x

75% of people globally want unbiased news (Pew Research) but are concerned they're not getting that.

Get balanced coverage with Symby. See how stories are covered across diverse outlets and spot when one side covers a story the other skips.

PODCAST

The City Between Us

Michael Arturo’s absurdist and noir-inflected tales of a city split not by geography but by memory—where every street is a version of the truth, and the real conflict isn"t between characters but between the stories they choose to believe about themselves. New episodes weekly. Stories, Reviews, Analysis. michaelarturo.substack.com

fiction comedy fiction

All Episodes

12:39

Zenith Solutions

The City Between Us ·

2025/10/07

Bob Forrester trudged through Central Park under a stubborn gray sky that refused to rain despite October’s promises. The air was thick, and the damp breeze carried a faint scent of old leaves and forgotten memories.He thought he’d forgotten where the fountain was—or maybe he couldn’t remember if he’d forgotten where the fountain was. But when he located it, he sighed, took a seat on a nearby bench, and waited.An overstuffed pigeon strutted nearby, side-eyeing him, which felt oddly judgmental

en

9:25

Innocent Bystander

The City Between Us ·

2025/09/11

Foghorns moaned low across the Hudson as first light strained against heavy clouds, draped like wet cloth over the tenement buildings along MacDougal Street. On the third floor, in a narrow kitchen with a view of Passanante’s Ballfield, the morning chill seeped under the windowsills, threading its way into the bones of the small apartment where Julie lived.From her window, she saw a cluster of figures in the field on Houston Street—practicing Tai chi in the mist, their slow, deliberate movements

en

12:49

The Last Brando

The City Between Us ·

2025/08/31

Marlon Brando: more than an idol to Johnny “The Ram” Rampole—something akin to a saint or a wayward prophet. Since his teenage years, Johnny had modeled himself after the Method great: dressing in torn T‑shirts, worn dungarees, and gritty leather jackets so retro they stood out like a sepia ghost in modern Manhattan.Now in his forties and decidedly out of shape, Johnny looked like a miscast statue from a wax museum’s “1950s rebel” exhibit—thick around the middle and terminally confused.His cramped

en

13:36

Bullet To The Head (Part 5)

The City Between Us ·

2025/08/24

Jimmy Tong was dead. Eddie Cardone had watched the life bleed out of the only man who’d ever taught him the rules of Chinatown, the man who’d pulled him from Columbus Avenue street corner cons into better-paying hustles. And then, when Eddie needed him, Jimmy had tried to save him, driving him out of Chinatown under fire, but the night had eaten him alive.That left Eddie to run alone, without his closest ally, through streets that felt stranger with every step. He remembered Lillianne as he ran, and

en

12:12

Closed Casket

The City Between Us ·

2025/08/17

Vic Martelli’s crew ran uptown, everything north of Central Park. They had the high-end card rooms on the Upper East Side, and all the dope moving through Harlem. Ran it classy, too; never had to shout when cash could do the talking.Carmine Russo’s boys—they had the West Side. Hookers, dockside smuggling, and a bunch of nickel-and-dime street rackets that kept the lights on.Martelli was silk. Russo was sandpaper.They worked together fine, mostly—until somebody got in the way. Then, yeah, maybe a guy

en

2:57

Shot in the Head

The City Between Us ·

2025/08/13

Get full access to The City Between Us at michaelarturo.substack.com/subscribe

en

14:40

Rose

The City Between Us ·

2025/08/10

February 2, 1981, was a mere 56 days since the world had reeled from the murder of John Lennon, a beacon of peace in a chaotic world, and 56 days before an emboldened hand would attempt to alter the emerging redesign of President Ronald Reagan’s America. It was a day that stood as an equinox between the tragedy and turmoil of epoch-defining events, and, though many worlds away, it was a day in the existence of 78-year-old Rose Melito, who lived at 112th Street and Pleasant Avenue in East Harlem,

en

17:54

Ramon’s Universe (conclusion)

The City Between Us ·

2025/08/05

Back at Mission Control, planners, engineers, and politicians were locked in an intense debate over how to handle the "Disaster Zone Ramon Situation," as it was now officially being called.Senator Johnson, a guest at Mission Control and a member of the NASA oversight committee, leaned in to McDavid. "You realize NASA's funding will be cut in half after this fiasco!""Yes, sir. Accidents do happen.""Accidents?! The President is fuming over this!""I spoke to the President myself, sir. I think we're

en

5:57

The Mortality of Immortality

The City Between Us ·

2025/08/02

Immortality isn’t what it used to be.Take the vampire, that old cliché of eternal life. Say you were “born” in 1300 AD. Your first century or two was easy. Europe was a slow-motion soap opera of plagues, crusades, and candlelight. If a king died, you might hear about it next season, maybe in the form of a monk’s gossip while you drank his blood behind the abbey. Horses stayed horses, swords stayed swords. Fashion was a spectrum of “wool” to “slightly nicer wool.” It was the golden age of

en

20:23

Ramon’s Universe (Part 1)

