Recent posts
Rumpus Articles
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The Fine Art of Quitting
To see what is right, and not do it, is want of courage, or of principle. — Confucius
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War Is Peace, Freedom Is Slavery
With echoes of 9/11, the protagonist of Jim Knipfel’s novel flees the ubiquitous surveillance of a not-so-futuristic government.
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Film Bites
Though Gravure: The New American Journal touts itself as a fashion journal, its online presence offers a portal into a standout cultural corridor. Check out these three great short films for example: Urban Cowboy, Gymnasium, Kai Kuhne.
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The Rumpus Book Blog Roundup
It’s Wednesday, which means that it’s time for another roundup of things we think you might want to read from book blogs around the Internet. Since last time, the Internet has been abuzz with the idiosyncrasies and failings of canonical…
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Ariane Conrad: A Poem I Love
You’d think Stanley Kunitz, near 70 and hobbling through “Touch Me” would have slid off my 19 year old self. But it was the only poem that stuck, from a night of literary luminaries. 15 years later, returning—not the first…
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Morning Coffee
13 Scientific truths that do not make any sense at all. Frustrated by the state of the stock market? Perhaps trained rats could do a better job. Biology Today, a 1972 science textbook that is beautiful and bizarrely psychedelic. The…
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Scott Carrier
After hitchhiking from Salt Lake City to NPR’s national office, Scott Carrier became a unique radio producer, interviewing schizophrenics and amnesiacs. Here is a This American Life episode dedicated to his stories. He has also worked extensively with Hearing Voices.…
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Politics, Art, and “Paradox”
“Vision of art.” “King for a day.” “Looking for that last big idea.” These are just a few of the smashed together words and phrases that make up John Wilkes Booth’s head in Christian Verdun’s online art piece “paradox.” The…
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THE LONELY VOICE, a Column About Short Stories: “Around the Dear Ruin”
One of the great stories of my adopted city, San Francisco, is without a doubt “Around the Dear Ruin” by Gina Berriault. It also might be one of the saddest and cruelest. I’ve probably read this brief story twenty, maybe…
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Splinter Generation Event in Echo Park
If you’re in Echo Park, Los Angeles, this Saturday, May 9th at 7pm, and you want to see the kind of art and music today’s young’uns are making, check out The Splinter Generation Reading, Art and Music Collaboration at Stories…