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Rumpus Articles
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Poems for an Economic Collapse
Katy Lederer’s poems are both romantic and political in nature. With their attention to formal and lyrical concerns, these poems tackle the problems of desire when it coincides with money and passion.
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Swinging Modern Sounds #7: On Repetition
The intractable problem of the moment in the arts—in music, in books, in movies, in almost every area of contemporary culture—is the problem of inattention.
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“Suddenly, from out of nowhere, a crowd of Carhartt flannels.”
Jeff Parker‘s narrator watches from a dryer as the woman he’s laid claim to slinks off (and into bed) with a stout beef named Brick. The narrator confronts his rival, who lies naked with the fine-bodied Patsy, by punching him…
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Tips for the Downsized
Anyone searching for a primer on how to hide the fact from one’s family after losing a job need look no further than Tokyo Sonata, the newest—and timely—film from the genre-hopping Japanese director Kiyoshi Kurosawa.
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The Rumpus Interview with Uwem Akpan
“After the phone call, I walked more than a mile to church to thank God. But on getting there, I couldn’t sit or kneel or pray, out of excitement.”
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Rural Art Hero
Thesley Beverly is the art czar, and maybe the heart and soul, of Pembroke, Illinois, population 2800.
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Get Clean Coal
Reality‘s latest ad in their campaign against the coal industry comes from the same folks who brought you The Big Lebowski, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Raising Arizona, and Fargo, to name a few. That’s right, this dose of reality…
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Pixelated God: Faith in the Internet
“We are all products in the marketplace. Everything we consume is a product. We consume and are consumed. We are products that produce.”
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Gender-Specific Sins
Survey based on Catholic confessions found that the most common sin for women was pride (followed by envy and anger), while the most common sin for men was lust (followed by gluttony and sloth). The report was based on a…
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I Hate to Make My Bed
In A Jury of Her Peers, Elaine Showalter chronicles the history of female American writers, from captivity narratives to Annie Proulx. Salon calls her “the woman for the job” due to her 1978 book A Literature of Their Own: British…
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The Greatest Marketing Campaign Ever
Paging all 1990s hard rock fan-girls, Josh Freese is yours…for a price. The drumming genius, who has been a member of The Vandals, Devo, and A Perfect Circle, in addition to backing countless artists, ranging from Avril Lavigne to Rob…
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The Shorty Q & A with Rodes Fishburne
The hero of Rodes Fishburne’s first novel, Going to See the Elephant, comes to San Francisco with only a trunk full of first-edition19th-century novels and an equally heavy load of gumption.