Rumpus Originals
9689 posts
DIFFERENT RACISMS: On Jeremy Lin and How the Rules of Racism are Different for Asian Americans
My senior year in Chapel Hill, I finally got up the courage to take a course in Asian American literature. Stupidly, I treated it as a little experiment. As an…
Ted Wilson Reviews the World #128
THE FOXTROT ★★★★★ (4 out of 5) Hello, and welcome to my week-by-week review of everything in the world. Today I am reviewing the foxtrot.
The Alienable Rights of Women
We are having a national debate about abortion, birth control, and reproductive freedom, and men are directing that debate.
The New Gilded Class
Christina Alger’s debut The Darlings follows the Darling family headed by a billionaire financier through the financial crisis. Luckily, these rich people are really screwed up.
LONELY VOICE #18: Kafka the Dad (Part Three of Five Stray Thoughts on Kafka)
In an essay called “The I Without a Self,” W.H. Auden tells us about a rumor “which if true might have occurred in a Kafka story.” That is that Kafka,…
The Comics Journal: Is That All There Is?
Is That All There Is (Joost Swarte) Fantagraphics $35; 144 pages Reviewed by Matt Seneca The title’s the joke: yes, folks, this rather slim, elegantly designed hardcover contains (nearly) every published…
All Over Coffee #576
Click image to enlarge: … All Over Coffee, by Paul Madonna, is published in the Sunday Datebook section of the San Francisco Chronicle, on SFGate.com, and in two book collections…
Friendship Addiction
“Friends? Who needs them?” said a Korean friend of mine. “I don’t make friends. I have a wife and a child, that’s enough social life for me.” I was surprised…
A Square Grows Gloomy
Especially for a reader coming to Trakl for the first time, Firmage’s accessible introduction and organization of the poems provide an excellent overview of Trakl’s development as a poet and…
What You Lost Is What Everyone Lost
Often, in contemporary literature, grief becomes clichéd; O’Rourke, however, avoids sappiness or melodrama. Instead, her poetry probes at the actualization of grief, revealing a startling emotional depth.