Cheryl Strayed was this week’s guest ethicist for The New York Times Magazine.

She responded to three queries–relating to sex, money, and infidelity–with that Cheryl/Sugar blend of wisdom and wit.

Rumpus columnist Nicholas Rombes served as today’s guest editor for London-based online magazine Berfrois.

Rombes curated an array of excellent pieces, including Rumpus editor Isaac Fitzgerald’s “In Love in San Francisco,” Peggy Nelson’s “Short Attention Span Theater,” and two poems by John Freeman.

Dan Weiss is off today, but we’re channeling him.

Smoke. Stone. Super Nintendo. Skin under a band-aid… 50 Shades of Grey.

Animals with fraudulent diplomas.

Yesterday, a giant solar-powered airplane departed from Switzerland in its first transcontinental flight.

Here are some vintage photographs that capture the special bond between ventriloquist and dummy.

“I went into this party wondering what kind of guys I’d be attracted to just on the basis of pheromone smell. Could I clear away all the flotsam in my heart – the fetishes for big noses and curly hair that I’ve had since high school, or my habit of falling for cocky artists and writers?”

At Salon, Rumpus contributor Lauren Eggert-Crowe writes about her experience participating in a pheromone party, a phenomenon at the intersection of science and speed dating.

Granta interviews Tania James whose collection Aerogrammes and Other Stories is out this month. James discusses writing from a child’s perspective, scriptology, and the short form.

“Certainly novels can and should take risks but maybe I feel more freedom in the short story form because if it fails halfway in, I don’t feel an urge to toss myself out the window.”

“Pen & Ink,” a new project from Rumpus managing editor Isaac Fitzgerald and artist Wendy MacNaughton, is all about tattoos and the stories behind them.

Check out the Tumblr. And consider sharing your own tatted tale?

According to scholars, Homer never mentioned the color blue in any of his works; neither did the Bible, nor an abundance of ancient texts. Also, linguists have found a near-universal pattern in which languages developed color in stages, and blue was always the last to be named. Radiolab reports and searches for answers.

“Someday they’ll say Bukowski knew. Lay down for three of four days to get your juices back—then get up, look around and do it… But who the hell can do it ‘cause you need a dollar.”

Open Culture shares a video of Charles Bukowski discussing how he deals with depression and renews creativity.

At The Boston Phoenix, Rumpus contributor Thomas Page McBee writes about undergoing his own transition while making sense of the many public stories of transgender people that also occurred throughout the past year.

“Going on hormones was scary. I was afraid of being alone, misunderstood, alien. And [Chaz] Bono complicated things for me. I didn’t see myself in his story, but he was suddenly my mascot.”

At The New York Times, David Carr takes a closer look at the blend of business, journalism and software that characterizes Brooklyn-based multimedia storytelling platform-cum-publisher, The Atavist.

“Part of the reason The Atavist works is that it meets a need that its founders had in their own lives… and was not conceived in a bald effort to exploit a market. They wanted a tool and a platform that would be fungible enough to allow articles to be sold for the iPad, the Kindle and other e-readers.”

“Some barriers aren’t as impermeable as we think. Telling a story on a page and telling a story against a backing track certainly are different, but they’re not irreconcilable.”

The Line interviews writer and rapper Dessa of the Doomtree collective. Dessa discusses collaboration, what attracts her to hip-hop, and the Twin Cities music scene.

(Via Hazel and Wren)

Recommended Reading, Electric Literature’s free digital magazine, has been released! The inaugural story comes from Ben Marcus.

“If my mother knew that she only needed to survive for just under an hour―in order not to die today―would her chances of living increase? If I phoned her now and told her to hang on, so that she didn’t die today, would her odds change? In other words, does it increase our chance of survival if we consciously try to live?”

“Recent research and reports on violence against transgender women have found that, in 2010, 44 percent of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and HIV-affected hate-crime murder victims were trans women. In 2009, trans women accounted for 50 percent of LGBTQH hate-crime murder victims.”

Mother Jones reports on the case of CeCe McDonald. In accepting a plea deal of second-degree manslaughter, McDonald was forced to give up her assertion of self-defense. However, many believe that she was prosecuted for “surviving a hate crime,” and activists have rallied around her as the June 4th sentencing date approaches.

At Full Stop, Stephanie Bernhard weighs in on the literary gender imbalance, arguing that today’s literary marketplace is “identity-driven,” which makes it more difficult for women writers to succeed.

“Our culture still offers men a broader spectrum of acceptable personality types than it does women. Wolitzer quotes poet Katha Pollitt saying ‘For every one woman, there’s room for three men.’ We might amend her statement slightly to say ‘for every female identity, there’s room for three male identities.’”

