Through this Friday, all available back issues of Wholphin are half off—10 bucks apiece for countless warm evenings of rare films, featuring Miranda July, Paul Rudd, Donald Trump, and a monkey-faced eel. - - - - |
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ANNIE HALL Scene: Lovers ANNIE and ALVY are in bed. ANNIE is propped up on one elbow, gazing adoringly at ALVY. ANNIE: Alvy, let's never break up again. I don't wanna be apart. ALVY: You are an exceptional liar. You betray the truth at every turn. You care not a whit about the facts of the matter. You blame entirely one side, while ignoring the crimes of the other. And you have lost much of the prestige that you formerly enjoyed. ANNIE: Living together hasn't been so bad, has it? ALVY: I have had 8 years of a liberal agenda crammed down my throat. Enabled by pukes like you! ANNIE: You know I think that if you let me, maybe I could help you have more fun, you know? I mean, I know it's hard and... Alvy, what about... what if we go away this weekend, and we could... ALVY: Many of us have better things to do than sit slack-jawed and glaze-eyed for hours while filling our heads with leftist tripe. - - - - DEAD POETS SOCIETY Scene: Teacher MR. KEATING is telling students of the clandestine poetry club he formed when he himself was a student at their school. KEATING: The Dead Poets was dedicated to "sucking the marrow out of life." That's a phrase from Thoreau we would invoke at the beginning of every meeting. You see, we would gather at the old Indian cave and take turns reading from Thoreau, Whitman, Shelley - the biggies - even some of our own verse. And, in the enchantment of the moment, we'd let poetry work its magic. KNOX, a student: This is what passes for sophistication in the Beltway. How utterly pathetic and how very predictable. - - - - THE EXORCIST Scene: REGAN MACNEIL is screeching and thrashing about on her bed. In attendance are her mother, CHRIS MACNEIL, and brain expert DR KLEIN. REGAN: Mother please! Oh please mother make it stop! It's burning, it's burning! Please, mother! CHRIS MACNEIL: If this isn't sarcasm, then she truly is whacked. REGAN: Make it stop, it really hurts! Mother! Make it... REGAN begins growling like an animal. Rising slowly from the bed, REGAN'S eyes roll back into her head and her throat swells horribly. DR. KLEIN: She's channelling Al Gore! REGAN smashes DR KLEIN with the back of her hand, sending the doctor reeling across the room. CHRIS: Oh, yeah... this broad's gone wacko, if you ask me. REGAN: Keep away! The sow is mine! Fuck me! Fuck Me! Fuck me! (Screaming wildly, REGAN collapses back on to her bed.) DR. KLEIN: The rantings of a commie pinko airhead. - - - - JAWS Scene: A townhall meeting. MAYOR VAUGHN and the local police chief face a hostile citizenry anxious for a solution to their man-eating shark problem. Sea dog QUINT silences the crowd by scraping his fingernails across a chalkboard. QUINT: Y'all know me. Know how I earn a livin'. I'll catch this bird for ya, but it ain't gonna be easy. It's not like going down to the pond chasin' blue gills or tommy cots. This shark — swallow ya whole. L'il shakin', l'il tenderizin', down ya go. Now we gotta do it quick. That'll bring back the tourists, that'll put all your businesses on a payin' basis. But it's not gonna be pleasant! I value my neck a lot more than 3000 bucks, chief. I'll find him for three, but I'll catch him, and kill him, for ten! Now you gotta make up your minds. Gonna stay alive and ante up? Or ya wanna play it cheap, be on welfare the whole winter? I don't want no volunteers; I don't want no mates. There's too many captains on this island. Ten thousand dollars for me by myself. For that you get the head, the tail, the whole damn thing. MAYOR VAUGHN: (dismissively) Face it. Your career peaked when you were a copygirl at the old broadsheet New York Post. And we know how long ago that was, don't we?
OTHER McSWEENEY'S STORIES:
Serves One By Jonathan Vaughan My New Street Taunts, Vol. I: The Things Which I Will Do to You, if You Cross Me By Amie Barrodale Mother's Day Special: Brunch With Mother By Alysia Gray Painter Norse Legends Reference Pages By Kevin Guilfoile From the Found Notebooks of the Members of Homer's Writing Group By Sean Carman |
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