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Defenestration: August 2024

It’s still technically summer, and while I know you’re impatiently waiting for the onset of sweater weather, never fear: the August 2024 issue of Defenestration is here, so at the very least you won’t be bored. (At least for now. I don’t know how long it will take you to read six short stories and six poems. Probably not very long. So maybe you won’t be bored for the next 45 minutes. If we’re lucky, the weather will get cooler in that short time and you’ll be able to break out that sweater in your closet that’s been tempting you with is scandalous softness all summer.)

Defenestration: April 2024

Welcome, one and all, to the April 2024 issue of Defenestration, which marks our 21st volume. Yes, Defenestration is now old enough to drink alcoholic beverages in the United States, obtain a concealed weapons permit, adopt a child, and gamble at casinos. So if you don’t hear from Defenestration for the next week or so,

[continue reading…]

Defenestration: December 2023

Hello, world! Welcome to the December 2023 issue of Defenestration!

I’m going to be honest with you. As I write this I’m preparing to watch The Muppet Christmas Carol with my family. We have pizza. We have soda. Our bodies and minds are prepared for the greatest Christmas movie to ever deck our halls. So I’m really not in the proper mindset to write a decent editorial. I could write about Muppets, certainly. I could write pages and pages about Muppets. But Kermit and his friends don’t really have anything to do with this latest issue of Defenestration. 

Nonfiction

“Snap My Neck Before the Chorus,” by Jeff Wallace

I like to play around on the piano, though I’m no pro. What I don’t enjoy is pausing to turn pages, or worse, spreading them out and propping them up in front of me. Pages fly every time the air conditioner kicks in. For some songs that’s fine, but who really wants to hear page six of Hey Jude?

Fake Nonfiction

“Al on the Arts,” by Christopher Hivner

Welcome to Al on the Arts. I’m Al Fridgett with your entertainment report.

We start with music and the new entry from death metal band Insouciant Demoralizer, Blood for Blood for Blood for Blood for Meat, released on Feline Leukemia Records. Playing their guitars completely out of tune, Farting Sam and Vomiting Tim create a palate of noise that rivals four jet engines red lining inside a nuclear reactor. Lyrically the songs form a pattern of blistering political takes on the current situation in Mongolia, ancestral home of singer and chief song writer Slobbering Jerry. The aggregate score from online music critics give Blood for Blood for Blood for Blood for Meat a score of 6 out of 100.

Fiction

“All Sales Are Final,” by Eric Lawson

On a typical sleepy Sunday morning in Glendale, California, Kyle and his wife, Noelle, were setting up lawn chairs for their garage sale. A small playing card table was situated between them with a pitcher of ice tea and two cups. A sign on a makeshift sandwich board read: GARAGE SALE. ALL SALES ARE FINAL. This was the second attempt as the previous day a steady drizzle had kept only but a handful of the bargain hunters away.

Poetry

“According to Trader Joe’s Grocery Bag,” by Monica Dobos

all you need in life is bread, grapes, wine, a wedge of Swiss cheese, a fork, a spoon, a man in high boots looking through a hand-held telescope, a man in a flying contraption who tries to steal the telescope.

Visuals

“The Less Said, the More Mysterious It Becomes,” by Andy Graber

Some say Spooky Season doesn’t start until October, but no one will mind if we start it a little earlier this year.

Ben & Winslow

Live Out Your Filthy, Goblin-Filled Dreams

Winslow has been involved in the fast-paced world of goblin erotica since at least 2012, when he hired a slightly defective Japanese robot to help him illustrate comics. Looking back at that older comic, it certainly seems… prescient.