Brief Thoughts on Alvaro Mutis’s “The Tramp Steamer’s Last Port Of Call”
There is a line of James Wright I have always loved: “Where is the sea, that once solved the whole loneliness of the Midwest?” Re-reading one of the great modern…
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Rumpus Articles
Seen at Dusk
Brian Goggin and Dorka Keehn’s new installation, “Language of the Birds,” at the intersection of Broadway, Grant and Columbus in downtown San Francisco is a flock of solar-powered books in…
Rumpus Original – A Review of Cadillac Records
Good music usually has a story. At 26 Beethoven lost his hearing. Bach had issues with authority. Sid Vicious’ parents were hippies. Sometimes these details explain the nature of the…
Chicago Cop Blog, by Anonymous
Almost everybody who knows anything about Chicago can tell you that it is notorious for its stifling summers and bone-chilling winters. What they probably don’t know is that not all crappy…
Contemporary Art, A la Carte
Paper Magazine’s favorite artists and players in the art world tell us who and what they care about now and why, inviting us into the wider community of ideas and sensibilities…
One Crazy Motherfucker
I Have Fun Everywhere I Go Memoirs can be split into two rough camps: those that place their narrator front and center, and those focused on external events. The former…
Jay Smooth on “The Big Moment”
Jay Smooth is the founder of WBAI’s Underground Railroad, New York’s longest running hip-hop radio show. Like nearly all other bipeds, he has a blog. What differentiates Smooth from the…
Miranda July on Voting
This pre-election comment still pleases me: Here’s why you should vote: you are going to really love it, the whole strange procedure. You get to walk right into a building…
Death of a Publishing House
Less than a year after Houghton Mifflin bought Harcourt, the new entity – Houghton Mifflin Harcourt – seems to be collapsing. Two weeks ago, it was announced – and then…
Torn and Tethered
Stretched, strung-out, pinned-down, imprisoned and exploding, the work of artist E. V. Day has a little something to say about women, fashion and captivity.
Best Love Scene, Ever?
So, like, what’s your favorite love scene from the movies? I would like to know yours. Mine is this motel seduction sequence from Bottle Rocket. I believe that part of…
New! Live! Cornelia Nixon reads fiction…
Got an hour to listen to an amazing short story? Watch this year’s Pulitzer Prize poet, and former U.S. Poet Laureate, introduce Cornelia Nixon, who reads her short story, “Beach…