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Rumpus Articles
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Bootleg/Out of Print Comedy Records
At the A Special Thing message board, users have devoted a thread to posting bootlegged standup comedy shows and out of print comedy records. Many of these shows feature familiar jokes and bits, recognizable to anyone who’s listened to the…
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Nobody Can Enjoy Art Anymore
Vigilante justice: the new counterculture. Until it gets, like, totally commercial. That’s the premise of DeLeon DeMicoli’s novel, Lick Me, a spunky murder mystery saddled down with dull culture critique.
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The Last Book I Loved: The Wordy Shipmates
I fall in love pretty easily, so for me right now it’s Sarah Vowell’s The Wordy Shipmates, which is her take on John Winthrop, Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson of Puritan ancestry fame. I love it because Vowell’s feelings toward…
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BAD MOMMY BLOG: Why Can’t Men Say, “Ow?”
“Ow. That hurts. I’m in pain.” These are a few things Andy (the husband) will never say. After a snowboarding mishap he blacked out, woke and noticed it hurt when his friend kept jabbing him in the stomach. He googled his…
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Woke Up Way Too Late
The genius of Ben Folds is not just the albums he releases. You don’t understand the intense creativity and expression of the man until you see or hear him perform live. At his best, Folds improvises one or more songs…
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A FAN’S NOTES, The Rumpus Sports Blog: Battling Against Castro
“In 1951 you couldn’t get us to talk politics. Ball players then would just as soon talk bed-wetting as talk politics.” These are the opening lines of Jim Shepard’s 1994 short story “Batting Against Castro,” in which a few feckless…
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How Did It Come to This?
An oral history of May 3, 1987, the day The Butthole Surfers came to Trenton, New Jersey.
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Bookapocalypse
Thousands scramble for free books after Amazon used book vender abandons warheouse. There’s really some beautiful photography here, in addition to the many readings one could make of the article.
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How to Irritate People
The various Monty Python box sets available have made it easy to be a fan of the greatest sketch comedy troupe of all time. But if you want to impress your friends with some ultra-hip proto-Python humor, check out How…
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Shortpacked
If Kevin Smith’s original slacker story Clerks took place in a slightly happier universe, with a larger and more functional friend circle, who worked in a bright toy store instead of the gloom of the Quick Stop, it would be…