Posts by author
Lauren O’Neal
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Poems with Some Spine
Nina Katchadourian makes curious and compelling art in a variety of different mediums, but perhaps her most interesting project—to book nerds, at least—is Sorted Books, an ongoing series of photographs of books arranged so that their titles assume the form…
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“I Stand on the Street and Observe and Draw”
When I was little I had this drawing workbook that I would use after school. On the front of it was a picture of a little kid, my age at the time (maybe 8) and he was drawing with a…
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Turkish Poem Takes On Prophetic Tone
My leaves are my eyes, I look in amazement I watch you with one hundred thousand eyes, I watch Istanbul Turkish poet Nâzım Hikmet Ran wrote those words about a tree in Gulhane Park, but after the recent protests in Istanbul,…
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Foodphobia
It’s easy to forget just how fraught our culture’s relationship with food is, until you see example after example of “food horror” piled on top of each other like so many potato chips. Which is to say that Future Shipwreck‘s supercut of…
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What Women Really Want
Certainly, women are no better suited for monogamy than men are. That, I think, is clear. It seems possible, if you look at some of the data, that women are even less well-suited for monogamy than men. Salon‘s Tracy Clark-Flory…
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Happy Birthday, Maurice Sendak!
Maurice Sendak, author of dearly loved children’s books like Where the Wild Things Are and In the Night Kitchen, would have turned 85 today. Celebrate his unrestrained imagination and (sometimes not-so-subtle) iconoclasm by revisiting his interview with The Believer or his unforgettable chat with…
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Jennifer Lawrence to Play Claire Bidwell Smith in Memoir Movie
Claire Bidwell Smith isn’t only a Rumpus interviewee and writer of Letters in the Mail—she’s also the author of a wrenching memoir about coming of age while losing both her parents. That book, The Rules of Inheritance, is now being adapted into…
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Weekend Rumpus Roundup
Ssshhhh. Do you hear that? It’s the sound of Rumpus weekend features. Like Wendy C. Ortiz’s mini-interview with Paul. You know, Paul, from Captain Pete’s Bait & Tackle? Paul says things like, “It sounds stupid but I kind of fell…
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The Waka Effect
It’s a tale as old as the ancient bones of the hills: A middle-aged white lady develops an interest in blogging about rap music. She befriends hip-hop artist Waka Flocka Flame over Twitter. Her husband gets jealous and controlling. She…
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Tao Lin Tells Tattoo Tale
If you didn’t already know, Rumpus co-owner Isaac Fitzgerald and Rumpus contributor Wendy MacNaughton run a spiffy little blog called Pen & Ink, which documents “tattoos and the stories behind them.” Today, alt-lit luminary Tao Lin reveals the meaning behind his…
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“The Story Behind Stoner“
Remember the Steve Almond essay “Lost and Found” from back in 2009? It was about a novel by John Williams (not the Star Wars composer) called Stoner (not like the marijuana enthusiast), which, though underappreciated by the world at large, bowled Almond…
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Rumpus Writers on the Jubilee’s Literary Stage
The Jubilee Music and Arts Festival, happening this weekend in Los Angeles, will showcase indie musicians like The Drums and The Black Lips, but it will also feature a variety of readers on a dedicated literature stage. The Literary Stage…