2011
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American Nietzsche
“A question raised almost at once (and periodically revived) was why Nietzsche was proving so popular here: ‘What is the philosophy of an anti-Christian, antidemocratic madman doing in a culture like ours? Why Nietzsche? Why in America?’ Ratner-Rosenhagen wonders. Nietzsche…
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The Rumpus Interview with Colby Buzzell
Colby Buzzell was a bored 25 year-old, weary of working dead-end, hand-to-mouth jobs when he decided it would be more exciting and pay better to shoot machine guns in Iraq.
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Rumpus Sound Takes: The Eleanor Friedberger Solo Theme Park
Eleanor Friedberger Last Summer (Merge) Last Summer, the first solo release from Eleanor Friedberger, half of the Brooklyn duo The Fiery Furnaces, is, for better or for worse, a summer record.
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Erin Rose’s Tech Links
The government thinks it can track anyone using GPS 24/7 without a warrant… here’s hoping the Supreme Court says differently. Republic Wireless unveils a new, contract-free $19/month cell plan that relies heavily on existing WiFi networks… AWESOME. British computer whizzes begin…
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Eliot and Dostoevsky
“Eliot and Dostoevsky were nearly exact contemporaries. Born within two years of each other, they died less than two months apart, Eliot in 1880, Dostoevsky in 1881. For both of them, the period from 1860 to 1880 marked their most…
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China’s New Form of Publishing
“Here in China, nearly 195 million people are hooked on a kind of literature that is virtually unknown in the West, but that is rapidly transforming its authors and a new breed of online media companies into the publishing stars…
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Bartleby in NYC
Some friends of Housing Works Bookstore are hosting a marathon reading of Herman Melville’s novella Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street. It’s only 45 pages, but it’s an exciting 45 pages. The reading will be this Thursday, Nov. 10, at 3…
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Literary Almost Deaths
What if J.K. Rowling had killed off Ron Weasley, or Melville had killed of Starbuck, or Fitzgerald had killed off Daisy Buchanan? The Awl explores characters who nearly died in their author’s rough draft, giving us an illustrated glimpse of…
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Tattooed Science
Carl Zimmer’s Science Ink: Tattoos of the Science Obsessed reveals the crossroads between the sciences and tattoo culture. The result is “a weird and wonderful almanac of the lovable geek who immortalized passion for science on their living flesh,” according…
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Debutantes in Distress
Lori Baker’s new short story collection, Crash and Tell, is led by a cast of women whose rich creative minds derail their own lives.
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Patti Smith’s Photographs
“Herman Hesse’s typewriter, Bolaño’s chair, Smith’s father’s favourite cup, Virginia Woolf’s cane and bed. It is as if she were furnishing a home with these photographs for the ghosts of her favorite lives.” The recently opened Patti Smith: Camera Solo…