10 Things You Didn’t Know About Orgasm
Probably safe for work, at least if you wear headphones. Mary Roach at the TED Conference.
Recent posts
Rumpus Articles
Evan Roth Vs. Everybody
The world of copyright law is not a place where one finds much in the way of bright-lines or simple dichotomies. Or even heroes. So it shouldn’t be surprising when…
Brian’s Saturday Morning Links
How y’all are? I don’t know why I’m channeling Justin Wilson this morning, but bear with me and we’ll get through this. Verizon has some local cops in Ohio upset…
The Freak of Araby
Sir Richard Bishop is a lot of things to a lot of people. He’s a gentleman! He’s a post-punk Guitar God! Now the half-Lebanese indie instrumentalist is about to release…
The Art of Science 2009
Princeton University’s Art of Science 2009 competition is a collection of 48 works that reflect the theme of “found art.”
An Oral History of Myself #4: Aaron
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…
On Cat Power: It Must be the Colors
When I first started listening to Cat Power’s music, I was still with a man I very much loved. He played music, he was a music man, and for four…
Morning Coffee
Creepy twine sculptures and potato portraits. Happy memorial day weekend. Minimalist architectural pornography. House of Diffusion. If we here at the Morning Coffee were a single issue voter, that issue…
The Bard in the Basement
Today marks the 400th anniversary of the release, by publisher Thomas Thorpe, of Shakespeare’s sonnets. A new book by Clinton Heylin, called So Long as Men Can Breathe: The Untold…
Nordic Track
My friend Margaret has some good ideas, like DJing a monthly night of Northern indie pop. She might call it Nordic Track. That’s a perfect name, indicating how we would…
The Solipsist and the Internet (a review of Helprin’s Digital Barbarism)
Exactly two years ago today, the New York Times published an op-ed about copyright by a novelist.
A Faithful Grope in the Dark
Are marketing departments running the major publishing houses? Do editors and agents know what they're doing? Are small presses the future of literature? Is everything a crapshoot? What's a first-time novelist to do?