Recent posts
Rumpus Articles
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Promoting Punk
Nick Rombes is an associate professor and chair of the English department at University of Detroit Mercy. He is also the author of A Cultural Dictionary of Punk: 1974-1982, a book that is far more punk than its academic title…
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When The Perfect Story and Perfect Writer Are Matched
You get this incredible Sunday NYTimes Magazine piece from a couple weeks back by Jack Hitt. Hitt never goes wrong anyhow, but this odd tale of Serbian war criminal Radovan Karadzic’s hiding in plain sight in Belgrade as a long-haired…
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Underachieving as Art: The Rumpus Interview With Benjamin Anastas
Follow the curve, as it goes down… down… down… Such is the tone of Benjamin Anastas’ An Underachiever’s Diary, just recently reissued as a Dial Press Trade Paperback and concurrently billed as the “the funniest, most underappreciated book of the…
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The One?
“If you could read just one novel, what would it be?” That was the most recent query posed over at The Millions’ ongoing column Ask a Book Question. Many Millions contributors responded, recommending Slaughterhouse-Five, The Great Gatsby, and The Corrections…
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“Why Aren’t There Any Accordions?”
“JC: What is music good for that books aren’t? “DH: Driving, dancing around in your underwear, sitting around talking. “JC: What are books good for that music is no good at? “DH: Narrative, extrasensual immersion, cerebral bliss, philosophical and moral…
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Next New: Green
I was all ready to feel guilty. A group show of environmentally themed artworks–what other response is there? But I didn’t. Next New: Green, at the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, manages to approach the subject of climate change…
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Why We Need Health Care Reform
Our nation is now engaged in a great debate about the future of health care in America. And over the past few weeks, much of the media attention has been focused on the loudest voices. What we haven’t heard are…
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Remember When We Used to Print Things We Found on the Internet?
Remember when you used to read funny things on the Internet and print them out? Me neither. But I guess I did, because I just was rooting around in some old files and found this piece of paper on which…
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D. A. Powell’s Desert Island
“Nearly everything that inspires me both eternally and in the moment is present in one non-hierarchical heap. Or several heaps. A letter from a man in prison who seems to have read some of my poems–he sent me some of his own, written with…
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Random Media Notes
Even more advertisers bail on Glenn Beck. Salon lays off 20% of its editorial staff. Reader’s Digest prepares to file for bankruptcy. “Amish Newspaper Finds Success the Old-Fashioned Way” Time Inc. purchases a house in Detroit to “serve as a…