The Rumpus.net » Other http://therumpus.net Books, Music, Movies, Art, Politics, Sex, Other Fri, 24 May 2013 19:16:56 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 Literary Feuds in the Digital Age Get Ugly http://therumpus.net/2013/05/literary-feuds-in-the-digital-age-get-ugly/ http://therumpus.net/2013/05/literary-feuds-in-the-digital-age-get-ugly/#comments Fri, 24 May 2013 17:00:09 +0000 Lauren ONeal http://therumpus.net/?p=114721 While we were all shaking our heads about sexist changes to the “American Novelists” page, Wikipedia editor “Qworty” was taking action—by making a series of “revenge edits” to Amanda Filipacchi’s page.

But, sadly and strangely, that was only the tip of the iceberg.

]]> While we were all shaking our heads about sexist changes to the “American Novelists” page, Wikipedia editor “Qworty” was taking action—by making a series of “revenge edits” to Amanda Filipacchi’s page.

But, sadly and strangely, that was only the tip of the iceberg. It turns out Qworty is a novelist himself, and he’s conducted an elaborate campaign of retribution not just against Filipacchi but also against several other authors who he felt had wronged him.

Andrew Leonard at Salon has the whole sordid story on the role of Internet anonymity in this modern-day literary feud.

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]]> http://therumpus.net/2013/05/literary-feuds-in-the-digital-age-get-ugly/feed/ 0 Get Loud with Quiet Lightning http://therumpus.net/2013/05/get-loud-with-quiet-lightning/ http://therumpus.net/2013/05/get-loud-with-quiet-lightning/#comments Fri, 24 May 2013 12:00:59 +0000 Lauren ONeal http://therumpus.net/?p=113815 The Rumpus is teaming up with San Francisco nonprofit Quiet Lightning to present a live literary mix tape, and we want you to join us!

Submit a piece less than eight minutes long for the chance to read at the event, or just join us as a guest for an evening of short readings from a variety of fantastic writers.

]]> The Rumpus is teaming up with San Francisco nonprofit Quiet Lightning to present a live literary mix tape, and we want you to join us!

Submit a piece less than eight minutes long for the chance to read at the event, or just join us as a guest for an evening of short readings from a variety of fantastic writers.

It all goes down July 9. Keep your eyes peeled for more details!

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]]> http://therumpus.net/2013/05/get-loud-with-quiet-lightning/feed/ 0 Dan Weiss’s Morning Coffee http://therumpus.net/2013/05/dan-weisss-morning-coffee-664/ http://therumpus.net/2013/05/dan-weisss-morning-coffee-664/#comments Fri, 24 May 2013 10:00:36 +0000 Dan Weiss http://therumpus.net/?p=114724 It’s my birthday and a holiday weekend, so we’re taking a couple days off. In the meanwhile here are some great tumblrs to fill your time. See you on Tuesday.

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]]> It’s my birthday and a holiday weekend, so we’re taking a couple days off. In the meanwhile here are some great tumblrs to fill your time. See you on Tuesday.

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]]> http://therumpus.net/2013/05/dan-weisss-morning-coffee-664/feed/ 0 Sympathy for the Library-Fine Dodger http://therumpus.net/2013/05/sympathy-for-the-library-fine-dodger/ http://therumpus.net/2013/05/sympathy-for-the-library-fine-dodger/#comments Thu, 23 May 2013 23:00:49 +0000 Lauren ONeal http://therumpus.net/?p=114711 You can’t always get what you want…and if what Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones wants is forgiveness for decades-old library fines, then he’s out of luck.

Actually, that’s probably not true—many libraries have an amnesty day where you can come in and wipe your record clean for free.

]]> You can’t always get what you want…and if what Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones wants is forgiveness for decades-old library fines, then he’s out of luck.

Actually, that’s probably not true—many libraries have an amnesty day where you can come in and wipe your record clean for free.