The City Between Us ·

2025/07/26

Ramon Hernandez was a familiar face at the NASA facility in Houston, having spent nearly two decades as a maintenance man there. At the age of 48, he had become something of an institution himself, known for his distinctive blend of competence and clumsiness. While he was undoubtedly the go-to guy for fixing leaky pipes and unjamming stubborn doors, his colleagues often shared stories of occasional mishaps that earned him the endearing nickname of "Disaster Zone Ramon."Not that Ramon was without

en

16:46

Don’t Let Them Take Your Boots

The City Between Us ·

2025/07/20

Author’s Note: Originally published last year, “Don’t Let Them Take Your Boots” was Top in Fiction’s featured Short Story the week of December 13th, 2024, and is presented here with new voice-over accompaniment. Influenced by Italo Calvino and Nikolai Gogol, the story of Giacomo Mazzone—an Italian immigrant navigating the brutal churn of early 20th-century America in New York City—is a folkloric meditation on identity, loss, and the quiet violence of bureaucratic indifference.In many ways, all my

en

20:12

The Six Inch Skyscraper

The City Between Us ·

2025/07/13

Ajay was a collector of miniature trinkets. Every Saturday, he wandered the street fairs along the Upper West Side, searching for something unusual. One morning, something caught his eye. Tucked between a signed Derek Jeter baseball and a crate of sun-faded LPs was an unmarked velvet pouch, musty with the scent of dust. Inside it rested an impossibly detailed six-inch skyscraper.It resembled the Empire State Building but wasn’t quite: its spire narrower, its setbacks steeper, its symmetry slightly

en

6:06

Bullet To The Head (Part 4)

The City Between Us ·

2025/07/05

A gunshot echoed through the New China Arts like a starting pistol for a nightmare.Screams rang out. Glass shattered. Security ducked. Tommy's entourage went for their weapons. Someone tripped, and someone else was trampled. Bang. Another gunshot. Then two more. One of Tommy's men went down.The crowd surged like a wave breaking its banks onto Bayard Street.Lillianne scanned for Eddie, but he was already gone. Swallowed by the tide or vanished of his own accord, she couldn't tell. Her head throbbed,

en

15:13

Bullet To The Head (Part 3)

The City Between Us ·

2025/06/30

It was opening night at the New China Arts gallery on Bayard Street, where Gangland Visions reimagined Chinatown’s street violence with the solemnity of religious iconography. Well-tailored Shanghai investors filled the gallery, drifting from frame to frame, checkbooks ready, faces unreadable. To them, this wasn’t just art. It was curated menace. A tasteful slice of Chinatown’s underworld, framed and ready for the living room wall.Nothing says worldly sophistication quite like a framed execution in

en

11:07

Bullet To The Head (Part 2)

The City Between Us ·

2025/06/22

Eddie Cardone woke to the sound of a teapot whistling. The bed beside him was empty, sheets still warm but twisted like a crime scene. Light leaked through the crooked blinds in dull slats. His body ached in good places. And bad places. He stood, winced, and limped to the window.Outside, Doyers Street had vanished beneath a blanket of morning mist thick enough to swallow the sidewalk whole. A man, or what appeared to be the shape of one, stood on the corner beneath a broken streetlamp, looking up

en

6:41

Existential O's

The City Between Us ·

2025/06/20

They wandered the aisles like monks in a fluorescent monastery.Warhol, in monochrome black, sunglasses obscuring his eyes against the sterile supermarket light, dragged his feet past shelves of boxes in primary colors packed tight. “A shrine to forgotten mornings,” Dalí murmured beside him. His mustard-yellow suit flared like a torch in the artificial glow, his mustache curling toward the heavens like antennae.Warhol didn’t reply. He adjusted his shades and gestured to a box of Rice Crispies. “I

en

15:05

Bullet To The Head

The City Between Us ·

2025/06/13

Hop Sing’s All-Night Dumpling House was three things at once: a restaurant, a crime scene waiting to happen, and the best place to ruin your life after 2 a.m.Before Eddie Cardone could make his move, before he even slid one foot out of the red leather booth where the soy sauce turned every elbow into flypaper, Jimmy Tong slapped a hand to his chest and said, “Don’t.”Eddie raised an eyebrow, halfway to cocky, halfway to stupid. “Don’t what?”Jimmy tilted his head toward the bar. “Her.”Lillianne Wong

en

13:14

Suttle House (review)

The City Between Us ·

2025/06/09

Michael Arturo's "Suttle House" is a Victorian fable set in 1895 New York, exploring themes of evolving female roles, self-definition, identity, and the complexities of relationships. The narrative utilizes rich symbolism, particularly through the shared monocular vision of twin sisters Prudence and Abagail and the triangular architecture of Delmonico's restaurant. The story draws on theatrical traditions, including commedia dell'arte, Oscar Wilde's wit, and the structure of the American sitcom, to

en

17:35

After Everything I’ve Done For You (conclusion)

The City Between Us ·

2025/06/06

Cole stood near a bullet-scarred kitchen window, preparing to livestream. Behind him, Tristan dabbed bronzer along his jaw like a battlefield stylist dressing a man for martyrdom.“You need more contour, Cole,” Tristan said. “You look like a haunted bagel.”Cole clutched his phone like a grenade of truth, rehearsing lines in his head.“You know,” Tristan said, dipping a finger into concealer, “this isn’t the first time my people have battled on these streets. Let me tell you, before we were a

en

7:56

The Conclusion of ‘Everything'

The City Between Us ·

2025/06/05

Crosstown: After Everything I’ve Done For You: The Absurd War Over a West Village ApartmentDarcy and Cole land their dream rent-controlled apartment, a cramped West Village jewel, perfect for unraveling emotionally and Instagramming desperation. But their peace evaporates when Tristan and Juan arrive, a queer couple with a militant Pekingese named AOC and a lease claim tangled in the mysteries of Omar, the elusive realtor-landlord hybrid who might hold every key in Lower Manhattan.What starts as a

en

51 results

Similar Podcasts

وجوه من الـظل

Medi1 Podcast

Classic Radio Science Fiction

solgoodmedia.com

Daily Science Fiction Books

solgoodmedia.com

Time Traveler"s Radio

solgoodmedia.com

Galactic Sci-Fi Broadcasts

solgoodmedia.com