Weekend Rumpus Roundup
First, Brandon Hicks illustrates the silly and circular patterns of being a romantic. Then, in the Saturday Essay, Amanda Choutka reminisces about her adolescence and growing up with an autistic younger…
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Max Gray
260 posts
Read more of Max Gray at Big City Sasquatch or follow him on Twitter @City_Sasquatch. His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Encounters, Mount Hope, Conte, tNY.press, and English Kills Review. He co-hosts the etymology podcast Words For Dinner and is a graduate of the Rutgers-Newark MFA program.
Song of the Day: “Jailhouse Blues”
Sam John Hopkins wasn’t known as “Lightnin'” until a music executive heard him play in a recording session in 1946. Ever since then, Hopkins’s gutsy vocals and impressive blues guitar…
Weekend Rumpus Roundup
Caroline Smith writes about parenthood and television in the Saturday Essay. The wildly popular AMC drama Mad Men provides a thematic frame for Smith’s own foray into marriage and motherhood. She…
Song of the Day: “Mannish Boy”
“I’m a man,” Muddy Waters growls on this hard-driving blues song. But in the next breath he sings, “I’m a man-child.” The subtleties of this message are often lost on…
Weekend Rumpus Roundup
First, Brandon Hicks gives us “Leonard: The Dad From A Different Generation.” Next, Gayle Brandeis offers a personal and insightful portrait of female body image in the Saturday Essay, “Thunder, Thighs.” Before…
Song of the Day: “In the Lost and Found”
Elliot Smith fits the definition of “tortured artist” pretty cleanly. His childhood in Texas and the divorce of his parents contributed to enduring problems with depression, addiction, and suicidal tendencies.…
Weekend Rumpus Roundup
First, in the Saturday Essay, Melissa Carroll praises the “refreshing” film, The Diary of a Teenage Girl. But despite the wonderful story, great acting, and a great soundtrack, something about the…
Song of the Day: “Jump Off The Roof”
One of the least talked-about and most heartfelt tracks off Vince Staples’s identify-defining album, Summertime ’06, dispenses with the bravado of his other lyrics. At the same time, “Jump Off…
Weekend Rumpus Roundup
First, Brandon Hicks takes a hilarious look at “The Stop Sign.” And in the Saturday Essay, Kyle Dargan provides a thoughtful response to a New York Times article on female body image.…
Song of the Day: “The Less I Know The Better”
Australian musician Kevin Parker’s band, Tame Impala, is known for blending musical influences like psychedelia and lo-fi, but Parker’s proficiency as a songwriter only adds to his resume. On “The Less…
Weekend Rumpus Roundup
“If there was one thing I learned from Tess Durbeyfield, Lily Bart, and Constance Chatterly,” writes Gina Di Salvo in the Saturday Essay, “it was not to get trapped.” When…
Song of the Day: “Asphyxiate”
The duo of Lizzie Karr and Ben Wiley are one of the more compelling electronic music groups to come out of the Bay Area since Bassnectar. Though their previous single,…