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Rumpus Articles
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Condomless Porn – They’re Making It Cause You’re Asking for It
Sex educator and writer Lux Alptraum, who is also the editor of Boinkology, has an article in Black Book that investigates the absence of condoms in porn. Is it because of production challenges, or because the companies don’t want to…
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Zak Smith: The Shorty Q&A with Dennis McGrath (NSFW)
Shot on the sets of pornographic films, Dennis McGrath’s photographs are eerie, funny, down-to-earth, poignant, and gorgeous all at the same time.
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Morning Coffee
Investigative linguist discovers first known use of “Ms.” in print. (via @randomdeanna) Kush, sleep support for your breasts. An interview with Nic Brown, author of Floodmakers. Disappearing on sex weekends, Republicans like to lie, “I’m working on a book.” Banksy’s…
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Scientology Defectors: Why Did They Stay?
I attended a Scientology service a few years ago as part of a Stanford psych course taught by Phil Zimbardo. My assignment was to act as a target of social influence, to evaluate the techniques that Scientology used to recruit…
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Travel As A Political Act
Rick Steves’s recent book, Travel As A Political Act tells us how we can travel more thoughtfully. “Growing up in the U.S., I was told over and over how smart, generous, and free we were. Travel has taught me that…
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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…