Recent posts
Rumpus Articles
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The Rumpus Review of A Serious Man
What is it with the Coen brothers, technical masters who tend to use their skills for no meaningful purpose?
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Chronic City
Happy day, happy day!! Jonathan Lethem, one of my personal favorites, has a new novel out! It’s called Chronic City, and is, according to Lethem, “the best thing I’ve done.” This is good to hear, as Lethem looks for a…
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Drew Toal: The Last Book I Loved, I am Not Sidney Poitier
My only previous exposure to Percival Everett had been his book American Desert, which I had liked but not loved. So it was with middling expectations that I picked up his last novel, I am Not Sidney Poitier.A day or…
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Morning Coffee
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Marshall McLuhan, and critical outrage. Seed Magazine on evolving towards extinction. The newly redesigned Zoo de Vincennes will change the way you think about zoos. I mean, maybe a little. As long as we’re talking…
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Erick Lyle’s Secret History Of The City
If you live in San Francisco long enough, you start to wonder: “Where the hell can I go at 3 a.m. which isn’t home or a laundromat or a massage parlor?” This simple question might balloon into a larger, perhaps…
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The Rumpus Review of Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
My boyfriend insisted I read Brief Interviews with Hideous Men when we started dating. “It will help you understand the way men think!” he exclaimed. Secrets of those bearing a Y chromosome would be revealed, he promised; David Foster Wallace…
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The Kakutani Two-Step
“The Kakutani Two-Step. It works roughly like this: belittle a novelist’s finest work to date – preferably by tossing around unsupported adjectives…say, “arbitrary,” “flimsy,” and “unfinished.” Then, five or six years later, when the novelist in question brings forth his…
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The Brain and the E-Book
“Is there a difference in the way the brain takes in or absorbs information when it is presented electronically versus on paper? Does the reading experience change, from retention to comprehension, depending on the medium?” David Gelernter, a professor of…
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Tune of the Day
Artist: John Wesley Harding Song: “Bottom of the Top” Live in San Francisco? See John Wesley Harding (and so much more) tonight for only $10!
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Morning Coffee
Johnny Cash in German. IS the Large Hadron Collider being sabotaged by ITS OWN FUTURE? A behind the scenes look at Swedish rug mill. Because, really, why not? One of my closest friend’s doesn’t have a sense of smell, if…