From August’s paid-subscriber email: four little poems about summer and aging and social anxiety. Oh, and also vengeance. Always vengeance.

A dry whir, zooming and rolling and urgent, almost earthquaking, announcing a Dio and Whitney Houston and Donna Summer summer.

Overwhelming reprieve, deranged acts of stoicism, and the usual sorts of avowals one makes after a cancer scare (see also: rhinestone claw clips).

From July’s paid-subscriber email: In the nineteen and eighties. California wanted to sell more grapes and they wanted to sell grapes that were old grapes.

You know that dream where it’s the last day of high school and you can’t find your classroom because you never actually went?

Get ready for an unforgettable Outer Banks vacation at the deceptively photographed “Soul Surfer” on the oceanfront! BYO antibacterial spray.