Rumpus Originals
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Readers Report: Friends with Benefits
A collection of short pieces written by Rumpus readers pertaining to the subject of “Friends with Benefits.”
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The Sunday Rumpus Interview with Josip Novakovich
In the mid-1990s I lived in Chicago and became impressed by the vibrant art scene there. New galleries were popping up all over River North, Bucktown, and Wicker Park. Chicago’s emerging visual artists, it was often said, had set themselves…
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THE WEEK IN GREED #4: Risk-Free Ratfucking
Dirty tricks work in politics because it is human nature to see the worst of ourselves in others, particularly in those we feel are more powerful than we are.
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Thoughts on Letters In The Mail
When I saw the words “This week’s Letter In The Mail is from Sari Botton” at the bottom of Wednesday’s Daily Rumpus email from Stephen Elliott, my stomach dropped.
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Met a Lunatic on Craigslist
But even here, vertigo and ambivalence dominate, and I find myself searching the poems for the kinetic energy of a walker in the city; heel marks and muddy droplets. I want to overhear conversations on the streets.
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Who Cares When Your Record Was Digitally Remastered?
I’ll admit I’m obsessive about dates in general, and music-related dates most of all. So when I started using the music-streaming service Spotify, I was pleased to see a year listed next to the name of every album in their…
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Modern Retellings
The Flight of Gemma Hardy and Death Comes to Pemberly both attempt to pay homage to nineteenth century novelists, but the translation is not always apt.
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Beyond the Measure of Men
Here we are again. In the New York Times Book Review, Meg Wolitzer takes up the matter of “women’s fiction,” in her essay, “The Second Shelf.” She does a fine job of addressing the ongoing, fraught conversation about men, women, the…
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The Rumpus Interview with Mark Leidner
Smack in the middle of a Manhattan poetry reading, a silence builds in the room. The crowd of New Yorkers—a little impatient, a little uneasy—inch forward in their chairs, waiting for the banter or the next title to come. Leidner…