Slaminatrix

by Lisa Martinovic

I don’t trust anything that I look forward to…too much. Topping that list is the double-edged sword of prestige television. For over half a century critics have railed against what we used to call the “boob tube,” usually objecting on moral or political grounds. If they knew dopamine like I know dopamine, they could have made a stronger case.

I’m neither a Puritan nor a Luddite. I’ve thrilled to the Emmy-winning dramas of television’s new Golden Age. And like so many others, I fell victim to what TV critic James Poniewozik calls “The Suck”: that narcotic, tidal feeling

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by Lisa Martinovic

Cutting-edge 21st century neuroscience and a certain Depression era, Christian-based self-help fellowship might make strange bedfellows, but they have one thing in common: when it comes to the treatment of addiction, both rely on the brain’s innate capacity for transformation.

This may come as a surprise to those who think that Alcoholics Anonymous and other twelve-step programs are all about ‘turning your will and your life over to the care of God.’ Countless people

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Having suffered a series of calamities
so long and varied as to comprise a statistical impossibility
I cling to the tenuous hope that
surely
my life cannot get worse

then my computer crashes

and I am plunged headlong into a canyon of despair
deep and unfathomable as string theory
landing with an inelegant splat, I am an upended bug
flailing fruitlessly and beset
by larger insects who gnaw greedily on my exposed viscera

there is no point trying to resurrect this heap

rogue elements in my brain disagree
they concoct an army of lively
drum-beating, cymbal clashing, sword wielding
thoughts
cruel thoughts in crimson

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An Oklahoma virgin is entranced by a clipboard-wielding ranger with a very big belt buckle in this improvised scene by Betsy Morris and Lisa Martinovic.

After making enormous sacrifices to rescue Edith, Louise must dodge the unexpected as the couple flee to the land of tundra in this improvised scene by Jessica Davenport and Lisa Martinovic.