might miss it. It's the shortest thing we've posted yet, but we like it nonetheless.

All we can afford to excerpt: "...bookbag..."


If you live in Philly or Chicago, check out one David Barringer's upcoming readings. More info here.

The Edward Society for Literary Terrorism
posted by editor at 2:44 PM




Friday, September 05, 2003

Stop whining.

Yes we lied, but we told you we would. The previous update swore to you that we would not remove the forum despite your cold neglect. But then we had no choice. We were forced by the unseen hands which govern the internet world into moving the site to another server, and, well, the forum did not survive the climate change. We could of course simply generate another forum that would look and act just like the old one and perhaps this would make some of you less lonely tonight, but certain members of our staff are morally opposed to cloning (on a binary level) and we do not wish to upset them further after their loss. What the hell are we talking about?

We will tell you what we are talking about. This: Our first dual story post since The Edward Society was first brought into this cruel world. First of all, Joey Goebel, author of Anomolies has given us The Rise and Fall of Steven Sylvain (an excerpt from the novel tentatively titled Torture the Artist).

A portion: “You were just a rough draft. Consider yourself proofread.” (BANG!)

Secondly, we would like to introduce Jensen Whelan with his story, What You Always End Up With.
Part of it goes: Mary didn’t say much while I was working. Occasionally she looked interested but I think that was more for my benefit than anything. She looked at me at one point and said, “Do you really think that my mouth should go there?”

“No, I guess you’re right.” I moved it to the bend on the underside of her elbow.

All we could get this week is a couple of weirdos. Sorry.



posted by editor at 11:36 PM

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