Recent posts
Rumpus Articles
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Random Media Notes
Financial Times warns readers: ‘don’t email our articles.’ A 26 year old former fact checker is the new managing editor of The New Yorker. Wall Street Journal claims a P.R. executive’s column is not a conflict of interest, despite the…
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Writing Is Hard
First, watch this: Hamlet 2 preview (pay special attention around the 49-second mark). Steve Coogan, playing Dana Marschz, beautifully captures the life of a writer in the overshadowed and under-acclaimed Hamlet 2 when he laments, “Oh my god, writing is…
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The Last Book I Loved: The Moviegoer
I just had another read of Walker Percy’s The Moviegoer, because I admire it and because I sought two specific paragraphs from the novel. I wanted to read them again. With our everydayness so saturated with news media and opinion…
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Afghan Star: A Conversation with Tamim Ansary
Pop Idol has been widely imitated throughout the world [American Idol here in the states] , but Afghanistan is possibly the only place where the mere existence of a televised, Western-style talent show amounts to a political statement.
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Morning Coffee
The 10 geekiest tattoos. “An essay on the horrors of the Port Authority Bus Terminal, in the form of a Choose Your Own Adventure® story” from Rudolph Delson. It is hard to have babies in outer space. Mythical creatures vendiagram-ed.…
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Why Are Artists Poor?
It’s a question close to our hearts, and Andrew Keen — who has argued, in his own words, that “the Internet is killing our culture and undermining the livelihood of cultural producers” — addresses it in a Telegraph UK article…
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Pittsburgh, Writer’s Haven
“According to the Post-Gazette article, writers are realizing how great Pittsburgh is, and moving there en-masse. “Of course, the article makes clear, it’s not about the money (there is not much)—it’s about being able to attend Encyclopedia Destructica’s weekly ‘binding…
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The Apocalyptic Mythologies Of Steve Erickson
There is no place on earth like Los Angeles. But everyone knows this. Yet perhaps there is not a single place on earth where the end of the world will seem like just another fly-by-night off-off-Hollywood movie, screened in the…
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A History of Violence
In After the Fire a Small Still Voice, love is a difficult, vulnerable salvation—its troubled characters aren’t sure it’s worth the risk.
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The Paramount Moral Challenge Of Our Time
“Yet if the injustices that women in poor countries suffer are of paramount importance, in an economic and geopolitical sense the opportunity they represent is even greater. There’s a growing recognition among everyone from the World Bank to the U.S.…
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BLU vs. the Chimney-Nosed Bastards
The extraordinary urban artist BLU may be best known for his video MUTO, which has been viewed across the Internet more than seven million times. His latest work is a political protest against the ILVA steel factory in Taranto, Italy.…