The Daily Rumpus
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From Stephen Elliott
This week in New York, Scary stories with Storychord.com; Deborah Baker on The Convert at the NYPL; a reading by US Poet Laureate Philip Levine; Colson Whitehead on zombies at McNally Jackson; Record Collecting for Girls; the CMJ Music Marathon & Film Festival; and five authors at Unnameable Books.
This week in New York, the Franklin Park and Belladonna Reading Series; Margaret Atwood on science fiction; Debut Fiction Reading with Teju Cole, Anna Solomon, and Rebecca Wolff; Henry Rollins at McNally Jackson; Poets House Sleepover for Members; Flash fiction at the InDigest Reading.
Want to know what type of books are lying around the offices of The Village Voice or Flavorpill? BuzzFeed has a great collection of the books found in various media companies. I especially liked the selection found at COED Magazine’s office.
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This week in New York, The Big Read: Utopia/Dystopia at the Center for Fiction; Largehearted Lit presents readings on fatherhood; Michael Ondaatje reads from his new novel; the Center for Book Arts Annual Chapbook Reading; The Inspired Word’s Big Apple BAP/Fall Edition: NYC’s Best American Poetry Poets; Storybook Burlesque does Through the Looking-Glass; and Blake Butler reads at BookCourt.
“A few days ago, Betsy, a trained librarian who lives in Brooklyn, came to the protest for the first time and found a short stack of books lying on the ground where everyone was camped out. She decided to go to one of the organizational meetings for the protests and ask if anyone else thought it would be a good idea to start a proper library.
...moreThis week in New York, louderARTS features poets Nina Corwin and Tara Hardy, John Lithgow on Drama at Barnes & Noble, How I Learned to Survive, Sideshow Goshko, and The New Yorker Festival.
I thought I’d mix in some serious reading with the humorous for you:
Interesting read in The Stranger on white people, Seattle, racism, and something called the Coalition of Anti-Racist Whites.
The Hairpin imagines product placement in the publishing industry.
...more“Who hasn’t been moved by a great memoir? But I’m sensing that literature—infinite in its potential of ranges and expressions—is in a rut, tending to hit the same note again and again, confining itself to the narrowest of spectrums, resulting in a practice that has fallen out of step and is unable to take part in arguably the most vital and exciting cultural discourses of our time.
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This week in New York, Kick Assonance poetry reading at KGB Bar; Damion Searls talks Proust and Ruskin; Center for Book Arts opens fall exhibitions; Page Meets Stage with Suheir Hammad and Beau Sia; The Soundtrack Series; the Asian American Writers’ Workshop’s Mom Mic; Word, Rock, & Sword: A Musical Celebration of Women; and the Housing Works Bookstore Café all-day shopping bazaar.
The Brits, more specifically, a UK organization called the Society of Authors, will be highlighting the importance of the short story with a special Tweetathon. The tweetathon features a well-known author tweeting the first line of a story; the next four sentences of the story are written by tweeters to create a 670-character short story (the best four sentences of the contributing tweets are chosen by curators of the project).
...moreOne of my guilty pleasures is reading trashy romance novels. The majority of these novels stick to the same format, with sex scenes that range from tepid to the written version of simulated porn from Skinemax–nothing too raunchy or taboo. But thanks to an editorial oversight, Susan Andersen’s new ebook, Baby, I’m Yours, has a scene that delves into a kinky side that her readers were probably unprepared for.
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This week in New York, an Akilah Oliver Memorial Reading at The New School, non-fiction with The Believer at KGB Bar, Pitchapalooza, Poetry from the Rooftops, The Center for Fiction celebrates The Literarian, a reading with author Tananarive Due, and the Brooklyn Book Festival.
St. Mark’s Bookshop has lived in New York City since before I was born. And I hope it, and bookstores like it, are around long after I’m gone.
It’s a story we seem to be hearing a lot lately, bookstores and other small businesses closing because they are unable to afford the rent.
...moreThis week in New York, the West Indian American Day Parade in Brooklyn, Red Lemonade Launch Party with Kio Stark, Melville House Poetry After 9/11, Red Hen Press authors at Bowery Poetry Club, Mike Geffner’s Inspired Word with Rachel Eliza Griffiths and Paulie Lipman, the 4th Annual Nerd Nite Nerdtacular, Poets House and Trinity Wall Street present Remembrance and Reconciliation Through Poetry, and LitCrawl NYC at KGB Bar.
About a hundred gay, lesbian, and bisexual members of the military will come out to their fellow service members on U.S. Army and Air Force bases in the pages of OutServe Magazine on September 20, 2011. That is the day that “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is officially over and done with.
