Posts by author
Paolo Yumol
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R.I.P. Richard Matheson: Why Film Adaptations of His Work Have Been So Terrible
Legendary science fiction author and screenwriter Richard Matheson, who unfortunately passed away a little over a month ago, has had his work adapted into a plethora of movies—I Am Legend, The Box, The Shrinking Man, What Dreams Will Come, etc.—which, unfortunately, haven’t all fared…
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On Being “Smart Dumb”
Kenneth Goldsmith, who was recently appointed MoMA’s “poet laureate,” shares over at The Awl a manifesto of sorts advocating for “smart dumb,” which he claims is an alternative to “both smart smart and dumb dumb, choosing instead to walk a tightrope…
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Have Critics Lost Their Authority?
In an essay written for Pacific Standard, psychologist Adam Waytz meditates on the dramatic influence the Internet has had on the role of cultural criticism. Arguing that the Internet (with its “leaking” and torrenting and general filesharing debauchery) has effectively…
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Weekend Rumpus Roundup
Look. It was a nasty weekend. We both said some things we didn’t mean. Let’s just put it behind us with the weekend Rumpus roundup (though that was still a pretty perverted thing you did). Who knew that, upon finding…
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“We Cannot Be in Love…”
Even from that very first statement, Rumpus contributor Amy Butcher‘s personal essay “Probably It’s Nothing Fancy” establishes an all-too familiar tension between two friends who are beginning to imagine themselves as involved in something more. Through prose that is both…
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Quiet Lightning + The Rumpus: In Case You Missed It
On July 9th, The Rumpus teamed up with reading series organizers Quiet Lightning for a literary one-night stand at the Balançoire in San Francisco. Not only were there readings by eight different authors—including special readings by Alice LaPlante and Brandon Brown—but comic Janine…
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“Dear Mark J. Mulcahy, I’m Very Appreciative of This Interview You Did With Rick Moody”
Read Rumpus columnist Rick Moody‘s interview with songwriter-visionary Mark Mulcahy (formerly of the legendary ’80s–’90s college rock band Miracle Legion) about Mulcahy’s latest album “Dear Mark J. Mulcahy, I Love You” over at Salon. Here Mulcahy discusses the writing and…
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Charlie Kaufman to Write Film Adaptation of Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five
Guillermo del Toro (director of Pan’s Labyrinth and the upcoming movie Pacific Rim) has recently announced that he has selected Charlie Kaufman as the writer of the screenplay for del Toro’s film adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five. Kaufman, famous for writing the screenplays…
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Novelist David Mitchell on His Son’s Autism
In an essay for The Guardian, David Mitchell (author of the novels Cloud Atlas and Black Swan Green, among others) provides a moving and honest account of the experience of raising a son with autism. While the diagnosis came as a shock—and gave…
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Are High School Students in Any Sort of Abstract Literary Danger?
A recent piece on NPR indicated that, according to recent studies, high school students are more and more frequently reading below their grade level. It explained that the growing popularity of book series like The Hunger Games among teenagers is an indirect…
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Celebrating the Essay
The topic of essayism—one especially relevant to the Rumpus—is granted the meticulous attention it deserves in this opinion piece Christy Wampole wrote for the New York Times. Wampole artfully weaves the essay’s deep history through a narrative about the development…
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Twitter as Literary Device?
As Twitter continues to be met with the warm (and arguably unlikely) embrace of writers like Joyce Carol Oates and Jennifer Egan (read the story she wrote for last year’s fiction issue of The New Yorker in its original serialized tweet form…