Recent posts
Rumpus Articles
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Kubrick’s 1961 Lolita is the First 70s Movie
The other day I read a rambling but entertaining essay over on Bright Lights Film Journal, called All Tomorrow’s Playground Narratives, which analyzed Kubrick’s Lolita in terms of — well, approximately anything that occurred to the guy, it would seem.…
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Jennie Ottinger at Johansson Projects
Lately I’ve been trying to put myself together—eating seaweed and swimming laps. But Jennie Ottinger’s paintings, up at Johansson Projects in Oakland, reminded me it’s okay to fall apart.
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The Best Fake Holocaust Memoir Ever
Born (and undoubtedly circumsized) in 2001, Booklyn-based Heeb Magazine has been irreverently covering Jewish culture for nearly a decade. Recently they one-upped themselves in the hilariously inappropriate category with the Germany Issue’s Fake Holocaust Memoir Competition. The winner? A “harrowing…
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How to Leave Hialeah
“Crucet is endowed with the double vision that helped Richard Wright and Salman Rushdie describe the lives of marginalized people with poignancy, humor, and rich music.”
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Former Rapper’s PhD Paid for By Record Label
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably seen the television ad for Dr. Pepper where spokes-rapper Dr. Dre utters the phrase, “Trust me, I’m a doctor.” But while Dre’s doctorate is fantastical at best, Roxanne Shante’s PhD is…
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Go on! Embed me!
Sharing is caring on the Internet. The idea is that magazines and newspapers, struggling for survival, want one thing: more distribution. So why not make it easier for bloggers and writers to embed posts on their sites, rather than having…
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Playing With Words
One thing that fascinates me about writing is how people play with the medium: making up games and assignments to bring us together. For example the Napkin Project at Esquire, where cocktail napkins are mailed to writers and then returned,…
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Random Media Notes
Wikipedia’s “freewheeling ethos is about to be curbed.” Journalists hoping to embed with U.S. forces in Afghanistan may be screened by a Washington P.R. firm hired by the Pentagon. R.I.P. GeoCities. HBO is considering a show based on “Savage Love”…
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Jami Attenberg: The Last Book I Loved, Everything Matters!
I was going to write this piece about A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh, which is also a very good book, one that I loved, and one I recommend you read. I recently Netflixed “Apocalypse Now,” which for some…