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Rumpus Articles
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In Case You Missed. . .
Last month’s North Beach Poetry Festival, William Taylor, Jr., poet, author of Words For Songs Never Written, and gentleman, has provided a very succinct report of the festival’s events which, incidentally did not appear to include much in the way…
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Junot Diaz’s Favorite New Yorker
At Red Hill Books we keep having to order more Junot Diaz books. It’s really extraordinary. They keep flying off the shelves on a daily basis.
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Discovering Georges Simenon
Maybe because I’m one-quarter Belgian, or so my parents claim, I tend to go out of my way to discover famous Belgians. I’m half-kidding about that but I do admit there was a brief, embarrassing period when I claimed to…
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The Daily Grind Of Writing
I laughed out loud, like a lot of writers probably did this week, when I read J. Robert Lennon’s confession in the L.A. Times, The Truth About Writers. The truth, it turns out is that “writers don’t spend much time…
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The Rumpus Book Blog Roundup
Greetings! Your humble guest-editor Michael is back in the saddle for another round of negotiating the highly-addictive world of the book blogs. I had an interesting week, where I had time to contemplate my imminent move to Bernal Heights and…
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The Rumpus Sunday Book Review Supplement
The sun blazes in a clear blue sky and is visible well until 9 o’clock at night. It’s Gay Pride weekend in San Francisco, the streets bejewelled with parades, both joyous and bittersweet. The coffee shop is full of people…
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Poetic Lives Online: Links by Brian Spears
Billy Collins says we need better poets in the US: “There’s an awful lot of bad poetry out there. I’d say about 87 percent of the poetry in America isn’t worth reading.” Collins may be right–the question is who makes…
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Temple of the Cats
I’m sure that if I ever make it to Rome, I’ll go see this, even though I can see something similar every morning when the neighborhood stray/feral cat population (and there is a difference) shows up on my deck for…
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Better Late Than Never: The Rumpus Review of Happy-Go-Lucky
When you first meet Pauline “Poppy” Cross in Mike Leigh’s film Happy-Go-Lucky, you wish she would leave.
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Farrah Fawcett: 1947-2009
Farrah Fawcett and my mother were born about a month-and-a-half apart, and to my knowledge, that’s all they have in common. Fawcett’s death has been overshadowed by Michael Jackson’s, which was inevitable, but tragic in my opinion, since I think…
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Will the Suckers Get Their Money Back?
Yesterday, we blogged a story about a porn app in the Apple iTunes Store, and noted that it was a pretty crappy app. Well, it’s not even an app anymore. Apple yanked it, claiming that “the developer of this application…
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Cape Farewell
Established by artist David Buckland in 2001, Cape Farewell coordinates cultural responses to climate change. One dope thing they do is send groups of artists, musicians, educators, writers, and scientists into the arctic–not forever, just for a trip. Past expeditions…