2011
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“Getting to Yes with Vonnegut”
It wasn’t easy for Charles J. Shields to get permission to pen Kurt Vonnegut’s biography, but it did include a couple of postcards. (via TheBookBench)
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Handwritten Jest
“This is the first page of a handwritten draft of Infinite Jest.” (via The Atlantic)
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Dan Weiss’s Morning Coffee
It is a very slow day, so I am opening with a look at an Olympic velodrome arena. We can all agree that it is a bummer that Slash’s guitar got in the way of his relationships. It is always…
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The Rumpus Interview with Wesley Stace
Wesley Stace is an award-winning writer of three novels—Misfortune, by George, and now Charles Jessold, Considered as a Murderer
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Erin Rose’s Tech Links
Should we protect the Internet from “astroturfing” (fake grassroots movements on forums, etc. that are actually run by major companies)? Technology bests the man (again): Smartphone app gets driver out of speeding ticket. The Securities Exchange Commission is investigating Twitter and…
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Burroughs Doc A Man Within Giveaway
The recent documentary about William S. Burroughs, A Man Within, was released on DVD last week, and its distributor, Oscilloscope Labs, sent us a copy to give away to one lucky Rumpus reader! It’s a fascinating documentary that reveals a…
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This is Solidarity
Author V.V. Ganeshananthan reflects on her choice to attend the 2009 Galle Literary Festival in Sri Lanka, just 500 kilometers from violent conflict. Ganeshananthan explains why she “refused to disappear” despite a boycott of the festival organized by Reporters Without…
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Memory, Reason and Imagination
Books once belonging to Thomas Jefferson, our most bibliophilic president, have turned up at Washington University in St. Louis. The books were part of Jefferson’s retirement library, so-called because he started the collection after donating 6,700 books to the Library…
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Meet the Chana Family
“Coincidentally, Mr Chana is also head of a sect that allows members to take as many wives as he wants.” 1 husband. 39 wives. 94 children. 14-daughters-in-law. 33 grandchildren. The Daily Mail profiles the world’s biggest family, photos included. (via…
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10/40/70 #34: Alien
This ongoing experiment in film writing freezes a film at 10, 40, and 70 minutes, and keeps the commentary as close to those frames as possible. This week, I examine Alien, directed by Ridley Scott (1979):
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“The Comedian’s Tell-All”
“I didn’t perform any of it in front of an audience, which is one of the more interesting and terrifying things about writing a book. You really have no idea whether or not what you’re writing is funny.” Michael Showalter…