KCRW talks with Adam Levin about his latest collection of short stories, Hot Pink, behaviorism, the Marx brothers, strange sentences, and his affinity for big drama without sappiness.

(Via Electric Literature)

Randy Packs are “hand drawn improbable sex-act trading cards.” Each card is the work of a different artist, who, after being assigned an improbable sex-act, drew a non-explicit representation of the chosen act.

Series #1 contains 20 collectible cards that come in random packs of five with a cover/checklist card listing all the acts. The first five readers to inquire will receive a free complete set of Randy Packs Series #1! Use this form for your email, and remember to include “Rumpus” in the subject line.

Rumpus artist Jason Novak continues his Paris Review literary panoramas with a new, ten-foot-tall panel illustration of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The House of the Seven Gables.

Episode 70 of Brad Listi’s Other People podcast features Emily St. John Mandel.

Mandel discusses the genesis of her new novel, The Lola Quartet (which was our April Rumpus Book Club selection), dual-citizenship, multi-genre books, and more.

Artist Takeshi Miyakawa’s public art installation was meant to be a city-wide tribute to New York.

Strangely, the project, which involved hanging illuminated plastic bags with the ‘I  ♥ NY’ slogan, prompted a call to the bomb squad and landed Miyakawa in jail on Saturday. He has been charged with reckless endangerment and placing “a false bomb or hazardous substance.” Furthermore, the judge ordered him held pending a psychological evaluation. Absurd.

A couple great Rumpus essays went up over the weekend. Saturday editor Michelle Dean brought us a history lesson, “The Unrequited Yeats.” And don’t miss Tara Ison’s “Flesh and Bones,” a powerful piece on body image.

Jen Vafidis’ Rumpus review of Threats won “Best Anointing” over at Electric Literature’s May Critical Hit Awards.

The second installment of “Super Sad True Habits of Highly Effective Writers” features a number of our friends, including contributor Chloe Caldwell, and Adam Levin, whose novel The Instructions was a Rumpus Book Club selection.

Here’s Nick Flynn on his pre-writing ritual:

“Before I sit down, I need time to wander in the unknown for awhile, either psychically or physically, somewhat aimlessly, yet in a state of awareness, allowing seeming distractions to build up some energy, maybe around an image or idea or sound, until something reveals itself: a pattern, an echo, something that resonates with whatever it is I think I’m supposed to be working on.”

“…Prejudice is a kind of cartel that works best when there is no real dissent. Once one person breaks away, others who may have had doubts find it easy to speak up. Moreover, those who never really had objection–but were just kinda going along–also fall away.”

As more public figures express their support for marriage equality, Ta-Nehisi Coates analyzes the nature of same-sex marriage opposition.

People are beginning to get their Letters to Each Other, and they’re leaving comments on Karen Duffin’s essay, “A Letter to the People Who Wrote Letters to Each Other.”

If you’ve received a letter, we encourage you to head over to the comments section and share your own thoughts, experiences, etc.

Gideon Lewis-Kraus will read from his new book, A Sense of Direction: Pilgrimage for the Restless and the Hopeful, a “dazzling riff on the perpetual war between discipline and desire, and its attendant casualties.”

Tonight, 7p.m. at San Francisco’s Books Inc.

Now That We Have Tasted Hope archives the “most important” primary source documents of the Arab Spring. Published by McSweeney’s and Byliner, and edited by Rumpus contributor Daniel Gumbiner, the book derives its title from Khaled Mattawa’s poem by the same name.

“From the harrowing accounts of tortured protesters to the hollow appeals of crumbling regimes and the triumphant songs of revolutionaries, these documents catalog the events of the Arab Spring in all its complexity and drama.”

In a lyrical crusade against grammatical ignorance, super-fast rapper David McCleary “Mac Lethal” Sheldon breaks down the difference between “your” and “you’re”.

Video after the jump. …more

Here at Rumpus HQ, we take every caffeine-addiction-validating study to heart. So we’re pleased by this week’s research finding that “people who drank four or five cups of coffee a day tended to live longer than those who drank only a cup or less.”

The second episode of Late Night Conversation features Rumpus essays editor Roxane Gay.

Listen in as Gay talks with guest host Karen Munro about emerging writers, publicizing her debut novel, and online journals.

A few figures for some midweek perspective (from a New York Times article about the presence of coyotes in SF parks, and the possibility of coexistence):

“In San Francisco, a city of 805,000, there are 108,000 children, according to the 2010 census. And there are 180,000 dogs, and 10 coyotes, according to city estimates.”