The Daily Rumpus
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From Stephen Elliott
On a blog for the Wall Street Journal (where else?), Emily Oster gives advice based on economic theory. For example:
...moreThere is a model in economics called the “sS” model. It’s not often applied to relationships, but I think it should be….If something really good happens, or many good things in a row, it pushes you over some threshold (this is the “S” threshold) and you get married.
Reading bestsellers lists can be baffling. You know the whole world isn’t going to spring for literary fiction or erudite essay collections all the time, but sometimes a book seems so bland and unremarkable that you wonder how so many people went crazy for it.
...more“The challenge is simple: Create an image from a word, using only the letters contained in the word itself—and using only the shapes of the letters, without adding extra parts.”
Facebook creative director Ji Lee has released a new collection, titled Word as Image.
...moreMcSweeney’s and David Chang’s new hunger-inducing venture, Lucky Peach, is out now. Check out the McSweeney’s attention in the Wall Street Journal.
The first issue is ramen-themed. Being that there’s some sort of transitive property of common interest among those who like food, indie publishing and technology—Lucky Peach will also come in the form of an ipad app (coming next month).
...moreA couple of weeks ago, I ranted against a Wall Street Journal article that proclaimed “The Slush Pile is Dead.” The slush pile, for those who are unfamiliar, is the name for the large amount of unsolicited writing that’s submitted for publication to magazines and web sites.
...moreThe Wall Street Journal recently interviewed a bunch of writers to see how they do it. Of course, they called it “How to Write a Great Novel,” but I’m not sure if trying to copy exactly what these writers do is really recommended.
...moreIt’s Raymond Carver night at the Rumpus! Moments after I wrote and scheduled the preceding post, I saw this tweet from the Library of America:
“WSJ on Raymond Carver: ‘There must be few story collections whose notes offer more melodrama than the main text.’ ”
Then they offered a link to the Wall Street Journal review of the collection, which bears the unfortunate-on-several-levels subhed: A reputation shaped by an editor’s hand, but a legacy formed by a writer’s maturation.
...moreJust in time for your next dinner party: mermaids are considered halal. In case you were wondering.
Here’s a really cool museum idea: 80 years of patent models.
The Wall Street Journal reminds us why R. L. Burnside matters.
...moreThe drive to digitize ancient manuscripts is growing quickly, and in the process, scholars are discovering works they never realized they had. The current technology is good enough that scholars can make sense of scrolls too delicate to be unrolled, charred or blackened by fire, or painted over.
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