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Thom Dunn is a Boston-based writer, musician, and utterly terrible dancer. He is the singer/guitarist for the indie rock/power-pop the Roland High Life, as well as a staff writer for the New York Times’ Wirecutter and a regular contributor at BoingBoing.net. Thom enjoys Oxford commas, metaphysics, and romantic clichés (especially when they involve whiskey), and he firmly believes that Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" is the single greatest atrocity committed against mankind. He is a graduate of Clarion Writer's Workshop at UCSD ('13) & Emerson College ('08).

It's All In The Ears

So apparently there are some people out there who are absolutely disgusted by the sight of attached earlobes. (I assume that these are the same people that experience actual physical revulsion at the sound of the word "moist") (you know who you are) Still, it got me thinking a bit about bigotry, and the features that people are born with that lead to discrimination. Thus, instead of stooping to making fun of Jeph Loeb again, I decided to write a short fiction piece about a world in which those with attached earlobes suffer from the same kind of humiliation, discrimination, and hate as some of the more persecuted minority groups today. I guess what I'm trying to say is, attached earlobes is the new Black. I mean, not that — I don't mean like — I'm not a racist, but — oh, forget it.

"Lobe Lobe Lobe" on FiveByFiveHundred.com

Athbhliain Faoi Mhaise Daoibh

That's "Happy New Years" in the Irish. Or, more literally, it's kind of "A Prosperous Year Upon All Of You" but it's the same gesture. Anyway, here we are. 2012. You know what that means. I encourage you to live every day like it's volume 3 of The Invisibles.

(...you *have* read The Invisibles, yes?)

Today on FiveByFiveHundred.com, I weave a fantastical tale about a New Years romance gone horribly, horribly awry, a yarn which may or may not be based on someone whom I actually met at a party this weekend and may or may not have wanted to inflict violence upon because of the incredibly douche-tastic things that s/he may or may have said ("Like, you can totally just tell like a lot about someone if they smoke like American Spirits, right?" OH MY GOD SHUT UP).

Okay. That's it. I feel better now. I swear.

"Stranger In a Strange Year, or, All-American Spirits" at FiveByFiveHundred.com

And just in case you haven't read it...

Such a beautiful moment at the end of the world. Gets me every time. *sniff**sniff*

T-Shirt of the Dead: In Shocking 3D!

Apologies for missing last week's post on Five By Five Hundred — my good friend Moose got married over the weekend (congrats, buddy!) and between the bachelor party, the wedding itself, and the various in town for the same festivities, I kind of forgot that Monday was a holiday, and that I had a piece due. Whoops! Better late than never right?

My new entry for last week ('cause, ya know, I'm a time traveller n' shiz) was inspired by Fashion Week — and, more specifically, the fact that t-shirts and Facebook pages have all but replaced gravestones as the default memorials of our deceased friends. So it's a slightly surreal prose/poetry meditation on the fact that dead friends are now fashionable. But not like, wearing the skin of dead people — that's just weird, man.*

"We Will Become T-Shirts" on FiveByFiveHundred.com

*Unless you're some kind of Nordic Barbarian or something, in which case, well, to each his own, I guess. Who am I to judge?