August 2012
-
Uselysses by Noel Black
Uselysses by Noel Black is a collection of five, distinct, short books of poetry. The first three books collect introspective and self-conscious poems common in contemporary poetry, distinguishing themselves with imaginative imagery and a unique sense of humor. The fourth…
-
“Visible Man”
“Sometimes I catch people staring as I bike past them. Wide-eyed, mouths slightly open as if to question the color of my hair. Red like Mars, like the rings of Jupiter… In the split-second of my passing, I wander into…
-
Dan Weiss’s Morning Coffee
There should be some big black hole information coming in a couple hours. This week’s ephemera: Victorian teens, the legs of the Paris opera, and early 20th century bathing machines. Important news: it is good when things look nice. Let’s…
-
The Rumpus Interview with Ari Picker of Lost in the Trees
Upon hearing that Lost in the Trees’ A Church That Fits Our Needs was inspired by the suicide of lead singer and songwriter Ari Picker’s mother, Karen, my heart instantly broke.
-
The Illusion of Safety/The Safety of Illusion
There are things that rip my skin open and reveal what lies beneath but I don’t believe in trigger warnings.
-
“He hit Send”
The Millions discusses successful uses of technology in current fiction and those books that we must suspend disbelief for their plot lines to function. The article’s most eloquent insights, however, come from David Gates, in conversation with Jonathan Lethem in The…
-
Ted Wilson’s 150th Review of the World
Next week The Rumpus will be publishing my 150th Ted Wilson Reviews the World! To celebrate, I’ve decided to allow you, the readers, to decide what I review next. Please cast your vote for any of the following in the…
-
Making Sense of a Complex World
“For all its erudition and analysis, The Golden Bough has for more than a century helped cement the idea that magic is inappropriate, wrongheaded thought. Yet what separates magic from religion or science is not its methodology—Frazer himself notes that it ‘is…
-
An Alternative To The Euro
The Wall Street Journal covers a group in the Catalonia region of Spain that, in response to the country’s current economic crisis, has created an alternative form of currency – the Eco. “The Eco is exchangeable through checks, electronic payments, and even a mobile…
-
Battleborn, by Claire Vaye Watkins
A Nevada native myself, I’ve walked through the same ghost towns as Watkins, driven the same barren stretches of asphalt.
-
Breaking News: Poets don’t do it for the money
Charles Simic, a poet himself, tries to explain the method behind the madness for the frustrated folks who just don’t get the place of poets in a capitalist society: “To write a six-hundred-page novel takes years. You go and work…
