The Daily Rumpus
Get Overly Personal Emails
From Stephen Elliott
Do you work better during the morning or the evening? With a shot of espresso or a mug of green tea?
An intriguing little Slate series documents the work habits of writers and other creative people, from Ernest Hemingway to David Lynch.
...more“Nerd culture” may be, at this point, thoroughly subsumed into the capitalist mainstream (see: The Big Bang Theory, the explosion of Comic-Con’s popularity, they’re seriously gonna make more Star Wars movies, etc.), but there’s still a group of geeks out there swapping obscure bits of knowledge for knowledge’s sake.
...moreAt the intersection of Eastern and Western culture, male and female, past and present, lies a rich and bewildering confluence of identities.
Chan-Hyo Bae explores that nexus in his photography series Existing in Costume, pictures from which are currently featured on Slate‘s photo blog.
...moreThe latest casualty in the decline of print media is the Boston Phoenix, a beloved alt weekly that is already sorely missed.
To help lay it to rest, Slate and Longform.org compiled a list of some of the Phoenix‘s best stories about drugs, riots, legal trials, and of course, family.
...moreSlate‘s recurring feature “The Longform Guide to…,” curated by Longform.org, is usually fascinating, and the most recent installment is no exception.
In “honor” of the revelation that Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te’o’s girlfriend never existed, Max Linsky leads us through a maze of stories on Internet hoaxes.
...moreCheck out Slate’s new photo blog Behold and its showcasing photographer, Leon Borensztein, who has a humorous and unsettling portfolio of portraits.
Originally from Poland, Borensztein’s portraits are a sarcastic take on the American Dream, and although the series was shot in the ‘80s, many of the photos embody a certain timelessness.
...moreThere’s more violence in Gaza today. Emily Hauser asks a tough question about Israeli claims that its strikes are surgical and aimed at terrorists.
The IDF used social media to announce and live-blog the attacks, and to celebrate the killing of Ahmed Al-Jabari.
...moreBefore yesterday, I suspect most people outside Missouri had never heard of Representative Todd Akin. I barely recognized the name myself, even though I consider myself a bit of a political junkie and I currently live in the neighboring state. All I really knew is that he was beating Senator Claire McCaskill pretty handily in her re-election bid, and that the Democrats were likely to lose that seat come November.
...more“What the Gawker ethos (i.e., the sneer) comes down to is this: Everyone is a phony, except presumably those writers at Gawker who labor tirelessly to point out this phoniness (think Holden Caulfield gone a little sour, and getting a little old).”
At Slate, Katie Roiphe critiques Gawker, providing an analysis of their mode of operations.
...more“Ugly and pointless new usages appear in the media and drift into everyday conversation:
Faze, as in “it doesn’t faze me”
Hospitalize, which really is a vile word
Wrench for spanner
Elevator for lift
Rookies for newcomers, who seem to have flown here via the sports pages.”
BBC News released an article on “Americanisms” in July of this year.
...moreWhat does a memoir that documents the painful loss of a family member and J. Crew’s summer catalog have in common? Nothing, which is why memoirist Robin Romm wrote this piece in Slate about their eerily similar aesthetic.
The popsicle on the cover of her book was a symbol of her mother’s declining health from cancer.
...moreAnother shout-out to Rumpus’ poetry editor Brian Spears for his post “A Note to My Fellow White Males,” appeared today on Slate.
The editor of Lez Get Real, a site with “A Gay Girls’ View on the World,” was revealed as Bill Graber, a 58 year old man, using his wife’s name to run the site.
...moreRemember all those VHS tapes that added up to a compendium of everlasting Civil War knowledge?
It turns out Ken Burns’ Civil War documentary series isn’t entirely accurate, but in fact, “deeply misleading and reductive.” This may feel like a betrayal for those of us who were weaned on his sentimental historical depictions, or mesmerized by the zooming in and out of battle scene paintings.
...more
The next time you get into a debate over the value of a creative writing MFA, try this handy visualization exercise: imagine that everyone involved is wearing a monocle.
Foghorns show up in much of my writing, but that’s because I cultivate a disingenuously melancholy disposition that my actual life, full of hilarity and good-natured insults, completely belies.
But today I discovered that “a distant barking dog” appears in everything ever written by anybody. At Slate, Rosecrans Baldwin ponders this strange ubiquity of blandly barking canines:
“If a novel is an archeological record of 4.54 billion decisions, then maybe distant barking dogs are its fossils, evidence of the novelist working out an idea.”
Prospective novelists take note: eliminate your barking dog urge!
...moreRay Bradbury conjures up for me images of sun-drenched Nebraska meadows, autumn landscapes beset upon by Buick-sized ravens and dusty towns overrun by sinister carnivals. He reminds me of the childhood I never quite had except in my head.
He’s the writer I remember enjoying the earliest and now he’s ninety-years old and still working.
...moreBack on August 25th, we ran a blog post about Roxanne Shanté, a one-time rapper who’d supposedly used an afterthought of a clause in her record contract to force her record company to pay $217,000 for her education, including a PhD in Psychology from Cornell University.
...moreGrilling is such a big deal that Mike Judge built an animated series around the charcoal versus propane debate twelve years ago and the show is still going strong. I don’t doubt that Hank Hill would print out, photocopy, and hand out copies of Brendan Koerner’s article on grilling to his prospective clients.
...moreNot enough sleep? Echoes of a faint hangover? Then it’s time for Saturday Morning Links.
Dahlia Lithwick and Doug Kendall point out that conservative politicians who are upset about empathetic judges probably ought to stick a sock in it.
Whether you’re an academic or a free-lance writer, you might want to take a look at this piece on the inside of an essay mill.
...more
Looking for a way to set your company apart from the rest of the herd? Try business cards made of meat–beef jerky, to be specific. I don’t even want to know what that office supply closet smells like after a couple of months.
Okay, all you (us) iPhoniacs out there–who’ll be the first to come up with an App to make sure we become the downloader of the billionth app?
Dan Kennedy channels former Alaska Senator Ted Stevens on that fancy new Twitter thingy.
...more
A haunting essay/slide show about Detroit.
The day before I arrived, the frozen body of a man was found in the elevator shaft of an abandoned warehouse; only the feet were visible, the rest of the body being entirely encased in ice.
...more
Toilet-shaped plates with food presented as excrement. Sweet!
Ever find yourself at a diner at three in the morning, the drunk hungries kicking your ass and your waffle/hash brown/extra bacon combo is taking forever? Make your own ice cream from half and half and ice water.
...more