Recent posts
Rumpus Articles
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“Reading That’s Bad for You,” or: Lessons in Publishing
Ron Charles of the Washington Post reports on Electric Literature, a new bi-monthly magazine that is making lit. mags differently. I’ve noted five lessons about publishing via Electric Literature’s watershed model: “Amid all the dismal reports about the death of…
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Corpus Delicti
Sometimes, in the work of German-Danish artist Christian Lemmerz, a “child’s christening is symbolised with a baptismal font in white marble with the inside shaped as a baby coffin….[A] wet grave filled with Kölner Wasser, to dampen the stench.” In…
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Don’t Look Back
A memoir by a critic for The Onion views a troubled youth through the lens of popular culture
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Nietzsche and a Reverend Walk into a Blog…
An interesting look at atheism, Nietzsche, the Genealogy of Morals, and religion by Reverend Dr. Giles Fraser (the vicar of Putney). Yes. Reverend. Fraser has been a lecturer in philosophy at Wadham College, Oxford and wrote Redeeming Nietzsche: On the…
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The Last Book I Loved: Hunts In Dreams
In the end, Hunts In Dreams is not a particularly deep book. But it’s rich, strange, comforting and sad all at once.
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George Pelecanos’ Favorite Westerns
The Magnificent Seven (1960) A handful of professional gunmen led by black-clad Yul Brynner are hired to protect a south-of-the-border farming village from scores of bandits in John Sturges’ western adaptation of Akira Kurosawa’s The Seven Samurai.
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Morning Coffee: Science Edition
Hey there July, how are you today? Steven Pinker picks his three favorite pieces of science writing for 3quarkdaily. (via Metafilter.) Bacteria as psychedelic art piece. Scientists have developed a way to fuel hydrogen based engines on chicken feathers. I…
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Why Starting a Book is Hard
“As soon as we feel that the writing we are contemplating matters, our defensive system kicks in, and our fear that we can’t think well enough raises its ugly head. We are wrestled to the ground by the fact that…
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The Story of Encarta
From a New York Times article, published two months ago, about the end of the line for Encarta: “It’s hard to look at the end of the Encarta experiment without the free and much larger Wikipedia springing immediately to mind. But Encarta arguably…
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Evening Cocktail
Hope it was as beautiful today in your town as it was in mine. Had dinner yet? Dear Pork: I am in love with you. [I Made That!] An Infinite Jest concordance, to help you during Infinite Summer. [via @Fritinancy]…
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Henry Green
The Times Literary Supplement has published an edited version of a lecture given by critic and novelist James Wood celebrating English author Henry Green. Henry Green (the nom de plume of Henry Vincent Yorke) is remembered for his 1945 novel…