Ways and Means

by Daniel Lefferts

I have no sympathy for people who pooh-pooh the supposedly evil enterprises that they’re completely parasitic upon.

“He’s excited about my project. He loves the arts. Terrible phrase—the arts.”

“I’ll tell my dealer to meet us there.” “You have an art dealer?” Elijah said. “Coke,” Jay said. “Don’t rush me.”

It’s a little like the gays”—he flicked Elijah’s arm—“don’t you think? They lie around listening to Diana Ross, drinking their vodka sodas. But they lift, they run. They have bodies made for war.”

At Vassar Jay had shown a preoccupying interest in American mythology and its happy susceptibility to campification and perversion.

an all-female, all-cancer-survivor bluegrass band called Nocturnal Remissions.

the Grift, an effortfully hip online magazine that specialized in stories about obscure subcultures, gasp-seeking travelogues from combat zones and bacchanalian desert raves, and movie reviews written under the disclosed influence of illegal substances—“