Mixtapes/Cellmates

And I'm servin' time 'til I've earned the right

To go back to the place that we started from

And I'm servin' time 'til I've earned the right

Baby, I swear one day we'll get the money straight

Chaos

"It made sense when he told it to me. You know, Chaos, I get excited, I fuck it up."

"That's okay," said Chaos, sympathetic for the first time. "It might've been a little fucked up to begin with."

- Amnesia Moon, Jonathan Lethem

You're My Little Scar

Photographer Unknown

I'll give you something that no one's gonna give you

My sleeping skin and my heart deep down in you

- Land of Talk

Dirty

Jill Freedman

And I hope his guardian angel puts a gun in his hand
If ever they get ambushed or pursued
I hope she sticks around when he does dirty
In this dirty, dirty duel he has brewed
And though the names will get changed to protect the innocent
He said, "I hope the names will get changed to protect me."

- M. Ward

The Unknown Soldier

last thing I saw was a crack of yellow sky between buildings, partly obscured by a line of laundry.
...
The last thing I saw was his badge, but I couldn't tell you the number. The last thing I saw was a full shot glass, slid along by somebody who clapped me on the back.
...
The last thing I saw was a boot, right foot, with nails protruding from the instep. The last thing I saw was a turd. The last thing I saw was a cobble. The last thing I saw was night.

I lost my way in snowdrifts half a block from my apartment. I drank a bottle of carbolic acid not really knowing whether I meant to or not. I got very cold and coughed and forgot things. I went out to a yard to try to give birth in secret, but something happened. I met a policeman who mistook me for somebody else.
...
I was supposed to get up early that morning, but couldn't move. I heard a sort of whistling noise above my head as I was passing by the post office, and that's all I know.
...
I felt very hot and shaky and strange, and everybody in the shop was looking at me, and I kept trying to tell them that I'd be all right in a minute, but I just couldn't get it out.
...
I stood yelling as he stabbed me again and again.
...
I was asleep in the park when these kids came by. I crawled out the window and felt sick looking down, so I just threw myself out and looked up as I fell.
...
They put me in a bag. They nailed me up in a box. They walked me down Mulberry Street followed by altar boys and four priests under a canopy and everybody in the neighborhood singing the "Libera Me Domine." They collected me in pieces all through the park. They laid me in state under the rotunda for three days. They engraved my name on the pediment. They drew my collar up to my chin to hide the hole in my neck.

- Luc Sante

[Full story here]
[Listen to this story read aloud on This American Life]

The Magic of Everyday Things

Banal

Arthur "Weegee" Felling

An Italian man Milo once knew liked to say, “There’s something banal about grief. All that kitsch just turns my stomach.”
- The Tourist, Olen Steinhauer

Don't Ask.

Jonathan Leder

Don't ever ask me where I'm from
In six states that's considered dumb
- Aqueduct