He Who Fights With Hipsters Should See to It, Etc.

by Ben Kowalski


Now she’s talking about how Lullaby was Palahniuk’s best novel, which is bullshit. Everyone knows that since Fight Club, he’s been recapitulating the same formula of inundating his readers with increasingly disturbing images. She’s just holding iconoclastic opinions for their own sake.

I light a cigarette, and while she talks, I think about the cigarette.

Playing Video Games Like It's Our Job

by Ben Kowalski


Karen points from the couch. “Grenade Launcher!” I weave through bullets to grab the weapon. “Now plug him!” And plug him I do—a hellstorm of grenades that reduces the giant tank to scrap.

I polish off a glass of wine during the “Mission Complete” screen. Karen refills our glasses; I raise mine.

“To unemployment.”