Posts by author
Michael Berger
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On Being A Citizen Of Literature
“There’s a scene at the end of Ugrešić’s 1993 essay collection Have A Nice Day: From The Balkan War to the American Dream where the author describes an encounter that occurred while waiting in line for her I.D. card in…
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Are We Talking About Sex Differently?
My girlfriend is reading Henry Miller, we’re applying for food stamps and I’m having nightmares about children having died in my house. I spent the last weekend partying in Al Capone’s old hideout. And woke up to find myself waiting…
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Erick Lyle’s Secret History Of The City
If you live in San Francisco long enough, you start to wonder: “Where the hell can I go at 3 a.m. which isn’t home or a laundromat or a massage parlor?” This simple question might balloon into a larger, perhaps…
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The Kakutani Two-Step
“The Kakutani Two-Step. It works roughly like this: belittle a novelist’s finest work to date – preferably by tossing around unsupported adjectives…say, “arbitrary,” “flimsy,” and “unfinished.” Then, five or six years later, when the novelist in question brings forth his…
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On The Forgotten Magic Of Writing
“I’m so, so tired of reading about how writing should be demystified, how it doesn’t work the way Cortazar describes at all, how you toil at it slowly like you’re scrubbing a toilet, how the important parts are rewriting everything…
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Before You See “Antichrist,” A Few Other Romantic Films
It doesn’t take a Harvard-trained therapist to know that with love comes madness, obsession, jealousy, mind-fuckery, fear, panic and a healthy dose of psychosexual terrorism. Maybe these symptoms aren’t manifested in such harsh terms for everyone, but there’ s no…
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Big Machine: The New Novel I’m Most Excited About Reading
Every Tuesday the new books arrive at my store. I get to slice open the boxes, pull out the books, price them and arrange them in the most appealing and eye-catching way possible. Because I don’t personally order them, it’s…
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Tamim Ansary At Red Hill Books
As both a Rumpus regular and as an employee of Red Hill Books, I’m pleased to announce that on Wednesday, October 7th at 7 p.m. at Red Hill fellow Rumpus contributor, Award-winning author, storyteller and Bernal resident Tamim Ansary will be reading…
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The Rumpus Sunday Book Blog Roundup
It’s your humble Sunday guest editor back in the hot seat again for another wild ride through the bookblogosphere! Today is special to me because the Folsom Fair will be happening which, if you’ve never been, is one of the…
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The Rumpus Sunday Book Review Supplement
This week The Rumpus brings you essays, an interview, a blurb and a review or two from good people like Michelle Orange and Josh Bearman and other special luminaries.
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Your Occasional Roundup Of Death
Writing and reading does me a lot of good because it acquaints me with death in totally vicarious ways. Which is good, because I love life more than I know what to do with. Often in what I write, there’s …
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Poets Misbehaving In New York
At The Morning News, Daniel Nester reminisces about his former life as a New York poet. More than that, though, he talks about his abdication from the world of poetry. “I remember some night when I am eating a Mexican…