From The History File—A Mad Hatter!
It’s true: the mercury made Boston Corbett crazy. But not before he shot the man who shot Lincoln. On April 26th, 1865, he was among the 16th New York Cavalrymen…
Recent posts
Rumpus Articles
A Look at Freaky Right-Wing Erotica
Andy Cobb‘s new project “Drill Baby Drill” explores conservatives’ published writings about sex. First up, an excerpt written by Glenn Beck. About making out. With his sister. Seriously. Coming soon…
Morning Coffee
The world’s most pointless machine. Sweet! According to Scientists, Earth is going to be habitable 1 billion years longer than previously projected. Motel pools of yesteryear. (via kieravebutler) J.D. Salinger…
Frontiers in Reading
It’s not only boy wizards and teen vampires who can still ignite a book frenzy: as already reported in The Rumpus, Haruki Murakami’s two-volume (or longer?) new novel 1Q84 came…
Over Our Heads
Regardless of how you feel about advice columns, something interesting came out of online magazine Slate‘s “Dear Prudence” chat/forum yesterday. A graduate student in mathematics wrote in to ask what…
The Rumpus Interview with Dave Hill
It’s kind of hard not to fall a little bit in love with someone who, immediately upon meeting up for a mid-afternoon interview, asks if it’s cool to stop at…
The Brandon Book Crisis
First Dan Baum’s Twitter missives and now this: The Brandon Book Crisis, a paperback “thriller” about book design featuring 140+ pages of unedited Gmail chats, text messages, voicemails, and emails…
The Last Book I Loved: First Love and Other Stories
Falling in love with a book is as much about the book itself as reading it at the right time. I picked up First Love and Other Stories by Ivan…
2009 Woolf and the City Preview
On the heels of BEA comes the 2009 Woolf and the City conference, an event of modern proportion, which will be bringing fans of Virginia Woolf to the campus of…
Six Word Memoirsts Rock the Highline
Couldn’t make it to the Rumpus/McSweeey’s/SMITH Mag BEA event at the Highline Ballroom? Here’s a taste.
FUNNY AMERICA: Sonia From The Block
The President revealed his nominee for the Supreme Court, selecting a 54 year- old daughter of Puerto Rican immigrants who had been elevated to The Second District Court by George…
“Accident, Mass. Ave.” by Jill McDonough
I grew up on Mass Ave. in John Leary House, a low-income apartment building for former homeless families run by The Catholic Worker. I remember the street as dirty, exciting…