Weekly Geekery
Touching everyone all the time always.
Twitter: not a great contribution to the historical record.
Will technology put an end to disability? A discussion with Slate.
How the Internet’s libertarian experiment went rogue.
...morePosts Tagged: addiction
The Rumpus Interview with Laura van den Berg
Author Laura van den Berg talks to the Rumpus about why she thinks America is obsessed with dystopias, the intersection of surrealism and realism in her work, and choosing an ambiguous ending for her new novel, Find Me. ...more
The Rumpus Interview with Kenny Porpora
Kenny Porpora discusses his memoir The Autumn Balloon, addiction and alcoholism, writing truthfully about his mother, falling asleep at Burger King with his laptop while drafting, and how he finally found his personal writing style. ...more
“And She Went on Her Way Rejoicing”
Muriel Spark and the perennial question: “Am I a woman or an intellectual monster?” ...more
The Part of Stories One Never Quite Believes
And maybe that’s the ticket: grace. It was the year I expected harsh karma. But instead, I called my friends from the gutters of Hollywood and they picked me up. Every time. ...more
Masked Calling
Over at Vice, Eric Nusbaum chronicles the life of Padre Fray Tormenta, Texcoco’s resident addict turned priest turned interim luchador enmascarado:
...moreIn theory, a priest wearing a lucha libre mask sounds strange. But in the case of Padre Fray Tormenta, it looks and feels completely normal.
The Sunday Rumpus Essay: Photos that Remember Us
Mathew Daddona's father and uncle were adopted into different families. When they reunited with each other and their biological father as adults, they uncovered connections that extend through the generations. ...more
Weekly Geekery
The intricacies of Spambot sexuality.
Refining the language of the online review.
Is threatening to cut someone in the comments section protected speech?
Sure, I know. You can quit Twitter anytime you want to.
...moreThe Influence of Being Under the Influence
For the Public Domain Review, Richard Millington explores the influence of cocaine on the poetry of Georg Trakl and compares it to the ways other artists’ addictions have shown up in their work.
...moreWeekend Rumpus Roundup
In “Hunting For The Little Prince,” Sigal Samuel invites us to tag along as she pursues the real-life inspiration for the blonde-haired protagonist of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s famous children’s book. No spoilers, but this particular missing person search ends happily.
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The Sunday Rumpus Essay: Crazy
"We live in a culture where it can seem like everyone wants to be troubled. Nobody wants to be crazy...The story arc of mental illness does not conform to the redemption tale." ...more
No One Hears the Wars in Your Head. Except You.
...moreI worked the same way with alcohol and drugs, and my whiskey elves, my beasts, never disappointed. I mean, they didn’t always write the prettiest prose — cocaine isn’t known to instill poetry — but they usually unearthed interesting images and haunting motifs.
Addiction, Alcohol, and Authors
...moreYou didn’t ask directly about gender, but I’ll answer anyway: I stuck with men for a more personal reason, which is that my experience as a child was with a female alcoholic and the subject was just too painful for me.
Bibliophilism: On Love and Addiction
It is possible to give one’s life to books, to dedicate years to collecting, reading, teaching, translating, writing, and studying them. In an essay for the New Yorker, Thomas E. Kennedy, a writer, editor, translator, and professor, reflects on his own experience of leading a life “decided by books,” the result of being given a book that reeled him in when he was still at “a susceptible age.”
Kennedy writes: “You wonder whether you actually love books or are merely addicted to them, obsessed by them.”
By the end of Kenendy’s essay, it remains unclear whether an obsession with collecting books is a good or a bad thing.
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The Sunday Rumpus Essay: Valentine’s Day
It was only one meal after all and what could go wrong? The answer was simple. Me. ...more
A Letter to Eric
What follows is a love letter to my twenty-six-year-old brother Eric, written shortly after he overdosed on heroin. He survived. ...more
The Sunday Rumpus Essay: Veronica’s Teeth
"...people like us made our own destruction. We suicide-bombed our own lives." ...more
The Rumpus Interview with Brian Lindstrom
We talk to filmmaker Brian Lindstrom about his latest project, Alien Boy, the creative process behind documentary filmmaking, and his personal and artistic relationship with his wife, Cheryl Strayed. ...more
Albums of our Lives: Rufus Wainwright’s Poses
If I had written a list of pros and cons, I might have seen how moving to Austin from Seattle with a boyfriend who had just kicked heroin, and with stripping as my only job prospect, was not a recipe for success.
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Colt 1911: A Partial Timeline
“Eli. The gun is in my bedroom. There are bullets in there, too. I don’t need to worry about you guys, do I?” ...more
From Alcoholic to Diet Cokehead
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.
...moreYou’re present when you’re not drinking a fifth of Jack Daniel’s every day.
The Thinking Man’s Filter
Smoking again sounds like a good idea. I quit one November – twelve dry months following five years of intense puffing. The break was insightful, curative even, which was why I thought it might be time to resume the habit.
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The Sweet Smell of Excess
Al-Anon sucked. If I hadn’t been too broke for therapy, I’d never have taken a friend’s advice to attend those awful meetings. They were worse than the AA meetings I’d been to over the years in support of my string of alcoholic boyfriends—three, if you’re keeping count.
...moreShould We All Commit Facebook Suicide?
“But somewhere in that transition from a social site meant to deepen interpersonal relationships to a self promotional, commercial tool, Facebook lost its appeal.
“The various facets of my life merged into a web of connectivity where I could no longer clearly create distinct relationships with friends, foes, and fast food — either because I can’t figure out how or because Facebook is preventing me outright.
...moreNo Wi-Fi: A Very Short Q&A with Alan from Borderlands Cafe
A couple weeks back, I was in a bad way. I’d recently joined Twitter, was always on Facebook, and checked my email (and I don’t exaggerate) about 75 times a day. I couldn’t stand it, but I also couldn’t stop. I spent more than half my waking hours on a screen.
...moreOn the Couch
The protagonist of this novel about addiction, therapy, and recovery, confronts many of the same issues as its author.
...moreNovelist disappears into illness, addiction
Kaye Gibbons, author of the 1987 debut best-seller Ellen Foster and several subsequent novels, is the subject of an Associated Press profile published in several newspapers and Sunday book sections over the weekend. The article traces her downfall from “vivacious” best-selling author to her 2008 arrest for forging hydrocodone prescriptions to her disappearance into mental illness.
...moreBeyond the Pleasure Principle: One Woman’s Reading History
When I started reading as a child, it was an immoderate, late-night indulgence of sweaty palmed, pupil-dilating gluttony. Books were a drug, and civilized society was the pusher. And I got really really high. ...more