2011
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Tortuous Dictionary Definitions
“The notorious definition for door runs to 72 words, written as if the dictionary’s audience were Martians who had never encountered human-made doors. The single statement for hotel is even more bizarre: weighing in at 91 words, it manages to…
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Philip K. Dick’s Prose
“Paradoxically, plot summary can be exactly the opposite of what we usually assume it is: reductive. What’s really reductive is excerpting a writer’s nice sentence on a blog. Thinking in terms of plot summary when praising a novel by Philip…
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The Rumpus Sunday Book Blog Roundup
I moved to LA for the summer two days ago from San Francisco, and so far, this place is about as surreal as everyone told me it’d be. I swear to God I keep seeing Jeff Bridges, and even though…
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The Rumpus Books Sunday Supplement
It’s Sunday again, that day where you get to see what Rumpus Books has been up to this week, all in one handy little roundup.
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Recycling-Plus!
Scientists in Japan have discovered a way to create edible steaks from human feces. No, I’m not shitting you. “Mitsuyuki Ikeda, a researcher from the Okayama Laboratory, has developed steaks based on proteins from human excrement. Tokyo Sewage approached the…
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This is not a joke…
Though in a saner world, the people who made this decision would be considered one. “A Jerusalem rabbinical court condemned to death by stoning a dog it suspects is the reincarnation of a secular lawyer who insulted the court’s judges…
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The Last Poem I Loved: “somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond” by E. E. Cummings
“Somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond” is not only the Last Poem I Loved, it also is actually the first. The way its writer (of whom I shall elaborate later on) likens one fine woman to flowers (and to a…
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Science Saturday
We’re not quite halfway through the year and this has already been one of the most extreme weather years on record. And hurricane season just started. Nice collection of images of this week’s lunar eclipse. A third of people say…
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Saturday Morning Links
Very often I will begin this link roundup with a joke about being hung over. None today, because I actually am hung over. Amazon’s Kindle store is selling spam, among other things. A British student is fighting extradition to the…
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“Some Very Brief Affairs”
“They began with so much joy, so much confidence. […] They ended with so much doubt, so much disappointment.” Before it’s off our front page forever, don’t miss this literary infographic on love and desire.
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“My Ex-Gay Friend”
“…Michael was fast becoming the leading voice for gay youth until the day, in July 2007, when he announced that he was no longer gay.” Benoit Denizet-Lewis sits down and talks with his “ex-gay friend,” Michael Glatze.