Behind the Scenes
“Stepping back I think about how authenticity and growth were at the heart of every conversation I had with The Rumpus’ staff, and how the two are inescapably intertwined.” We’re…
Posts by month
November 2012
310 posts
John Lurie Rules
At Sidesplitter, Ben Worcester shines light on John Lurie’s art and his campy yet emblematic ‘90s tv show, Fishing With John, where he interviewed celebrities while casting a line. “Stuff…
Mexican Journalist Death Toll Rising
If you’ve forgotten, over at The New York Review of Books, novelist Alma Guillermoprieto is here to remind you that drug-related violence is still alive and strong in Mexico. She…
Requited love for Brain Pickings
Brain Pickings continues the conversation on Kurt Vonnegut. It all started with the recent publication of We are What We Pretend to Be: The First and Last Works followed by our interview with…
Gaza Roundup
There’s more violence in Gaza today. Emily Hauser asks a tough question about Israeli claims that its strikes are surgical and aimed at terrorists. The IDF used social media to…
McSweeney’s Saves Thanksgiving
Already overwhelmed by thoughts of Thanksgiving? Want a menu that teeters on the line of conventional and culturally innovative? Look no further than McSweeney’s Thanksgiving Gallimaufry! The online booklet features…
The Last Book I Loved: “Please” by Jericho Brown
Jericho Brown’s Please explores the way love and violence coexist with each other and how the two sometimes intertwine. The collection of poems is categorized by four sections: “Repeat,” “Pause,”…
“Who the hell is interested, anyway?”
In 1957, Truman Capote had done it again. Written for The New Yorker, “The Duke in His Domain” dissolved the absolute mystery surrounding Marlon Brando. And of course, it was Capote,…
Film: not just for popcorn anymore
Whether you are obsessed with film and its theoretical and historical aspects, or simply enjoy overhearing a brilliant conversation between two intensely analytical people, boy, have we got a treat…
“The Map of the System of Human Knowledge,” by James Tadd Adcox
It is the most human tendency to impose order and organization where there is none, conjure sense out of nothingness, and James Tadd Adcox submits to this urge in The Map of the System of Human Knowledge. As a former student of linguistics (a discipline that gleefully embraces classification systems) and a current student of geography (a discipline that reaches its highest expression in the map), I came to The Map of the System of Human Knowledge with special interest.
Playing Telephone with Poetry
It was inevitable, in our day and age, we guess, that the world of classical translation would look over at the world of the colloquial, bite-sized, social network-friendly format and…