Still, it would be a nice gesture for Richards to pay some of the £20,000 he possibly owes, given that as a teenager he considered it an oasis from the dreariness of small-town life: “It was a place where you get a hint there was a place called civilisation,” he told the Sun.

It seems worth noting that Wikipedia calls the jilted library “reportedly haunted“—perhaps by Richards’s sense of civic duty, which clearly died long ago? Hmmm?

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]]> http://therumpus.net/2013/05/sympathy-for-the-library-fine-dodger/feed/ 0 From Alcoholic to Diet Cokehead http://therumpus.net/2013/05/from-alcoholic-to-diet-cokehead/ http://therumpus.net/2013/05/from-alcoholic-to-diet-cokehead/#comments Thu, 23 May 2013 22:00:15 +0000 Lauren ONeal http://therumpus.net/?p=114708 In an interview with addiction website The Fix, reprinted at Salon, memoirist and poet Mary Karr discusses getting clean, flouting rules, and how sobriety shaped her relationship with David Foster Wallace.

You’re present when you’re not drinking a fifth of Jack Daniel’s every day.

]]> In an interview with addiction website The Fix, reprinted at Salon, memoirist and poet Mary Karr discusses getting clean, flouting rules, and how sobriety shaped her relationship with David Foster Wallace.

You’re present when you’re not drinking a fifth of Jack Daniel’s every day. It’s probably better for your writing career, you know? I think being tortured as a virtue is a kind of antiquated sense of what it is to be an artist.

Read the whole thing for more insight (and some harsh words for Dr. Drew and James Frey).

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]]> http://therumpus.net/2013/05/from-alcoholic-to-diet-cokehead/feed/ 0 Send A Letter Commemorating Irish Letters http://therumpus.net/2013/05/send-a-letter-commemorating-irish-letters/ http://therumpus.net/2013/05/send-a-letter-commemorating-irish-letters/#comments Thu, 23 May 2013 19:56:07 +0000 Lauren ONeal http://therumpus.net/?p=114706 What a cool way to celebrate Ireland’s storytelling tradition: a new Irish stamp features the text of an entire short-short by 17-year-old Dubliner Eoin Moore.

Moore’s piece, about how “[t]he city embodies the people, and the people embody the city,” won out over “a host” of other entries at Roddy Doyle’s Fighting Words Centre.

]]> What a cool way to celebrate Ireland’s storytelling tradition: a new Irish stamp features the text of an entire short-short by 17-year-old Dubliner Eoin Moore.

Moore’s piece, about how “[t]he city embodies the people, and the people embody the city,” won out over “a host” of other entries at Roddy Doyle’s Fighting Words Centre.

Take a moment to appreciate that the writing center named after Roddy Doyle is called “Fighting Words,” then click through to see the stamp and read the story.

(Via.)

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]]> http://therumpus.net/2013/05/send-a-letter-commemorating-irish-letters/feed/ 0 Self-published micro-fictions by Matthew Sharpe http://therumpus.net/2013/05/self-published-micro-fictions-by-matthew-sharpe/ http://therumpus.net/2013/05/self-published-micro-fictions-by-matthew-sharpe/#comments Thu, 23 May 2013 13:00:30 +0000 Tara Landers http://therumpus.net/?p=114633 On Monday, the novelist Matthew Sharpe announced that once a week for the next twelve weeks he will write a very short story to post on his blogspot as an experiment in self-publishing.

Uncommonly simple in execution, his blog is pure unadulterated text.

]]> On Monday, the novelist Matthew Sharpe announced that once a week for the next twelve weeks he will write a very short story to post on his blogspot as an experiment in self-publishing.

Uncommonly simple in execution, his blog is pure unadulterated text. Anything more would take away from his brilliantly observed vignettes that seem quiet and unassuming until they aren’t. The first story, which is one paragraph, is a chillingly relevant account of a mysterious hooded boy sitting in the back of a classroom, told from the perspective of his high school history teacher.

