At the generous behest of Retort’s European Associate Editor we are moving to a new server based in Amsterdam. Retort will probably disappear for a day or two, but we’ll be back. Bear with us if things look messy for a little while. Another great side-effect of the migration is that RetortMagazine.com will no longer be a subdomain. Bookmark http://www.retortmagazine.com and we’ll see you soon.

Retort has been maliciously compromised. It seems the content will remain but I have lost the admin control.

I have no idea what motivated such an attack.

Fuck you very much hacker.

It’ll take some time to set up again, but Retort is NOT going anywhere.

Stay tuned.

Screenplay: a Poem

FADE IN:

INT. MOVIE THEATER – DAY – ESTABLISHING

We’re in a sparsely populated movie theater.  A film is being shown.  It is silent and there is no music.  We HEAR the adhesive sound of feet shuffling on sticky, black floors, which are lined with little lights in a long, plastic tube.  The flickering film bounces off the disinterested audience, the long, red drapes running from floor to ceiling, and the small, hard seats.  Two young boys whip snappers a few rows ahead at the feet of a man on a date, and the snappers POP is making the man angry.

I am watching the film, long face in my hands, sharp elbows on my knees.  We HEAR a cow MOO, the first sounds from the film.

On the screen, in the film, a cow is lost in a heavy forest, while being hunted by ME.  Sensing ME, the cow turns into a deer and hops off, causing ME to chase it.

I lean back in my seat.

Continue reading A Poem by Dan McCarthy »

A Simulation

Though the explosions shouldn’t surprise him they do. They sound off rhythmically every few minutes and he shudders startled by each and every echoing blast. Placed where he is on the terrace looking out over the river he can see the Basilica’s towers and the smoke sift upward through the trees-line. The blasts’ depth can be heard from the other end of the city—buildings rattle and shake; glass shivers in the windowpanes. At every screamed signal that precedes the cannons’ fire the same lump rises swollen and stuck in his throat; he sees crumbling walls and buildings, feels the way the earth tilts under-fire, and his hands tap his ears as he falls forward folding into the receptive ball he was taught to produce under such circumstances.

Continue reading A Simulation by Patterson Willis »