Recent posts
Rumpus Articles
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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.”
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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 most people of that age. What’s most interesting about these…
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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 for helping us come to terms with this. 15 unusual…
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Short but Striking: The Films of Les Blank
Who knew a gap could be filled with so much. But such is the lure and luxury of the films of Les Blank, such as his ode to gap-toothed women aptly called Gap-Toothed Women. When asked why gap teeth are…
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All’s Love in Myth and War
Clouds with legs, balloons filled with flame, and a war against February occupy the world of Shane Jones’s debut novel.
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Cash and Cars: Formula 1 Bahrain
Rising in front of us, surrounded by nothing but miles of empty sand, is the Bahrain Formula 1 racetrack.
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BitchCraft: Fully Fashioned
I love clothes. I love fashion. I have an interest in the way I cover my body. I have ideas about what I think looks nice. It’s not very deep, and it’s not very unusual. It brings me pleasure more…
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Josh Bearman: The Last Book I Loved, The Incredible Yanqui
The Incredible Yanqui by Hermann Bacher Deutsch is the true story of the exploits of Lee Christmas, a tramp railroader, scoundrel, and soldier of fortune who wound up helping the United Fruit Company colonize central america as a corporate fiefdom.…
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Homeless Reality Show Too Real
Homeless Real World, a reality show about six homeless people in Denver, has been dismissed as too edgy by TV execs. Funny, we thought edginess was a desirable quality in reality TV. Maybe by too edgy they mean: Our viewers…
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What Will Become of the Word “Ponzi”?
When Bernard Madoff described his investment business as a ‘giant Ponzi scheme’, he gave a somewhat obscure phrase, used to describe a swindle that pays early investors using money from later investors, a huge boost.
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Detroit’s Brewster Projects: What’s Left
Diana Ross, Smokey Robinson and Mary Wilson lived out their early lives in the Brewster Projects in Detroit, the first federally funded public housing for African Americans. Unfortunately, the abode of these legends of the lyric is falling to pieces.…