2011
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Dan Weiss’s Morning Coffee
Way to predict an underwater volcano, scientists! Maybe Coco Chanel was a Nazi (maybe a lot of things). Ancient Egyptians understood the importance of good hair. Here are your wonderful 18th century animal drawings of the day. It is important,…
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Albums of Our Lives: Gillian Welch’s Time (The Revelator)
I knew I was a pretender, too, knew it in all the ways a twenty-six-year-old can believe that she is broken and that nobody else can see how badly.
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A Scientific Pronoun Revelation
“Men and women use language differently because they negotiate their worlds differently. Across dozens and dozens of studies, women tend to talk more about other human beings. Men, on the other hand, are more interested in concrete objects and things.”…
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Alex Shakar in the Observer
The New York Observer provides context for Alex Shakar’s Luminiarium, this month’s Rumpus Book Club selection. The article discusses the contemporaneous crafting of Luminarium with his spiritual evolution, the ups and downs he experienced with The Savage Girl, his last…
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Green Apple Books Wants Economic Justice!
Amazon.com is vying for 500,000 signatures, hoping to become a lucky exception to the California Sales Tax Fairness law. One of San Francisco’s finest independent booksellers, Green Apple Books, was inspired by Amazon’s cunning and strategic attempt at skirting civic…
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Film Franchises and the Sequels You’ve Never Heard Of
Sometimes the movies we’ve never heard of already have sequels that we also haven’t heard of. And as it turns out, these film follow-ups are very much pre-meditated from the get-go. Before certain blockbusters even enter the radar of their…
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Youth Literacy and Adult Fun!
August 26th is National Youth Literacy Day and what better way to celebrate than indulging in some youthful writing exercises? And furthermore, getting published? 826 National is inviting you to dabble in some creative writing with prompts inspired by the…
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A History of Plagiarism
What do Bob Dylan, Eli Wallach and Nabokov have in common? Artistic appropriation. And it’s not just those guys—but possibly all artists. Appropriation, recasting stories and lines into another form, is inherently a part of all art. Jonathan Lethem’s essay,…
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DEAR SUGAR, The Rumpus Advice Column #82: The God of Doing it Anyway
I’m here not only to give you permission, but also to say that you must. There is no other way.
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Talking, Lying Heads
Certain technological mediums seem to encourage lying, and—according to this article— “may make it easier for talking heads to lie.” Researchers have found that—compared to in-person interactions—people lie more by phone, but less by email and IM. Factors that encourage…
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Child Witnesses
“Today children of any age can be called to give evidence as their competence depends upon their understanding not their age.” But that has not always been the case; before the 17th century children younger than 14 were deemed unreliable…