Posts by author
Charley Locke
-
A Séance for Robert Browning
The voice of the dead man was heard speaking… In breathless silence the little, awed group stood round the phonograph, [as] Robert Browning’s familiar and cheery voice suddenly exclaimed: “Ready?” Poet Robert Browning may not have been able to remember…
-
Murakami Plays Dear Abby
“There’s no use of me singing ‘I can’t stop loooooooving you’ to you, I suppose.” We beg to differ, Haruki: The Rumpus would love to hear your crooning Ray Charles rendition. Alas, author Haruki Murakami hasn’t serenaded us yet, but…
-
Charles Simic on Walt Whitman
Poet Charles Simic may prefer the “pleasant aftertaste” of a literary amuse-bouche before bed, but when prompted about one of his favorite literary passages, he chose Walt Whitman’s “A Sight in Camp in the Daybreak Gray and Dim.” Over at…
-
On Finding Shade in the Spotlight
How much do we know an author after reading his or her work? What right does a reader have to criticize or judge an author’s writing? Sarah Gerard, whose novel Binary Star was just reviewed on The Rumpus, and Ben Fama,…
-
Vivian Gornick and a Life of One’s Own
“Giving up on love has been the work of a lifetime for Gornick,” writes Laura Marsh in a review of reporter, author and feminist Vivian Gornick’s new memoir, The Odd Woman and the City. In the first-ever installment of her…
-
Step Inside Borges’s Library of Every Book That Will Ever Be Written
“For every rational line or forthright statement there are leagues of senseless cacophony, verbal nonsense, and incoherency.” No, that’s not Jonathan Franzen grumbling about the Internet—it’s a line from “The Library of Babel,” a short story written by Jorge Luis…
-
Kurt Vonnegut and Other “Inveterate Doodlers”
Sylvia Plath may not be best known for her paper dolls, but we don’t usually envision Mark Twain as an avid fan of scrapbooking, either. Check out this cool collection of the artwork of famous authors, which also includes William…
-
Come Hear Six-Word Memoirs on Jewish Life
You’re in San Francisco, no? And you like stories? Very brief ones? About Jewish life? Told live? Who doesn’t? Regardless of your answers to those questions, come to the SMITH Live Story Show on Thursday, July 12th! Here’s the deal:…
-
“The Profundity of Female Friendships”
At The New Yorker, Anna Holmes writes about how “Girls” and Sheila Heti’s new novel How Should a Person Be? “treat heterosexual coupling as secondary, and how they depict the profundity of female friendships, not to mention their real perils—which are quite different…
-
Multicolored The Sound and the Fury Finally Published
When William Faulkner originally published The Sound and the Fury, he wished Benjy’s narrative could be printed in different colors to denote different time periods, lamenting that “I’ll just have to save the idea until publishing grows up.” Now it has: The…
-
Dated Dating: Friends to the End
Over at The Atlantic, here’s some dating advice for young people in the ’40s and from young people in the ’80s. Check out the sexist tips and take a peek into the minds and colorful notes of seventh grade girls. “First of…
-
Romney Picking Up Good Vibrations
Over at The New York Times, Daniel Nester considers the complicated politics of the Beach Boys and muses on “the need to reconcile an artist’s politics with his art.” “You might say that the Beach Boys’ long history of feuds,…