...moreThis week in New York a Post-Irene Open Slam at louderArts, Word for Word poetry at Bryant Park, The Believer magazine celebrates its music issue, free movie at Brooklyn Bridge Park, Seven Against Thebes at East River Park, MoMA PS1 Warm Up, and author Anne Elizabeth Moore at Bluestockings.
This week in New York Amy Waldman reads from The Submission; a book party for Jennifer Close’s Girls in White Dresses; CALYX poetry reading at Bluestockings; a night of prose at KGB Bar; Central Park Film Festival shows Shine a Light, documentary on The Stones; the Warm Up at MoMA PS1; the Inkwell journal 15th anniversary reading at Cornelia Street Café.
How can we interest boys in reading when the majority of YA bestsellers are targeted to girls, who are more into books about “mean girls, gossip girls, frenemies and vampires”?
Sports journalist Robert Lipsyte, whose most recent books include a memoir, An Accidental Sportswriter, and YA novel, Center Field, has an essay in The New York Times on boys, the type of books they might be interested in, and how to get them to read.
...moreBookLamp.org could be called the cousin of Pandora. This new website allows you to type in the name of a favorite book or author and then finds books with similar “DNA” to help you find new books.
BookLamp is a product of The Book Genome Project (no relation to the people behind the Music Genome Project), which uses science to break down books and identify similarities.
...moreAlthough I prefer Garamond, Times New Roman is the font of choice for the rest of the world. Did you know that this classic font has a shady past?
Stanley Morison, a typography consultant for The Times, is credited as being the father of the font that debuted in October 1943.
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This week in New York the Franklin Park Reading Series on Missed Connections; Word for Word features the poets of Letras Latinas; a party for My Drunk Kitchen; Poetry from the Rooftops with Cedar Sigo, Rosanna Warren, and Dara Wier; a rooftop viewing of World’s Best Dad; the 7th Annual Fort Greene Park Summer Literary Festival; and SummerStage salutes hip-hop with Rakim, EPMD, and Funkmaster Flex.
“The Tower of Babel,” is an 80-foot tower art installation of 30,000 books created by Argentinean artist Marta Minujín to celebrate Buenos Aires being the 2011 World Book Capital as named by UNESCO. The tower stood from May 7 to May 28, 2011, and when it was taken down some of the books (of different languages) were donated to visitors, while the remaining books will build a new “Library of Babel.” (via)
...moreYoko Ono is gifting YouTube viewers with a free viewing of Bed Peace, a documentary about her and John Lennon’s 1969 Bed-In in Montreal to promote world peace and protest the Vietnam War. The 70-minute film will be available on YouTube until tonight at midnight (EST).
...moreThis week in New York Airplane! at Bryant Park, Lev Grossman reads from The Magician King, Moth StorySLAM on business, The Center for Book Arts annual summer reading, authors Emma Forest and Jon Ronson at McNally Jackson, The Final Episode of Radio Happy Hour, Geek Down at 92YTribeca, and InDigest’s 1207 Reading Series.
Have you checked out Sunday Magazine? It’s writer David Friedman’s site with articles from The New York Times Sunday Magazine exactly 100 years ago from the date he posts.
One of the articles for July 30, 1911, “When Mark Twain Nearly Changed His Literary Career,” features an interview with Twain talking about reviews for The Prince and the Pauper.
...moreOne might call Brewster Kahle a master archivist. He’s the man behind the Internet Archive, a digital library that stores a copy of every web page posted since 1996. And now he’s set out on another ambitious project: to collect a hard copy of every single book ever published.
...moreThis week in New York The Shrinks are Away hosted by Susan Shapiro, Word for Word Poetry at Bryant Park featuring Kundiman poets, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes at Riverside Park, a Super Freaky reading with Stacy Carlson and Alexander Yates, Meshell Ndegeocello covers Gil Scott-Heron at The Blue Note, and First Saturday at the Brooklyn Museum.
I’m married to a high school English teacher. I love hearing about his students’ reactions to books that I also read as a teen: Animal Farm, Brave New World, Macbeth, and more.
But are some of these books, the classics, too outdated to teach today’s generation?
...more“‘Women’s colleges are, in my opinion, attempting to figure out how to support trans men, but there are more barriers to trans women who would like to attend their institutions,’ [D. Chase James] Catalano, a trans male who has worked on these issues with Mount Holyoke and Smith, said via e-mail.
...moreThis week in New York Smith Magazine Six-Word Memoirs and more, Poets House Showcase Reading, BOMB Magazine issue 116 party at powerHouse Arena, The Soundtrack Series at Le Poisson Rouge, Animation Block Party, and the New York Poetry Festival on Governors Island.