“I had a cartoon in my high school newspaper magazine. Terrible, terrible shit.”

A sneak preview of The Comics Journal’s interview with Maurice Sendak.

“It’s just very hard when you write something that young and it becomes that successful, for reasons of luck, or having the right timing or the right execution. I was 35, and now, at 57, I hear someone mention that book virtually once a day. It was not the best book I ever wrote.”

Mother Jones talks with Buzz Bissinger, author of Friday Night Lights. (Interview conducted by Rumpus alumnus, and all-around rock star, Maddie Oatman.)

HORN! REVIEWS:
Wild

Kevin Thomas reviews our March Rumpus Book Club selection, Cheryl Strayed’s WILD, Rumpus-Comics style.

[Sidenote: We believe this is the best review to date of Cheryl's wildly (see what we did there?) successful book. Granted, we're biased, but whose beliefs aren't?]

An oldie but a goodie: Nick Cave on why he won’t appear in a Gap commercial.

(via @LettersOfNote)

“It takes me a while to recognize beauty; that’s why, as a writer, I edit so compulsively.”

Rumpus editor Stephen Elliott writes about his backpack (you’ll see).

“Yet for Wallace, tennis entails intense aloneness, standing seventy-eight feet away from one’s opponent, warring within and against one’s own brain. Tennis represents an entirely individual struggle to wrest control from the mind: to be at once fully conscious of oneself and yet able to stop thinking.”

A Paris Review essay by A-J Aronstein about growing up, tennis, and David Foster Wallace.

Oh no! It’s the chimpanzee police!

When I am rich, I too will have a shark-filled atrium.

The Japan Animals’ School.

Who is @MCBangarang?

We’ve posted a new Dear Sugar! Hooray!

Today’s column is the first to go live since it was announced that Sugar is, in fact, author Cheryl Strayed. As a celebration we’re revealing the full shot that the usual Sugar photo is cropped from. Yes, those hands holding snow (yes, it’s snow, not sugar) we’re all so familiar with are Cheryl’s.

So here it is, the full photograph (starring Sugar’s sweet, sweet face): …more

Today is David Foster Wallace’s birthday. He would have been 50 years old.

Director and Rumpus editor Stephen Elliott has been spotted (proudly sporting his Rumpus tattoo) alongside actress Ashley Hinshaw in Berlin. Elliott and Hinshaw are both in Germany for the international premier of Cherry. Click here to learn more about the film.

We are thrilled to announce (but also sad, if you didn’t get your ticket yet) that tonight’s Sugar Party at the Verdi Club has sold out.

Details on Sugar’s NYC party will be coming soon.

We experienced a few technical difficulties yesterday, but we’re back today and will be updating regularly once again. Thank you all, as always, for reading The Rumpus!

The FBI has released a 191-page file on Apple founder Steve Jobs. You can learn more, without sifting through the giant file, here.

“Just like they did last year, The Rumpus shares some of the stories of the players participating in the Super Bowl in a way that isn’t as syrupy as Bob Costas.”

Over at Internet-powerhouse kottke.org Jason gives some love to J. Ryan Stradal’s “A Super Bowl Preview For People Who Don’t Know Football,” which we ran yesterday. Thanks Jason, we love you back!

Update: If you haven’t checked out the piece yet yourself, we highly recommend you do.

“Wislawa Szymborska, a gentle and reclusive Polish poet who won the 1996 Nobel Prize in Literature, died on Wednesday in Krakow, Poland. She was 88.”

Learn more about Szymborska’s life and achievements here.

Well would you look at that, our pals over at McSweeney’s have a snazzy new (online) store.

Just saying…

On Sunday we published “Ten Reasons Not to Sleep with a Poet,” but today poets are striking back in the comments section (led no doubt by our pals over at The Poetry Foundation) and vocally defending why you should bed a bard.

So, what do you think? Sex with sonnetists, or do you practice abstinence when it comes to odists? Click here to join the fun.

We don’t often do politics, but oh how we love Jay Smooth.

Today we posted stills from Rumpus editor Stephen Elliott’s forthcoming film, Cherry.

Are you curious to learn more about the movie? Click here.

“I got this urge to get back to sending paper letters, and I also knew a lot of authors who I knew would be really excited about it.”

The Today Show website gives some love to Rumpus editor Stephen Elliott’s latest artistic proposition, Letters in the Mail. (The article also warns its readers that some of our ads “feature colorful language that might raise a few eyebrows.” Well then, let’s hope they don’t click over to our Sex section.)

“Well, we’ve just started doing this. Only a couple of the letters are already written. I know Tao Lin is doing his by hand, and illustrating it. Then we’ll photocopy it and send. I think the authors are going to have a lot of fun with the form.”

AdAge talks to our own Stephen Elliott about the Rumpus’s new Letters in the Mail subscription.

Can you be in San Francisco on February 14th? Are you willing to discuss your experience in front of an audience? If so, email Sugar AT therumpus.net!

Hey folks, we’re going to take it easy this week.

That being said, we’d never leave you all alone. Here are a few things Alec has ollied (we have no idea who Alec is).

New York City cops in the 1970s.

“How Much More Do Books Cost Today?”

Old dude dancing to contemporary music.