Winter in America: A Musical Lamentation Offered on the Passing of Gil Scott-Heron
Gil Scott-Heron died on May 27, at age 62. As I write this, there’s no official cause of death. We’ll know soon enough. This is America, after all. Whatever the medical details suggest, I’m listing his official cause of death as grief.

When I first came to Boston, a thousand years ago, I taught a class for a tiny literary outfit called
When I was about ten years old, I hit my older brother in the mouth with a baseball bat. We were standing around in a field, hitting pebbles with the bat, and I got him on my backswing. There was a lot of blood.
David Sirota writes a weekly column that appears in dozens of newspapers. He has his own
(Yet Another) Rumpus Lamentation:

“You will have to imagine my confusion when Ms. Nutting’s debut story collection, Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls, appeared on my doorstep. She had chosen to defy all reasonable laws of feminine desire by spurning me as a sexual object.
How I Became a Music Critic:
A Rumpus Meditation on Editors, Ambition, and Angry Dependence (in 33 loosely jointed parts):


A special Rumpus lamentation with possible added pep talk.
Let me introduce my former student Tracey Wigfield, who is now a writer for the television program 30 Rock. I am so happy for Tracey that I am now weeping inconsolably.
How Dave Grohl Taught Me to Stop Whining and (Against Every Known Impulse in My Body) Embrace Happiness
“Chuck Prophet Writes the Songs That Make, Well, Not the Whole World, But a Small, Statistically Insignificant Portion of it Sing”
1. Award George Saunders the Nobel Prize in Decency
You’ve all seen this movie before.
Barry Hannah passed away Monday, March 1, 2010. He was 67 and died of natural causes. The precarious state of his health — he’d battled cancer for some years — was a matter of ongoing concern amongst his wide circle of friends and admirers.