“Why is the Kindle my enemy, you ask? Because I mostly write books, and when the list price of my book is $27.95, I make 15% of list price if it sells more than 15,000 copies. But if my book sells for $9.99, or some such, which is, more or less, a Kindle price, then I make quite a bit less and get a lower royalty rate. Ergo, for someone who is trying to make a living at this stuff, suddenly I am giving my shit away, and getting less for it besides.”
Rumpus contributor Rick Moody received a Kindle for Christmas.
This week: Party with The Rumpus, learn about the future of newspapers according to the good people of McSweeney’s, celebrate the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s 20th birthday, and rock the Shabbat in IndieFest style with a White Russian and mini-bowling.
Monday 2/8: Brace yourself — it’s time for the February Monthly Rumpus! This time around, catch readings from Tony Dushane, Robin Ekiss, Ethan Watters, Kevin Sampsell, and Daniel Handler, a performance by DJ Real, music by The Yellow Dress, and a spectacular hoopdance by Richard Porter. The fun starts at 7pm for a mere $10. 21+ @ The Makeout Room (3225 22nd Street). …more
An old professor from college writes me and asks for my snail mail address. It isn’t such a strange request – we have developed a kind of friendship since I graduated. I babysit his daughter on occasion; we meet at the corner store for coffee when we can both find time, which is almost never.
A week later a package arrives at my mother’s house, where I am staying for a month to sort some things out. The package is addressed in my professor’s handwriting, and inside is Nick Flynn’s The Ticking Is the Bomb. The book is yellow, with a silver and blue graphic on the paperback cover, drooping in my hand as I hold it, standing in the middle of my mother’s hallway. …more
The February Monthly Rumpus will be at The Make-Out Room tonight!
Featuring authors Tony Dushane, Robin Ekiss, Ethan Watters, Kevin Sampsell, and Daniel Handler! Along with the hilarious DJ Real and music by The Yellow Dress. Plus a special hoopdance performance by Richard Porter. And don’t forget our monthly porn raffle.
$10, cheap! You can’t afford not to go.
Get Advance Tickets! Click Here!
Desperate to save their businesses, the private companies who sell loans to college students have been heavily lobbying the government to keep subsidizing their loan programs. A bill that will overhaul the private loan industry recently passed in Congress with clear support from President Obama, who stated in his recent State of the Union Address “no one should go broke because they chose to go to college.”
The new proposal would retract government subsidies to private lending companies and cap the amount students have to pay back every month to 10% of their salary if they make more than $16,245 a year, reports Bryan Gerhart in his article for the California News Service. Loans that hadn’t been paid back after 10 years would even be forgiven if that student worked for a nonprofit or government organization. …more
But they’re still unsure what came first, the depression or heavy web use. (via The Awl)
“Just about everyone I know complains about the same thing when they’re being honest—including, maybe especially, people whose business is reading and writing.”
Facing a stream of criticism for questioning Twitter and other new technologies, George Packer responds to his critics.
“Tabor, a soldier at the Lewis-McChord base in Tacoma, Wash., told police he held the little girl’s head backward in a sink of water, Yelm Police Chief Todd Stancil told the the local newspaper, the Nisqually Valley News.”
U.S. Soldier waterboards his daughter, age 4, for not learning the alphabet.
”This isn’t about making money, you negative pricks: it’s about making movies.”
Kevin Smith addresses the pros and cons of directing a fan-financed movie and how if (if being the key word here) he did he would refuse to take a salary.
No, you’re confused, Doug. “Asbestos” was the name of that Greek drive-thru they converted into a free clinic. This is insulation that’s going keep my bad-ass fort warm come winter time. No girls allowed unless it’s your mom, bro.
More.
Over the past couple of weeks, Gelitin, a collective of four Austrian artists—Wolfgang Gantner, Ali Janka, Florian Reither and Tobias Urban—have occupied Chelsea’s Greene Naftali gallery in New York in a happening called “Blind Sculpture.”
Their productions are inspired by the work of Sigmund Freud, the sculpture and performance work of Franz West, and in response to the exhibition methods known generally as Relational Aesthetics, which is an art practice that questions the boundaries of art, is inspired by a desire to conflate life and art and is situation-based. Art that involves people, doing things. My friends Hanne and Jochem had taken me to see it. I asked if there was a common thread to their work. “Usually someone shows his penis,” Hanne said and laughed. It was late January–the first Saturday it had been open. Over the course of ten afternoons in total, Gelitin would use the space to complete their “sculpture.” As of last Saturday, February 6, the sculpture is complete and on view. …more
This week in New York, Harper’s presents “Love: A Rebuke” with Colson Whitehead, Heidi Julavits and Sam Lipsyte, Simon Critchley in bed with Cabinet’s Brian Dillon chatting about hypochondria, Vol. 1 Brooklyn and Gignatic present the Greatest 3-Minute Rock ‘n Roll Story Ever, Adam Haslett reads from his debut novel, The Magnetic Fields perform, Zachary German and Tao Lin celebrate the release of German’s new book, BOMB Magazine hosts its Winter Issue Launch Party and Soft Skull presents its spring 2010 titles.
MONDAY 2/8: Susan Sontag. PROMISED LANDS (1974). Susan Sontag’s third directorial effort and her only documentary, PROMISED LANDS scrutinizes the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict and the growing divisions within Jewish thought over the question of Palestinian sovereignty. Shot in Israel during the final days and immediate aftermath of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, it is undoubtedly one of Sontag’s most incisive examinations of contemporary Jewish consciousness, and she considered it her most personal film.With and introduction by artist Paul Chan. Anthology Film Archives. 32 Second Ave. …more
In the Philippines, whenever someone sings a certain Frank Sinatra song, somebody gets it in the neck. The My Way Killings.
Clothing for the discerning clergyman.
Sometimes people are really into typefaces but also have too much free time; those people do things like this.
Hella sweet pictures of astronauts and such (warning: french text).
The BBC is going to talk to you about plankton for a little while.
Are you ready for spray-on liquid glass?
“First let me debunk a couple of myths, starting with the principle that “anything is better than nothing”. Trust me, it’s not. Relieving suffering should be guided solely by need and not what people have to donate.”
Claire Durham of the Red Cross on why you should donate money instead of your old yoga mat. (via Boingboing)
JOHNNY TREMAIN’S HAND
Many years ago (perhaps as many as eight) 
1. Don’t expect any warm up. Jon Stewart comes into the green room before the show and chats with you for about 3 minutes. 
ACT ONE
Science fiction of the best sort, in which technology exists as a means of peering into the soul, and where even the darkest problems can be overcome by human ingenuity and the inexplicable compassion and perseverance of the human spirit. 
I’m going to tell you about what’s wrong with me. You have things wrong with you too, though perhaps you can’t pinpoint the location somedays. Maybe you can others. Maybe it’s a woman, maybe it’s a man, maybe it’s a bank statement. It would be un-ladylike of me to not tell you to stop reading if you are squeamish. 
“When I moved to California I noticed there were Human Directionals at almost every intersection. In Chicago they had people holding onto signs but they didn’t have the same enthusiasm or sign twirling skills as Jesse. They looked bored, holding onto the sign like it was punishment.” 
After announcing our intention to 