• Charcoal versus Gas

    Grilling is such a big deal that Mike Judge built an animated series around the charcoal versus propane debate twelve years ago and the show is still going strong. I don’t doubt that Hank Hill would print out, photocopy, and…

  • Happy Fourth of July

    By PES. (via Laughing Squid)

  • Ironic Processes

    Harvard University psychologist Daniel Wegner is trying to figure out why we can’t stop ourselves from doing stupid things while under stress, a trait exemplified by the character of Jeff Murdock on the BBC show Coupling. But what exactly are…

  • Saturday Morning Links, Independence Day Edition

    Olay, I confess–there’s nothing particularly “Independence Day” about this linkfest. Except for this story about the history of preserving the original Declaration of Independence. But that’s it. Onward! It’s rare that I’ll take the side of a lawyer, but man,…

  • THE EYEBALL: There Will Be Blood

    Sometimes I just want an actor to take a movie by the fuckin’ balls. I’m thinking of Benicio del Toro in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas or Jack Nicholson in The Shining. Add to that rogue’s gallery of scenery…

  • How Matt Mullenweg Works

    The founding developer of WordPress — the open-source blogging software that The Rumpus runs on, as well as millions of other great sites (including the New York Times!) — was recently featured in Inc. magazine’s monthly column, “The Way I…

  • Evening Cocktail

    Soon, you will go off and have an awesome weekend. But in the meantime: It seems that orange jumpsuits are de rigeur for performing autopsies of large animals. Some of the images are graphic. Via @ooga_booga) This website encourages you…

  • Look at How Much Fun We’re Having!

    As you no doubt know, we’ve got another Rumpus event coming up this Tuesday, July 7, in San Francisco: Sex, Music, Comedy night with Jill Sobule. We’ve got a bunch of great acts including sex worker/authors Michelle Tea, Kirk Read,…

  • Recession Strippers #1: The Laura Beth Experience

    Dancers always want to quit but rarely do. The cliché is that sex workers are stuck. But, it’s more complex than that. Dancers quit for years but always come back because leaving the sex industry is difficult.

  • Loitering in the Wrong Places

    The book, with its halting, unbeautiful, disjointed lines, proves her awareness of the difficulty of writing poetry about war, trade, immigration, Hurricane Katrina, and George Bush. These are intensely politicized issues, claimed by a blunt, politicized language.

  • Michelle Orange on Lynn Shelton

    Lynn Shelton‘s third feature film, Humpday (trailer after the jump), is getting a lot of love for its quiet, almost bashful take on this year’s favorite buzz-relationship: “the bromance.” Humpday takes the concept to a whole new level though, with…

  • Harry Allen on the Death of VIBE

    Harry Allen, Hip Hop activist and writer for The Source, The Village Voice, and other publications, has a touching and insightful piece about the death of VIBE magazine on his blog Media Assassin. Allen, who was a freelance writer for…