THE RUMPUS BLOG

April 6, in New York

The Rumpus is a San Francisco based publication with monthly Rumpus events in the Bay Area. But April 6 we’ve got a mega-show in New York City. Featuring Sam Lipsyte, Colson Whitehead, Michael Showalter, Lorelei Lee, Dave Hill, Starlee Kine, Jeffrey Lewis, and Alina Simone.

Best get those tickets early, rockers. …more

1 hour ago (0)

“We are seeing renewed interest in the short story.”

Well here’s some good news for all you short fiction writers: “The Atlantic is going to start publishing fiction again.”

2 hours ago (0)

“Least of All for Profit”

“I feel that this award was not made to me as a man, but to my work — a life’s work in the agony and sweat of the human spirit, not for glory and least of all for profit, but to create out of the materials of the human spirit something which did not exist before.”

That’s what William Faulkner said in 1950 while accepting the Nobel Prize for literature, and he should know, because “even Faulkner had a day job.”

(For those interested, you can read Faulkner’s entire Nobel speech here.)

3 hours ago (0)

Paper Fight

We’ve previously mentioned the fascinating battle taking place in San Francisco between the city’s two weekly newspapers: The San Francisco Bay Guardian (who won a $21 million dollar judgment against Village Voice Media for monopolistic practices) and the VVM-owned SF Weekly.

Well The Stranger has the full scoop on the story, one which includes (but is not limited to) “seized delivery vans, murderous editors, irate blog posts, allegations of insanity, connections to the Church of Satan, illegal predatory-pricing schemes, and more.” Read “The Great West Coast Newspaper War.”

3 hours ago (0)

A Tipsy Tribute to the Leading Literary Lush of the Emerald Isle: Brendan Behan

At least as well known for his boozing as for his books, iconic Irish author Brendan Behan (1923 – 1964) was a rollicking, larger-than-life Gaelic knockabout—a foul-mouthed, furry-chested stereotype of the drunken Paddy. In fact, the polemical playwright and legendary dipsomaniac once sardonically summarized himself as “a drinker with writing problems.”

Behan was, at one time or another, a Borstal boy ( = reform school inmate), an I.R.A. “messenger” (he was an explosives expert with a special preference for gelignite), an inveterate jailbird, a busker, a pornographer, and a house painter. He was, at all times, a rebel and all-around hellbender. …more

3 hours ago (0)

Tune of the Day

Artists: Hawk and Dove

Song: “Gray Parade”

5 hours ago (0)

Why Don Pedro Drinks

Two statesmen drowning their cares, Tim Bobbin [i.e. John Collier], 1772

“Why Don Pedro Drinks”
by José Marín Cañas
Translated by Gilbert Alter-Gilbert

“Why Don Pedro Drinks” is from José Marín Cañas’ 1929 collection of crepuscular tales about alcoholics, The Rum Bums (Los bigardos del ron).

Nobody had any idea, until that night, what made Don Pedro drink. …more

5 hours ago (0)

Reviewing the Reviews

“Why do Tao’s negative book reviews seem to always cite as evidence Tao’s gimmickry?”

Brandon Scott Gorrell, author of During My Nervous Breakdown I Want to Have a Biographer Present, has posted a review concerning negative reviews of Tao Lin’s Shoplifting From American Apparel.

Update: An interesting argument has broken out in the piece’s comments section about book reviews and reviews in general (it somewhat mirrors a similar debate we had here).

6 hours ago (0)

“Good” May Not Be Good Enough

“The recent recession hit the book industry just like it did every other business, and even though we’re emerging from the chasm, book sales haven’t completely recovered, so publishers are being much more careful than they were a few years ago.”

GalleyCat talks with literary agent Jim Donovan, who has been in the business for 17 years and has “seen the world of books from every angle, editor, book seller, and author.”

7 hours ago (0)

Happy St. Patrick’s Day

Don’t miss today’s holiday Rumpus comic from Space Avalanche.

8 hours ago (0)

Just in Time for March Madness

I wish I had bought this:

Only $8.99!

8 hours ago (0)

The Rumpus Report from South by Southwest #1

If you subscribed to the Daily Rumpus you would receive messages like this via email throughout the week.

I’m at South by Southwest and have half an hour to compose this note. …more

8 hours ago (0)

The Last Poem I Loved: “Dear Augusta” by Reginald Dwayne Betts

“Dear Augusta” by Reginald Dwayne Betts speaks for itself as a whole art piece, horrifying and beautiful and eye-widening, and I’m finding it pretty difficult to write about it at all but it is definitely the last poem I’ve loved so here goes nothing.

The full poem is online in the January 2010 issue of The Collagist, where you can also access an audio file of Betts reading the piece.

Augusta Correctional Center is a prison in Virginia. Betts spent much of his youth in custody after being tried and convicted as an adult for a multiple-felony carjacking at the age of 16. “Dear Augusta” is a kind of letter from Betts, filled with commands, stories, testimony meant for the jail’s walls and rooms, and ending with a question posed to the institution: “Dear Augusta, what do / names mean?” …more

11 hours ago (0)

Morning Coffee

Spring! (almost)

German prison cells are mostly nicer than my apartment.

Words get in David Byrne’s way.

Technically this is about old type interfaces, but let’s be honest here it’s just typewriter design porn.

The sun is out today, and this house’s above ground pool is all sorts of appealing.

What this country needs: Jonathan “the impaler” Sharkey, America’s first vampire president.

Could there be a second, EVIL sun? (There totally could!)

