On Ann Friedman’s blog, there’s a faux news item that parodies an article from Women’s Wear Daily about the “Dude-itors”—male editors, bros, “big-boys”—at the helm of magazines for both men and women. But, gentlemen, please be seated. …more

Fourteen years ago, after working as a victim’s advocate for underage girls held as adults at Riker’s Island prison, Rachel Lloyd started the Girls Education and Mentoring Service (GEMS) in New York City—a shelter and resource center for American girls recovering from commercial sexual exploitation. …more

In the days and discussions that pass following the child rape scandal at Penn State, two camps of hypothetical speculation have emerged: …more

In Blindsight, Chris Colin has written the true story of b-movie-to-blockbuster producer Simon Lewis’s 16-year recovery from a car crash that left him with a pulse, but little else. …more

“Master strategist Bayard Rustin was Martin Luther King Jr.’s organizer for the 1963 March on Washington, but because he was gay, he has been hidden from history. Activist Stuart Wilber explains.”

While academia works to adjust the long-standing under-representation of women in science, consider for a moment the inevitable corollary to those numbers: the dearth of female mad scientists. …more

In a certain context, a set of swings–and the mild risk, childish competition and sheer stomach-swirling delight that they offer–rise to the level of art. That context is a silent, cavernous gymnasium at the Headlands Center for the Arts, where Paolo Salvagione’s “Competitive Swinging” pits two rows of swingers against one another, and each other.

Though the installation closed on May 8, it’s set to return soon. Keep an eye on the Bay Citizen blog for info on dates and times.

“Google confirmed widespread rumors last night that it will soon launch an invitation-only beta-testing program for its controversial Android phone App, Word Count. According to a press release posted on the Google Lab Team blog, the App will make use of the Lab Team’s recently designed algorithms and a controversial piece of software known as Estimated Time of Death (ETD) to predict how many words a user has left to communicate before the user perishes and dies.”

Forget social networking and privacy fines. Sean Patrick Cooper breaks the real news over at Vol. 1 Brooklyn. Will you be invited?

Judges for the international Man Booker prize have announced the thirteen finalists under consideration for this year’s award recognizing fiction writing—a body of work rather than a single book. Among the nominees is spy novelist John le Carré, who has requested that his name be removed “to give less established authors the opportunity to win.”

The judges are keeping his name on the list anyway.

New York Times reporter and bureau chief, James C. McKinley, has co-written with Erica Goode a follow-up article on the gang rape of an 11-year-old girl in Cleveland, Texas.

McKinley’s initial coverage of the crime was so inexcusably slanted toward sympathy for the rapists and blame for the victim—both in its selection of quotations and editorial angle—that it unleashed a public outcry here on the Rumpus and across the Internet, including a petition signed by nearly 50,000 people on Change.org demanding an apology by the Times. …more

Although countless people on Twitter, Facebook, in blogs and articles, and more than 27,000 people on Change.org have declared their outrage over the way in which the New York Times reported on the gang rape of an 11-year-old girl in Texas, the Times‘ response so far has been mostly silence. Except for a single, completely unsatisfactory reply to The Cutline.

The Cutline pointed out that the only acknowledgment of this issue by the Times was their publishing, of all that they must have received by now, a single letter to the editor. Responding to The Cutline’s request for comment, spokesperson for the Times, Danielle Rhoades Ha, only dug the Times in deeper: …more

Billy Collins’ poem The Art of Drowning animated by Diego Maclean. Via Poetry Foundation.

Delfin Vigil’s wonderful non-fiction story NIKKO: Concrete Commando, beautifully illustrated by Rumpus comics editor Paul Madonna, was first published here on the Rumpus. Now Vigil has retold his tale for radio, and included recordings with Nikko himself, on NPR’s Snap Judgement. It’s great stuff.

East Coast! West Coast! Rumpus Women are reading everywhere! Come out!

San Francisco: Monday night, December 13, 7pm, the Makeout Room

Readings by Michelle Tea, Sarah Fran Wisby, Julie Greicius, Kathleen Alcott and Antonia Crane, with a presentation by Lisa Brown, comedy by Janine Brito and music by The Yellow Dress. Hosted by Stephen Elliott.

New York: Tuesday night, December 14, 7pm

Book Court, 163 Court Street, Cobble Hill, Brooklyn

Readings by Marie Myung-Ok Lee, Michelle Orange, Diana Spechler, Jami Attenberg, Justine Hope Blau, Nell Boeschenstein, and Elissa Bassist.

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Some would say that just having grandchildren makes a woman a superhero. If I live to be so old, I only hope my grandchildren will be as spectacularly awesome as photographer Sacha Goldberger is:

“A few years ago, French photographer Sacha Goldberger found his 91-year-old Hungarian grandmother Frederika feeling lonely and depressed. To cheer her up, he suggested that they shoot a series of outrageous photographs in unusual costumes, poses, and locations.”

