Rumpus Originals
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Ted Wilson Reviews the World #5
THE ROCKVILLE PUBLIC LIBRARY ★★★★★ (3 out of 5) Hello, and welcome to my week-by-week review of everything in the world. Today I am reviewing the Rockville Public Library.
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The Scholars and the Pornographer
Dame Helen Gardner and George Newton Bowlin Laws—it seems funny, but very good to me to see them in the same sentence. I first saw Helen Gardner, brilliant scholar, denizen of Oxford University, later to be made a Dame on her…
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Swinging Modern Sounds #16: Indeterminate Activity
Lovers of contemporary experimental music will likely remember the moment in the early eighties when John Cage, the godfather of minimalism and of most New York City experimental music, referred to Glenn Branca (he of the pieces for ensembles of…
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Why I Write (About Music)
I have two of Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategies index cards taped to my monitor. They are supposed to motivate me while slowly radiating guilt. Obliquely, I guess. One reads: Not building a wall, but making a brick (sands, time, hourglass,…
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But Not for Long
Michelle Wildgen’s second novel traces the residents of a sustainable-food co-op through crises, adjustments, and reinventions.
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FUNNY WOMEN #4: The Importance of Attitude
My husband enjoys scuba diving. Prior to meeting my present spouse, I had never entertained the notion of going diving, as it combines three things I generally try to avoid: doing equations, wearing a rubber bodysuit, and drowning.
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Rumpus Flash Fiction: “Simoom,” by Anna North
When my father left and my mother went crazy and carved into every wooden surface of our house a name that wasn’t hers or his, I asked what she was doing. She made me get down the dictionary. “Simoom,” I…
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California Dreaming
If you haven’t yet watched Showtime’s hit series Californication, here’s a quick tagline: Down-and-out novelist Hank Moody – played by David Duchovny – tries to get his life back on track after his partner/muse leaves him and he succumbs to…
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A Gate at the Huh?
Despite this novel’s serious flaws, it is a gratifying experience. You don’t so much read Lorrie Moore’s books as inhabit them—after which they inhabit you.
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Conversations About the Internet #2: Scott Rosenberg on Blogging and Journalism
What motivates bloggers? They care. It’s as simple as that. To a lot of journalists that comes as a shock, because for many (not all) it’s just a job, and it’s a job they’ve been doing many years, and…