Columns
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Prop 34: The fate of the Death Penalty
The United States is one of only four industrialized democracies that still practice capital punishment. This upcoming election, Prop 34 will determine the fate of the death penalty in California. Alexandra Gross’ personal essay, “My Childhood Pen-Pal Was an Innocent Man…
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A Sound Bite to Savor
Who doesn’t love awesomely funny and quirky writers who slyly and inevitably ravage us with their insights into the sometimes devastating complexities of life and interaction with our fellow human beings? What about one such writer reading the work of…
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Fallen Trees, Broken Windows and Beer Bottles
We’ve got a treat for those of you who followed Sandy’s destructive path and what has been left in her wake. How about a nice essay about how New Yorkers can manage to come together after a disaster? Over at Outside,…
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The Rumpus Interview with Jake Adelstein
Jake Adelstein possesses an obsessive, infectious energy, coupled with an immense generosity and an ability to be, when necessary, stringently ruthless. This combination serves him well in the line of work that he half-chose, half-stumbled into: Adelstein is the guy…
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“What Is Amazing” by Heather Christle
What Is Amazing by Heather Christle is another illustration of my frustration with the word “critic,” why I think “appreciator” is a closer approximation and why I’m still open to one-word suggestions. Christle was born in 1980 and has two…
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Dan Weiss’s Morning Coffee
Evolution watch 2012: this elephant appears to be speaking Korean. Who doesn’t love old skeletal drawings? Behold the earliest known super nova! Behold the painfree bandaid! Now let’s take a look inside a Soviet trade dictionary.
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The Magic Bullet
The assumption is that people with mental illnesses are voiceless, can’t speak for themselves in a way that is reliable, in a way that other people want to hear or be led by. People want to hear stories of mental…
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“Boy, A History”
“In line in the cafeteria, at his favorite table in the library, on the last block before the block he lives on, the inside of Boy’s head is one blank notebook page after another.” At Guernica, Roxane Gay guest-edited Rumpus contributor Saeed…
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Why I Chose Cleopatra Mathis’s “Book of Dog” for the Rumpus Poetry Book Club
Camille T. Dungy on why she selected Book of Dog by Cleopatra Mathis for the Rumpus Poetry Book Club in November.
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40th Anniversary of Miles Davis’s On The Corner
At The Stranger, Dave Segal and other Seattle musicians commemorate the 40th anniversary of Miles Davis’s On The Corner. “Grooves solid as diamonds with freaked-out tendrils that wrap around your soul and poke at you where you least expect to…
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Help A Bookstore Out
The good news, as The Atlantic Wire reported yesterday, is many bookstores in Manhattan and Brooklyn managed to weather the storm, and should be—if they aren’t already—doing business as usual within the next day or so. The bad news is powerHouse Arena,…
