Posts by author
Michael Berger
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Saturday Rumpus Essay: Art at Work
Even while the work just barely paid my bills, I had to make it work for me on an entirely different level. I knew art could transform so much meaninglessness.
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Bartending, Booktending: Three Years at Red Hill Books
Last summer I was telling my coworker at Red Hill Books a story about mistaken identity.
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Zombies Meet Joy Division
More and more “serious” “literary” writers are turning to zombies, werewolves, and vampires for inspiration. This could be symptomatic of something dire or something hopeful in the world of writing. We could dither endlessly about the ramifications. But perhaps we…
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Rebecca West On Literary Criticism
“A little grave reflection shows us that our first duty is to establish a new and abusive school of criticism. . .There is merely a chorus of weak cheers, a piping note of appreciation that is not stilled unless a book is suppressed by…
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Farewell To Open City
A memorial to the long-standing literary magazine, Open City. (Via: Bookforum)
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On Law, Zines and Trans Politics
“. . .there has been widescale attacks on social movements over the last thirty or forty years in response to the very meaningful social movements in the sixties and seventies that had very transformative demands, that were seeking a redistribution…
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Perec On Asking For A Raise
Everyday life is surprisingly full of hair-raising adventures. Sometimes you don’t realize it until you’re in the thick of it. Waiting for the grocery store manager to confirm that you are not in fact the same guy who stole the…
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Reimagining The Memoir
“That it is being considered as book of criticism, rather than as memoir, seems the luck of the draw. Some of the essays in it were originally published in the guise of book reviews, but they always jump the rails…
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The Joys Of Freelancin’
“The great thing about freelance, of course, is the numerous freedoms it embraces, chief among them being the freedom to work in your underwear. This seems to be the one that everyone knows. I was talking on the phone to…
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Introducing Belgium’s Master Fantasist
Just like last week, Belgium, for reasons obtuse and inexplicable is on my mind. I discovered at 50 Watts a guest post by Edward Gauvin about a Belgian writer named Thomas Owen that English-only readers are not going to encounter…
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Introducing Anna Kavan
There’s an indispensable book called About Writing by Samuel R. Delany. In the first essay he cobbles together an eclectic list of authors that, ideally, the aspiring writer should read. Because Delany has read everything, you can bet his tastes…
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A Primer On Exotic Punctuation
Never heard of the ancient, wonderful and criminally under-acknowledged Pilcrow? Then go savor the musings at Shady Characters, a blog about unusual punctuation. (Via: Book Bench)