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Tom Faure is a Contributor at Numéro Cinq. A graduate in the MFA program at Vermont College of Fine Arts, his work has appeared or is forthcoming in Waxwing, Zocalo Public Square, Splash of Red, Chattanooga Times Free Press, The Journal News. He lives in New York, teaching English and Philosophy at the French-American School of New York.
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NC, going fearlessly where no other lit mag has gone before, dares to reveal the newest in American art forms—Amazon.com customer reviews. Possibly this is the NEW THING. Inventive, witty, and ENDLESS. (Thanks to Melissa Fisher for pointing out yet another cultural weirdness—she seems to have an eye for this stuff.)
These customer reviews are from an ad for Uranium Ore (yes, you can buy anything at Amazon.com—it’s not just about books). Look at the whole list. Then forget writing short stories and poems and unleash your creativity here.
dg
Better Than Steroids, May 8, 2011
By TheGilmore
This review is from: Uranium Ore
I’ve always wanted to be an IFBB Pro Bodybuilder, but I never had the means to do it. Steroids are hard to find for a college student with little means. As I was walking to the bus stop from class, I saw some Libyans in the parking lot. I can never resist their deals at the swamp meet, so I decided to check out what they were selling. Lo and behold, they had this wonderful yellow cake. I asked them what it could do, and they told me I would gain muscle mass like you wouldn’t believe. They also muttered something about tumors, but I’m sure they were joking. Those crazy Libyans.
Eager to use the stuff, I opened it up before getting on the bus. I noticed the effects right away. A vein in my hand burst open, but that means it’s working. By the time I came to my stop, I couldn’t fit through the door without turning sideways. My lat spread was incredible. I’ve already contacted the IFBB officials that they need to reinforce the stage for the Mr. Olympia contest. I’m coming for you Jay Cutler.
By the way, the yellow eyes are a neat little feature.
It killed my neighbors, and made my son a zombie., April 10, 2011
Byretard chris –This review is from: Uranium OreWhen I first picked up Uranium Ore for my son’s science project, he wanted to make a nuclear reactor, so in his three wolf moon t-shirt, he worked tiredly at it.He picked up a spoonful of Uranium ore powder and dropped it on his three wolf moon t-shirt, the moon on the shirt started to glow and the wolves eyes turned red, and a cloud of smoke and lightning picked up items around his room, makaing them into a reactor. When he stepped out of our house with his three wolf moon t-shirt and reactor in tow, women immediatly started to crowd him, but quickly bled to death from the radiation exposue. He was appearently a walking corpse form the dead at this point, seeing he wore no NBC suit and had no teeth. The three wolf moon t-shirt kept luring the women to my son, and they started dying in piles. He won first place, however, but some guys showed up in suits and took him to some place called “gitmo”. It sounds like some sort of tropical island so im sure that was his prize from the fair. We can’t visit or call him though, and I need to tell him that we arn’t allowed within 15 miles of our town,
Pros: Upgraded three-wolf moon t-shirt, won him a lifetime vacation
Cons: Destroyed our town
by Natalia Sarkissian
Last Friday night my husband and I took a cab to downtown Milan. I’d invited him out to dinner at Il Bagutta, but it was a working dinner. Once again I had my Numéro Cinq press tags clinking around my neck and was hot on the trail of Italian literati. Because Il Bagutta is where the Premio Bagutta, the oldest Italian literary prize was established in 1926 (and first awarded in 1927) and ever since, Il Bagutta has been frequented by the crème de la crème de la crème.
“Please hurry,” I said to the driver, checking my watch. We were already late for
our 9 pm reservation. What if the maitre gave our table away and we couldn’t get in and observe the literati wining and dining? What would I say to my editor at Numéro Cinq who was waiting with bated breath for this insider’s view?
“It’s on Via Bagutta, off San Babila,” I added when the cabbie began thumbing through his map of Milan. “Between Via della Spiga and Via Montenapoleone.”
“Relax,” said Mauro, grabbing my hand. “We’ll get there when we get there.”
I sighed and sank back into the plaid seating. Mauro can be so Italian about being on time at times.
As we sat in a traffic jam on flashy Corso Buenos Aires and then inched along stately Corso Venezia, I inhaled and told him about Paris and compared it to Milan.
Back in the twenties and thirties famous Parisian cafés like Le Dome, La Rotonde and La Coupole had seen literary giants—Ernest Hemingway, Scott Fitzgerald, James Joyce, Jean Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir—come and go. In his memoir, a Moveable Feast, Hemingway describes the atmosphere, when he was young and penniless, drinking in the company of Ezra Pound, Scott Fitzgerald and Ford Maddox Ford. Likewise, Milan’s Il Bagutta, established at approximately the same time as its Parisian counterparts, offered good food, good wine and attracted home-grown Italian talents of stature; one of its first artistic patrons was Riccardo Bacchelli (a prolific novelist, essayist, playwright and librettist) who, in 1926, rounded up a group of gifted friends one night for dinner. Together they started the Bagutta literary prize at the spur of the moment. Later, Dino Buzzati, Mario Soldati, Ingrid Bergman, Lucia Bosé (Miss Italia 1947), Arturo Toscanini, Sandro Pertini (President of the Italian Republic 1978-1985) and other legends flocked to the restaurant.
The Guardian live play-by-play blog has some of the best humour I’ve seen/heard. Here are bits from the Spain-Switzerland match going on as I post this. If only more sports announcers would talk like this, I’d get cable again.
58 min “Hi Rob,” says Michael Minihan. “Just to point out, I made love to Mick McCarthy at a motel just outside Doncaster and I can confirm your suspicions about him being a tender lover. After the two of us had emptied the mini bar, he made off in the morning without paying though, typifying Premier League managers irresponsible attitude towards debt.”
48 min “That persistent drone is really annoying,” says Adam Forbes, lining up the inevitable gag. “Any news on the BBC offering games with Mick McCarthy filtered out?” HONK! I like McCarthy. He’s an underrated manager and, I imagine, a deceptively tender lover.
41 min Ramos passes the ball straight into touch. Spain are struggling to penetrate, against Switzerland. I can’t believe this is happening. I’ve lost faith in everything.
34 min Here’s the latest from Nightmare Corner, with Ross Kitson: “If I was playing against that Spanish attack I would be having nightmares for days – but appreciative nightmares, like the one where you are really thankful as you are being beaten about by a charming semi-clad Amazonian woman.”