Find all of Goldberger’s amazing photos here.

“I asked Wolfgang how long addicts typically had to wait for admission to his clinic. He didn’t understand my question, so I asked again. As I was about to ask a third time, it dawned on me the confusion wasn’t due to language, but to Wolfgang’s inability as a physician to comprehend why any patient should have to wait for treatment.”

Rumpus Women, Vol I, contributor Cheryl Strayed‘s husband, Brian Lindstrom, has written a beautiful, insightful piece about styles of drug treatment and education in Germany and Copenhagen, “Protecting the ‘Least Among Us.’“

Dear IMDB visitors, you may also enjoy Bill and Ted’s Excellent Inception, also this is just plain awesome. You can watch more videos here. And check out reviews and interviews on our film page.

Delfin Vigil’s fantastic true story Nikko: Concrete Commando, has just became available at City Lights in San Francisco. Nikko was first published here on The Rumpus, and then beautifully self-published in the real world. Buying the book in person saves you a dollar off the online price, and gets it to you way faster. It’s also sold at Aquarius Records, Dog Eared Books, or Needles & Pens.

Three cheers for self-publishing and independent bookstores.

Well, stop. This article at The Nation, by Colin Robinson, explains how Amazon’s distorted metrics, anti-trust violations, “ruthless bullying” and “capo-like tactics” are destroying publishing.

Delfin Vigil’s fantastic true story Nikko: Concrete Commando, first published here on The Rumpus, was also beautifully self-published in the real world. If you’re in San Francisco, you can now buy Nikko at Aquarius Records, Dog Eared Books, or Needles & Pens.

Buying the book in person at one of these shops saves you a dollar off the online price, and gets it to you way faster. We’ll keep you posted as it becomes available at other locations.

That’s what Hunter Thompson would have really wanted for people to understand, how one little letter can change your life. If you reach out, if you connect to the right person in the right way, it can change things, or get you out of prison. …more

The paintings of Andrew Abbott run a broad, beautiful range of darkness and humor. Several of his paintings remind me of Picasso: “Say No to Durgs” [sic] has all the conflict and chaos of “Guernica,” for example. Others, with their ripe-red color and self-affliction, or even mysterious “Mounds,” feel like Louise Bourgeois.

But Abbott’s own spectrum of anguish displays a deep conflict about drug use and mortality; in some works he uses a rainbow of bright pastel colors to depict playful, strange anatomy, bodily excretions, or just the flush of life on George Washington’s cheeks. But in an instant about-face, Abbott’s hues can shift to grays and browns—stonelike, especially in the mass burial “Corpulence.”

His work straddles the deadly serious and sad to a certain absurdist humor—a lightness that seems to stand up against, and safely balance, the gravity of the rest. Take a look: …more

“I was seeing something about the human mind. I was seeing the author in the text in a way that people hadn’t seen the author in the text before.”

Jed Abumrad of Radiolab talks with scientists about how our use of words—the density and complexity of our sentences, or lack thereof—may be an indicator of our current and future mental health. Agatha Christie, for example, wrote 80 detective novels, but in book number 73, something changed. Listen now.

Radiolab is the coolest show on the dial.

“…I was outed on a chicklit book forum pretending to be a fan of the book and concealing my role as author. The forum administrator who suspended me was named FunkyTown, and the exchange became one of the vignettes performed in relation to the work. Another centered around an Amazon user named ‘soulnourisher’ who identified Sexy Librarian as number 3 on his list ‘Ultimate Guide to Literary Soul Nourishment for Librarians.’”

“…After the Personal History project I have thought a lot about my apathy for souvenirship, for things like Stevie Nicks merch. For that project I interviewed 15 of the 50 U.S. State Archivists about what they collect personally and often compulsively. In nearly every conversation these prestigious object historians openly embraced being ‘the paperclip guy,’ the ‘Beatles wallpaper fanatic’ or the dude you always bought refrigerator magnets of international cities for.”

More gems to be had in Idiom’s interview with artist and author Julia Weist.

If ever two female poets were going to clutch hands and drive off a cliff together, it would be Katharine Harris Bradley and Edith Emma Cooper. …more

Most people would be content to watch Richard Porter watching paint dry. But at the next Monthly Rumpus on February 8^th, Rich—who is Hooping.org’s male hooper of the year—will storm the stage with his stunning talent as a hoopdancer.

By day, Richard Porter makes a living as an architect, a career initially inspired by his love of libraries. The precision of his design talents shines through in his other life as an expert and pioneer in hoopdance. Rich blogs at Isopop.com, and, together with the incredible Vival Spiral, has developed Hoop Technique, a new movement in hoopdance instruction. And he’s just one of the incredible performers at the next Monthly Rumpus–one you won’t want to miss. Get tickets here. Video and images after the jump.

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