Especially moving in the unobtrusive nature of his writing, Sharpe’s stories acutely condense the most intimate aspects of human relationships.

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]]> http://therumpus.net/2013/05/self-published-micro-fictions-by-matthew-sharpe/feed/ 0 Dan Weiss’s Morning Coffee http://therumpus.net/2013/05/dan-weisss-morning-coffee-663/ http://therumpus.net/2013/05/dan-weisss-morning-coffee-663/#comments Thu, 23 May 2013 10:00:08 +0000 Dan Weiss http://therumpus.net/?p=114663 If you are dreaming a lot about animals, you might get Alzheimers (and other signs).

Maybe aliens are just energy conscious. Maybe a lot of things.

So it’s settled then: Mars ain’t the kind of place to raise your kids (yet)(duh).

]]> If you are dreaming a lot about animals, you might get Alzheimers (and other signs).

Maybe aliens are just energy conscious. Maybe a lot of things.

So it’s settled then: Mars ain’t the kind of place to raise your kids (yet)(duh).

Who doesn’t love early automatons?

Here is your vending machine based art installation for the day.

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]]> http://therumpus.net/2013/05/dan-weisss-morning-coffee-663/feed/ 0 Only the Lonely (Have Serious Health Problems) http://therumpus.net/2013/05/only-the-lonely-have-serious-health-problems/ http://therumpus.net/2013/05/only-the-lonely-have-serious-health-problems/#comments Wed, 22 May 2013 18:00:42 +0000 Lauren ONeal http://therumpus.net/?p=114620 Loneliness is more than just a feeling, according to an article in the New Republic. It’s a biological process that activates your physical pain responses and trashes your immune system.

Here’s one of many fascinating (and, okay, probably depressing) examples of the very tangible effects of loneliness, from a study of gay men with HIV during the ’80s:

The social experience that most reliably predicted whether an HIV-positive gay man would die quickly, Cole found, was whether or not he was in the closet.

]]> Loneliness is more than just a feeling, according to an article in the New Republic. It’s a biological process that activates your physical pain responses and trashes your immune system.

Here’s one of many fascinating (and, okay, probably depressing) examples of the very tangible effects of loneliness, from a study of gay men with HIV during the ’80s:

The social experience that most reliably predicted whether an HIV-positive gay man would die quickly, Cole found, was whether or not he was in the closet. Closeted men infected with HIV died an average of two to three years earlier than out men.

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]]> http://therumpus.net/2013/05/only-the-lonely-have-serious-health-problems/feed/ 0 Soyinka Clears the Record on Achebe http://therumpus.net/2013/05/soyinka-clears-the-record-on-achebe/ http://therumpus.net/2013/05/soyinka-clears-the-record-on-achebe/#comments Wed, 22 May 2013 15:55:59 +0000 Lauren ONeal http://therumpus.net/?p=114615 “Achebe A Celebrated Storyteller, But No Father Of African Literature, Says Soyinka.” The headline sound sensationalistic and snipey, but this interview with Wole Soyinka about the death of Chinua Achebe is nuanced and comprehensive, if more than a little prickly.

Soyinka discusses what it’s like to lose a friend and colleague—and what it’s like to deal with the media’s wrongheaded notions about the relationship between the two men and the literary scene they were a part of.

]]> “Achebe A Celebrated Storyteller, But No Father Of African Literature, Says Soyinka.” The headline sound sensationalistic and snipey, but this interview with Wole Soyinka about the death of Chinua Achebe is nuanced and comprehensive, if more than a little prickly.

Soyinka discusses what it’s like to lose a friend and colleague—and what it’s like to deal with the media’s wrongheaded notions about the relationship between the two men and the literary scene they were a part of. Plus the way he talks is incredible:

At this stage in our lives, the surviving have a duty to smash the mouths of liars to begin with, then move to explain to those who have genuinely misread, who have failed to place incidents in their true perspective, or who simply forget that life is sometimes strange – rich but strange, and inundated with flux.

(Via.)

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