Real Choice in Afghan Election
A look at the upcoming presidential election in Afghanistan by Tamim Ansary, author of Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes. I have this recurring nightmare in…
Rumpus Originals
9688 posts
A Family Affair: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Cult Rock
Charles Manson is a bad man. I’ve never kidded myself to that fact, and I don’t glamorize his crimes or the crimes of his “family” one bit.
TRUTH SERUM:
Online Disconnection
Truth Serum books (big commitment). Truth Serum on Facebook (small commitment).
Take Dead Aim
Aim Straight at the Fountain and Press Vaporize is ambitious and clever. By turns entertaining, fascinating, and charming, it is also monotonous with its adolescent charm and fluorescent insistence.
Chasing J.X. Williams: The Rumpus Interview With Noel Lawrence
J.X. Williams directed 54 feature films, wrote 78 screenplays, and compiled an FBI file 6,000 pages long. Noel Lawrence has poured his life into the maintenance and curation of the…
The Eyeball #27: Apocalypse Now Redux
“The purpose of war is to kill as many of the enemy’s civilians as you can until they surrender.” –Col. John Harbert John Harbert was my grandfather, my hero, a…
In the Eye of the Hurricane
The Louisiana Skip Horack creates is both generative and broken, salvific and ruined, marked in ways large and small by Hurricane Katrina.
My Favorite Clause: Ruminations on Stuart Dybek’s Penis
“Sauerkraut Soup” from Stuart Dybek’s 1986 debut collection Childhood and Other Neighborhoods begins with a narrator waxing philosophical on the cathartic nature of bodily purge. “Puking felt like crying,” he…
Take Your Shirt Off and Cry: The Rumpus Interview With Nancy Balbirer
Nancy Balbirer’s hilarious, soulful memoir about acting, Hollywood, art, fame, and misguided relationships, Take Your Shirt Off and Cry: A Memoir Of Near-Fame Experiences is told from the perspective of…
Sex, Drugs, and Orchestra: The Importance of Metal Health and the New Iron Maiden Documentary
The Lucky 13 Saloon in Brooklyn is papered with horror movie posters and painted with a fine layer of filmy grit. A mutilated Chuckie doll straddles a Jaegermeister spout from…
The Fog of War
Robert Olmstead’s new novel demonstrates Robert E. Lee’s maxim: “It is well that war is so horrible, or we would grow to love it too much.”