The Language of the Beard
As one who determined five years ago, after having shaved my beard off to remind myself what the natural contours of my face looked like, to never go without facial…
Recent posts
Rumpus Articles
Craig Arnold: 1967-2009
Not all the details have been released yet, but the word from Japan is that poet Craig Arnold died after suffering a leg injury and falling from a cliff. From…
Verbophobia: About the Phobias in Roberto Bolaño’s 2666
“An oasis of horror in a desert of boredom,” by Charles Baudelaire, 2666's epigram
Brian’s Saturday Morning Links
Has it been this way since the invention of the portrait? Does every generation look back at family pictures and wonder what the hell they were thinking? Overthinking It has…
Note To Wall Street: Don’t Player Hate on Pixar
As the release date for Pixar’s latest movie, Up, inches closer, the more annoyed I get thinking about this NY Times article from a couple weeks back, in which the…
MANGIA MANGA
Since its 1983 debut as a weekly serial, Oishinbo has sold over 100 million paperback editions in Japan. Yet while Oishinbo is undeniably the granddaddy of food-themed manga I’ve discovered…
The Rumpus Book Blog Roundup
Sometimes, reading book blogs can make you feel like you’re watching the paparazzi photograph J-Lo on entertainment television, only J-Lo has gotten ugly, become a man, died, and named herself…
Running on Sexy
Sébastien Tellier recently toured the States, bringing a spacious European balance to “sex music” from this side of the pond, such as the brilliant, raunchy new Peaches album, I Feel…
Was This Review Helpful? Amazon and the Search for an Unassailable Masterpiece
One customer review of "The Catcher in the Rye" warns readers that it will make you “want to kill yourself." Another calls Holden Caulfield a “whiney, immature, angst ridden teenager who need[s] a smack in the head.”
An Oral History of Myself #2: John
In 2005 I began interviewing people I grew up with. Because I left home at thirteen and spent four years in group homes, my social network was significantly wider than…
Morning Coffee
Look, I know you’d like to think we are above such things, but damn it sometimes we just want to look at pictures of baby animals. Thank you Big Picture…