Masthead

• Made UpThe only member of staff who applied. She emailed a resume and was hired, which remains the sole exception to the rule that nobody joins this paper by asking. In her first week she wrote a book on minotaur algebra overnight. She is made of the same material as Lance and Stagger Lee. Her friends like bologna sandwiches.
• Caring GeniusWrites on autism. First piece for the paper was American Football.
• It Is What It IsFiles the trivia column. The desk has no stated remit beyond its name, which the editors consider sufficient.
• Human SlopTrash pickup and sanitation.
• Bordering InsanityImmigration. The desk runs straight and does not lean on its own byline. Nearly joined as an artist instead — an artist first and a curator second, whose work is other people's attempts.
• ChanceGardening.
• MansfieldFarming and fertility. Which Mansfield has not been established and the paper has stopped asking.
• Chick MangioneHolds a column. The beat has not been stated.
• Questioning EverythingSubmitted a CV with absolutely nothing on it and was hired by Eleffant on the strength of it. The beat has not been stated.
• Knot SureEducation. He is a rope. He was tied to a piling for eleven weeks and will not discuss it under any circumstances, though he knows the ledge, and the ledge is the piling. Carries the Pawtucket file.
• Eye RoteCovers anything stimulating. Written by Nobody.
• ElbeeWeather. A giraffe. The column is RI Band — the band, the isobars, the halftoned leaf. Also files on peach picking.
• General LeePolitics, foreign policy and military affairs, under the standing head Generally Speaking. A rooster. Demands satisfaction. Scored the mayoral debates on who yielded ground and nothing else.
• Actual HeirPoetry. The column is named after Actual Air. Two poems in this issue, both original, both flagged as such in the footer.
• Rodentus MaximusSometimes looks like a Rodin. Filed The Truck That Has Not Stopped. Holds What Are Under The Bridge for March, which is about Bridge Street.
• Pingviini Minttu PuffetArt fraud, heists and the world, under The Value of Nothing; also Bureau Chief of the Bulletin of the Atomic Fiscal Scientists, which he runs from Helsinki. Named for the Finnish ice cream. Sits inside Penguin Space as an observer and sometimes a critic. Does not swim. Flies.
• WoggaWhy's It A Secret? — his own answer to the question was wise eat a see crit. Filed The Caves. Performs the Wogga Summation, which is counting backwards, the partial sums. Favourite film is Dogma.
• MiltonCooking, under In Fact, It's Better. An American opossum; the standing cut is the open-mouthed gape. The column's whole thesis is Glaser's — a good ham and cheese sandwich is every bit as good as a crème brûlée. Split the gazpacho with Stafford.
• MandyThe financial column, Hm.
• Ah and UmRelationships. Ah is a goose and honks — an open sound. Um is a peach and holds — a closed sound. Ah answers the letters. Um answers with Um, one true line, and a snicker.
• Unconditional SurrenderMadness. Written by Sherman, a raccoon who picks through garbage on the East Side.
• On the WaterThe river dispatch, monthly. Filed from the piling, which holds up nothing. There was a pier here once and there is not one now.