Iran News Links
32 reported dead. New protest builds as Iranian government expands crackdown. “The photos coming out of Tehran demonstrate, movingly and beautifully, that women are on the front lines of the…
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Rumpus Articles
Two-for-One at the Pyramid of the Sun
David Lida’s book about Mexico City, First Stop in the New World, contains a really impressive chapter which traces the history of daily commerce in the capital from the vast…
Science Is Having Second Thoughts About Booze
“Alcohol in moderation is good for you.” This has been the conclusion of countless scientific studies. That apple a day to keep the doctor away, according to researchers, should be…
Have you heard Richard Swift?
Sometimes, it doesn’t take a whole lot to recognize talent. I stumbled across Richard Swift’s 2005 debut The Novelist/Walking Without Effort because the b/w cover of the double disc reminded…
The Rumpus Interview with Colum McCann
“Every novel is a failure. You can never achieve what you truly want to achieve. That thing you dreamt on the riverbank is never the thing you achieve when you…
Morning Coffee
Kevin Van Aelst makes art out of food. If I was an art critic I would describe it as making the familiar surprising. Instead I will say that it is…
Sufjan Stevens In Rainbows
Fans of organization, mathematics and music will enjoy the work of graphic designer Jax de Leon. For his senior project at SUNY Purchase, de Leon submitted Sufjan Stevens’ album “Come…
Street Use
Yesterday I posted about a book that makes the striking argument that we over-emphasize the role of innovation when we talk about technological evolution, and “downplay the long and winding…
Arlington: The Rap
“I’m ducking gunfire daily, Check to see if one got me, But that’s just life in the hood, When I go get my puffed kashi…” (via almost everyone I know…
Iran’s Twitter revolution goes global
It’s been amazing to watch it spread. “As the embattled government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appears to be trying to limit Internet access and communications in Iran, new kinds of…
Measuring the Weight of Loss
A post-romantic poet not content to wax sentimental on idealized Nature, a la Mallarmé, Andrew Michael Roberts has staked his tent in her decimated domain.