The nonfiction bits are best. ( )

I wish I'd written this after reading the issue, in February I'm sure. But it must! be! done!

This issue is just as solid as the first, with about an additional 50 pages of tiny print.

Arthur Bradford returns with yet another excellent and loltastic story, "Chainsaw Apple," (available in his one collection of published stories: Dogwalker--highly recommended), featuring a fellah brushing up on his new chainsaw-apple-mouth act (was it outside of an Applebee's? I REFUSE TO CHECK) with his home dog, who fails him during the actual ending and is replaced by a woman unknowingly looking for love and a trashed face.

Todd Pruzan, who supplied the funniest bits in issue one (OH! THE BUS! THE PENGUINS! IT DOES NOT EVER STOP!), supplies here the wackiest and motherlovin' coolest choose-your-own-adventure story ever ("Hooper's Bathhouse: An Adventure Story, Shaped by the Reader's Own Design"), written in second-person (of course) during every reader's childhood, featuring genie lamps, bastard kids, time travel, pirates thirsty for the blood of children, and stoned teenagers, always a bad influence on the youth (our future!), and cetera.

Sean Wilsey graces McSwy's Blues/Jazz Odyssey with a journalistic piece on the south Texas town of Marfa, only known for the "Marfa Lights" and to art majors for the home of Donald Judd. I'll be visiting Marfa on a big Kerouacian road trip in August--damn right! I'm excited!--because of this, Wilsey's "The Republic of Marfa: A History of the Invasions of a Small Texas Town, with Particular Attention to the Most Recent Onslaught, by Artists, Architects, and a Retinue of 600. Also a History of the Supernatural Forces which Surround this Place," 25-page study of the town.

Other interesting articles and stories and interviews or whatever the fuck, include: "Paul Duchateau: Math & Bullshit," a sampling or the earliest stages of Lawrence Krauser's Lemon, "Fire: The Next Sharp Stick?: A conversation Among Cavemen," Gallagher's unique-as-the-dickens "Gaelic Self-Taught: Sicily's Huge Capybaras: Mohair, Mohair," "'Todd.'" by Borow and Eggers, and tons more!

It is not recommended that you spend an hour reading the sampling from McSweeney's Internet Tendency thrown in the back, typed up in size 1 font--I kid you not. Jesus.

F.V.: 80%--again.

[30...somethin'. Why do I always post how many other people possessed copies of whatever book I'm reviewing at the end? Is it pretentiousness? Must I feel superior in some way? Put myself above those who became interested in whatever cult rubbish I'm writing a review for these days only after I picked it up and enjoyed it? Yes.] ( )