Features & Reviews
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People Reading
This blog captures People Reading as an on-going testament to the fact that people still read. They read Focault, Michael Crichton, Emily Dickinson; they read in Spanish and in Russian; they read on the BART platform, at the laundromat, and…
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The Axis of Empathy
Much has been written recently about Pakistan, most of it having to do with George W. Bush’s War on Terror. Where exactly is bin Laden hiding? Is the Pakistani government doing enough to help find him? And what of A.Q.…
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An Interview with Lawrence Weschler (about how to interview, among other things)
“I generally don’t use tape recorders. I take notes and work from memory. You can use the tape recorder as an aide-memoire, but I can tell you that I have been doing this for thirty years, and I’ve never had…
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Poetic Lives Online
AWP is approaching quickly, and though I won’t be there, lots of other poetry folks will be. Raymond Bianchi has a (short) list of restaurants that conference goers might want to check out, and he promises to give out more…
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Around the World in 100 Years
The best travel writing usually begins with an absurd proposition, so how could I not pick up an attic-sale book subtitled How to See Europe on Fifty Cents a Day?
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The Many Types of Trilobites
“As the privatization and patenting of scientific knowledge rapidly grows, overall scientific literacy continues to be very low,” claims The Small Science Collective. The SSC and and its Blog Sister Site are creating, distributing, and encouraging others to create and…
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The Rumpus Interview with Jaclyn Friedman
I’ve been interested in talking and educating about rape, safety and sexuality for most of my adult life.
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What Happened To Sheila
“Don’t worry, I’m not dying,” said my wife Sheila. But she was. This was about three days before it happened, and she sat up in her hospice bed and gave me one of those complicated looks she had: comforting and…
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The Importance of Being Nice
Abject admiration is the worst way to start a review. Isn’t it the blurbist’s job to kiss a writer’s behind, the critic’s to skewer it on the formidable barb of his or her literary intellect?
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Wiring the Lush Life
“I just saw a billboard on Houston street, it says ‘where have all the junkies gone?’” Clocking Some Time With Richard Price
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Story Time!
Sometimes you just want to come home from your haircut, curl up with Judy, and sit in the last sunshine of the day reading a good short story, a story that starts one way and then goes another, tragically, by…