Recent posts
Rumpus Articles
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An Epic, Three Year Prank to Try to Convince a Young Man That he is Destined to Save the Human Race
Piero Manzoni once canned his own shit, called it art, and sold it for its weight in gold. It was part of an early sixties backlash against the art market.
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The Rumpus Interview with James Toback
James Toback started his career in 1978 with a movie called Fingers, starring Harvey Keitel, about a gangster who succeeds in following his more spiritual, delicate side and becomes a concert pianist. In a similar way, Toback’s latest film explores…
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An Oral History of Myself #3: Dan
In 2005 I began interviewing people I grew up with. Because I left home at thirteen and spent four years in group homes, my social network was significantly wider than most people of that age. What’s most interesting about these…
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Google, Kindle, and The Library of Babel
Technological innovation seems almost strangely commonplace these days, from say, contact lenses that could layer data directly onto your view of the world to robots fighting far-flung wars to computer systems perhaps smart enough to compete on “Jeopardy!” All astonishing…
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The Great American Novel in Miniature
Lurking beneath the dazzling political and pop-culture fireworks of Benjamin Taylor’s second novel, The Book of Getting Even, is a vivid tale of American displacement and discovery that could be called a contemporary classic but for one thing: It’s only…
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The Modest Mogel and the Grey Lady
David Geffen, one of Hollywood’s most hallowed players, has roused the newspaper industry with his recent offer to purchase a large stake in the the New York Times. On May 11, Fortune Magazine revealed that Geffen was shopping for the…
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Maddie Oatman: The Last Book I Loved, Divisadero
Last night I dreamed of apocalypse: the room filled with water for a couple of hours, and we were all submerged, floundering around in scuba suits and waiting for the world to return. The details of the nascent civilization that…
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One Last Dan Baum Article: Sean Carman Imitates Dan Baum
If you’re not familiar with Dan Baum’s story, start here.
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Morning Coffee
Passive-aggressive notes. Bird’s eye view photography is pretty rad. Jason Hawkes has figured this out. The Big Picture has figured out that Jason Hawkes has figured this out. Dinosaur comics. We must have linked to this before but yesterday’s strip…
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The Last Book I Loved: The Log of the S.S. the Mrs. Unguentine by Stanley Crawford
This is one damn weird love story. This is one strange quest. This is one bizarre boat. These are a couple of strange characters we’ve got here. This book feels like a dare, as in I dare you not to…
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A Novel, A Junta, A Murdered Bishop
A book—that’s an artifact, often long, filled with deep analysis, and pages, and made of paper—by Francisco Goldman undoes an electoral campaign, triggers assassinations, and drags its author into a political minefield in Guatemala. But can the tome bring closure…