14 hours ago (0)

Google.cn Update

So Google still hasn’t pulled out of China. But today the company unblocked previously censored sites:

“Web sites dealing with subjects such as the Tiananmen Square democracy protests, Tibet and regional independence movements could all be accessed through Google’s Chinese search engine Tuesday, after the company said it would no longer abide by Beijing’s censorship rules.”

Learn more.

1 day ago (0)

A Chat with Zap Mama

Marie Daulne’s music reflects the story of her life.

Her father, a Belgium colonialist, was killed by child rebels in the Democratic Republic of the Congo shortly after impregnating her mother, Cyrille Daulne. After his death Cyrille emigrated to Belgium, where Marie was schooled and raised. …more

1 day ago (0)

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Rumpus Originals

GENERATION GAP #2: Artistic Research in Contemporary Beirut

Mirene Arsanios  ·  March 17th, 2010

Marwa Arsanios and Vartan Avakian are still young. They belong to a generation of artists who grew up during the Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990), and their unique experience with artistic research in Lebanon is revealing new narratives for a catastrophic historical episode. …more

The Rumpus Interview with Jake Gillespie

Christopher Read  ·  March 16th, 2010

“I used to always think of paintings as big large novels. And then all of these little drawings that I’ve been making, I think of them more as a bunch of poems equaling a chapbook or maybe a bunch of short stories…” …more

Ted Wilson Reviews the World #27

Ted Wilson  ·  March 15th, 2010

ABRACADABRA
★★★★★ (3 out of 5)

Hello, and welcome to my week-by-week review of everything in the world. Today I am reviewing abracadabra. …more

The Rumpus Review of Wonderful World

Ruth McCann  ·  March 15th, 2010

Wonderful World taps the fretful zeitgeist, but trips along with freshness and humor and pleasant darkness, like Broken Flowers or Happy-Go-Lucky. …more

More Rumpus Originals Below ↓

Rumpus Book Reviews

The Best of It

Barbara Berman  ·  March 17th, 2010

Kay Ryan has been compared to Emily Dickinson, and I like to imagine Dickinson and Marianne Moore reading her with sly commiseration. Unlike some poets with recognizable styles, Ryan does not write the same poem again and again, and her sharp eye is both benevolent and unflinching.

…more

American History X-treme

Caleb Powell  ·  March 16th, 2010

A former neo-Nazi’s memoir describes a violent life in the white supremacist movement and his transformative experiences in prison. …more

Teenagers from Mars

Glenn Lester  ·  March 10th, 2010

Peter Bognanni’s first novel mixes punk rock and the wild creativity of Buckminster Fuller into a tender and believable chronicle of teen sorrow. …more

more books »

Rumpus Comics

TRUTH SERUM: <br/>Aspirations

TRUTH SERUM:
Aspirations

Jon Adams  ·  March 17th, 2010  ·  more »
SPACE AVALANCHE:  Paddy’s Day

SPACE AVALANCHE: Paddy’s Day

Eoin Ryan  ·  March 16th, 2010  ·  more »

Video Interruption Choose 1 2 3 4 5 More »

The Rumpus Review of Shutter Island

Larry Fahey  ·  March 12th, 2010

When Scorsese makes a new film, the question is less whether it’s good than whether the decision to make it in the first place was good.

…more

FUNNY WOMEN (COMBO!) #18: Publishing House

Submission Guidelines
by Jane Roper

Dear Writer:

Thank you for your interest in our publication. …more

DEAR SUGAR, The Rumpus Advice Column #27: Starting Fresh

Sugar  ·  March 11th, 2010

There’s a new Sugar in town:

FAQ Redux

Q. What sort of advice column is this? …more

The Rumpus Interview with Chang-rae Lee

Jennifer Gilmore  ·  March 11th, 2010

I have been stalking—I mean reading—Chang-rae Lee since his first book, Native Speaker, was published in 1994. …more

The Contradiction of Contradiction: A Conversation with Banksy

Billy Bliss  ·  March 10th, 2010

“The thing I hate most about advertising is that it attracts all the young, bright, creative people, leaving us with only the slow and self-obsessed to become our artists. Modern art is a disaster area. Never in human history has so much been used by so many to say so little.”

- Banksy …more

RECESSION SEX WORKERS #9: The Refined Tyranny of Mistress Marzanna Katorga

Antonia Crane  ·  March 9th, 2010

“The early messages in my family were that women are the source of power. They made the household decisions, held the purse strings, and if the woman of the house was not happy, no one was happy. “ …more

Ted Wilson Reviews the World #26

Ted Wilson  ·  March 8th, 2010

NEEDLEPOINT
★★★★★ (5 out of 5)

Hello, and welcome to my week-by-week review of everything in the world. Today I am reviewing needlepoint. …more

Reality Boredom: Why David Shields is Completely Right and Totally Wrong

Lincoln Michel  ·  March 8th, 2010

1.
Reality Hunger, the newest book from the always interesting David Shields, comes sheathed in glowing blurbs from the likes of Lydia Davis, Ben Marcus, Amy Hempel and Jonathan Lethem. Needless to say, I had high expectations …more

GENERATION GAP #1: Tomokazu Matsuyama’s Quiet Compass for a Noisy Revolution

Ari Messer  ·  March 5th, 2010

One unintended consequence of David Ross’s appearance on the Colbert Report last year has been the misunderstanding of intention. …more

Ex-Nymphet

Kirsty Logan  ·  March 4th, 2010

I’m 18, I’m standing under a spotlight with no clothes on, and the photographer is pointing at my thighs. …more

Read more Rumpus Originals »

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