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Rumpus Articles
The Sun has Fallen into the Sack
Illustrations by Elzbieta Gaudasinska for The Sun has Fallen into the Sack by Jerzy Bieniecki (Poland, 1975). As you can see, the book was actually published in English translation —…
Morning Coffee
Big Picture has a rad look at the buildings of the shanghai expo. US vs UK book covers, no-holds-barred cage match. I heart Japanese train station design. There is no…
An Oral History of Love in Contemporary America: Selections from Us #1
Brigitte Aiton, Age 44 New York, New York “How do you deal with the fact that the person you’re with might hate you?” It was the first summer we were…
The Heroic Return of the Baffler
After a hiatus of a few years, the intellectually-engaging, always interesting, often confrontational and downright maverick literary/cultural magazine The Baffler has returned! I just picked up my copy at the…
Sensible Worries About the Internet
“These new books share a concern with how digital media are reshaping our political and social landscape, molding art and entertainment, even affecting the methodology of scholarship and research. They…
Totalitarian Kitsch
“It is the official art of authoritarian governments, aimed at extending state control through propaganda. Totalitarian kitsch exists to glorify the state, foster a personality cult surrounding the dictator and…
In Defense Of Horror
“How certain are you, anyhow, that what you call ‘unpleasantness’ is not a necessary, even crucial, part of our experience? Maybe you should lock yourself up in your heart long…
DEAR SUGAR, The Rumpus Advice Column #28:
Jean-Paul Sartre famously said that “hell is other people,” which is true enough, but truer still is hell is other people’s boyfriends (or girlfriends, as the case may be).
Lightbulbs to Moons
“As lightbulbs are to the moon, first stories are to finished books.” The Morning News talks with author Philip Graham about publishing his first short story, writing dispatches for McSweeney’s,…
“Some rats are going, most rats are staying.”
Over at The Awl Choire Sicha talks with Paul Ford, the now-former web editor of Harper’s, about why he quit, what’s going on at the magazine (“Jennifer Szalai, a senior…