OUT OF THE OFFICE UNTIL: Prose Fiction by Ron Singer (58,835 words, c.222
pages)
These satires and stories are all business, mostly monkey. The sixteen
highly odd pieces, most of them published as stand-alones, describe mishaps
and unorthodox arrangements in the workplace. Poets set up shop, and dentists
perform root canal, on sidewalks; baseball stadiums are converted to cemeteries;
madmen impersonate high-up civil servants; architects do their best work
in mental hospitals; outsourcing sails into choppy waters; odd consultancies
proliferate (private-practice actuaries and document de-shredders). Even
Google's massive online libraries project turns against itself.
A Dream of Trains: After a nervous breakdown, an architect jump-starts his career in the hospital. Word Riot, February 2008. link to
text
Blue: a poet of the sidewalks. (4749 words) SNReview,
Summer 2006. link to
text
Officelessness: Scourge of The Nineties: instead of evictions
from apartments, suppose they were from offices? (1100 words) Brooklyn
Free Press. 1999.
Suite Crimes Unit Under Fire: Giuliani administration
shifts target to white-collar crime.(662 words) Timothy McSweeney's
Limited Edition (e-zine), 2000. link
to text
Simple: jury duty run amok. (7950 words) Sage
of Consciousness Online Magazine, Issue #3.1: Awareness: Injustices
and Fallacies, forthcoming. link
to publication
RxT=D: 5 p.m., and two office functionaries run amok.
(917words) Word Riot,
2007. link
to text
Better Cheape: 2009,Chennai, India, the victim of its
own success in outsourcing. (1438 words) Ghoti,
Labor Day Issue 2007. link
to text
Norman's Cousin: the lethal civil-servant impersonator
strikes. (6677 words) nthposition,
October 2007. link
to text
Goolies: the library project ...(964 words) Oregon
Literary Review, Spring/Summer 2006. link
to text
Spots: a scholar's day at the library is subverted by
pornography and curtailed library hours. (3081 words)
The Actuarialist: a private-practice actuary is asked
whether a man's Norfolk Pine is likely to grow taller than he is ... etc.
(2512 words) Diagram 4.6 (e-zine), 2005; included in 2nd Diagram
print anthology, 2006. link
to text
Integral Documents, Inc: a private-practice de-shredding
firm reconstructs love poems for a divorce case, photos of steroidal ball
players caught in the act ... (1697 words)
A Nose for a Jacket: only rob an unorthodox detective
if you want to pay a visit to his office. (4721 words) Willow Review,
Spring 2005. link
to publication
Untitled: four famous 19th-century artists suffer a workplace
invasion. (1649 words) Puckerbrush Review, Summer/Fall 2000.
link to publication
The Sense of Order: Morandi, 20th-century painter, emerges
from his mythical seclusion. (956 words) elimae, February 2008.
link to text
From a Small Fish in the Floating World: a visual artist's
resume' encapsulates all possible mishaps. (125 words)
elimae, Fall 2006. link
to text
From Mr. Small Fish: same as supra, but for a writer.(503words)
elimae, May 2007.
link to text