E

Well your choices are either eavesmocking or risking an insta-friending-joint-brunch with your temporary neighbors when restos put their tables so close together to conjure up that contrived convivial rustico vibe, so no, honestly no it was not a lazy smugness that slipped me into my haughty dissection of our neighbors' blurred-by-burberry beer and con queso bods; speaking in Italian quasi-code with Laura was a calculated defense to keep their brunch theirs and our brunch ours. But I wonder what word it was that gave us away? Maybe "Porco Slope" wasn't cloaked (and certainly not witty) enough? Or maybe "Ma per favore! Devano parlare sempre di Brian Lehrer? Ancora a brunch?" needs no translator. Either way, at something I said they clamped up, finishing their florentine's in silence which in turn had me in a frantic flurry yapping away out of guilt, attempting to backpedal like nothing I said had anything to do with anyone anywhere near anything brunchy. I became a caricature of myself fueling them with more and more eavesmockery, loading them up with all sorts of exaggerated infamation (infamy + information), as I tried harder and harder to dig myself out of the embarassment of being busted for my own eavesmockery.

-- Marcellus Hall, Chris Leo


ETA, pronounced aytah, is the explosive combination of “estimated time of arrival” and “Euskadi Ta Askatasuna”, the violent Basque liberation front. It is the opposite of what Dr. Phil calls a “safe landing”. For example, when Gary received the mysterious text message reporting “your girlfriend knows” his eyes darted first to the open bottle of tequila, then to the blond hair stuck to a pillow in a house that generally only sheds brown, then to the clock to see “what the ETA was” until “she” returned from work and the bomb dropped, then back to the empty bottle of tequila.

ETA = liberation yes, but at what bloody cost? To be turned into an eta (Japanese for "one who does not exist")?

-- Chris Leo


An ewreckted structure’s raising calls for razing. “The ewrecktion of that new hotel obliterated my beautiful view of the Queensboro Bridge” complained the young profesh to the ancient local. “Yeah well the ewerecktion of that Queensboro Bridge ruined my beautiful view of the river,” and Robert Moses and a Lenapi laughed together in their graves.

-- Chris Leo


Expensive (v.). My strolling map of New York is a tangle of twists and turns that I've poeticized to Laura meanders non-linearly due to my romantic whimsy, while the truth is I've actually strategically plotted out an avoidance of every shoe store along the route because she tends to be expensive.

ex (Latin "out of") + pensare (Latin "consider") = pense that thought right out

-- Chris Leo