The Rumpus Interview with Jaclyn Friedman
I've been interested in talking and educating about rape, safety and sexuality for most of my adult life.
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Rumpus Articles
What Happened To Sheila
“Don’t worry, I’m not dying,” said my wife Sheila. But she was. This was about three days before it happened, and she sat up in her hospice bed and gave…
Humor, Interrupted
Here on the Internets, we know narrative digression all too well as the “hyperlink.” Those of us who are accustomed to, and indeed savor, the buds of info that bloom…
Jonny Olsen: Laotian Pop Star
When Jonny Olsen, from Southern California, first went to Thailand, he stumbled on a plastic toy khaen, the native instrument that sounds like part harmonica, part reedy accordion. Well, the…
Punk/Rai/Jazz/Rock
Rachid Taha is an important musician on the international rock scene beginning in the early 1980s. Rachid Taha was born in 1958 in Oran, Algeria. His music is influenced by…
The Importance of Being Nice
Abject admiration is the worst way to start a review. Isn’t it the blurbist’s job to kiss a writer’s behind, the critic’s to skewer it on the formidable barb of…
BitchCraft: Endings and Finishings
I’m obsessive. I like to knit a lot. I go through cycles. I binge knit when I do. The knitting group I go to looks at the skirt I’m making…
Wiring the Lush Life
“I just saw a billboard on Houston street, it says ‘where have all the junkies gone?’” Clocking Some Time With Richard Price
Basque Nationalist Rock/Punk
Fermin Muguruza is the prime mover behind Kortatu and Negu Gorriak, two of the fiercest rocking punk-rooted bands you probably never heard, Fermín Muguruza is almost certainly the single most…
WWJD (What Will Jack (Bauer) Do)?
WWJD (What Will Jack (Bauer) Do)? During the presidential campaign, many people worried that a president Obama wouldn’t be able to create new jobs. But I don’t think anyone ever…
Story Time!
Sometimes you just want to come home from your haircut, curl up with Judy, and sit in the last sunshine of the day reading a good short story, a story…
The Rumpus Long Interview with Ron English
“…The day that you don’t have any Republican friends, or you don’t have any Christian friends, or you don’t have any Muslim friends, that you only have, like, artists-from-New-York-City friends,…