Rumpus Originals
-
The Shorty Q&A with Rex Sorgatz
Internet celebrity, famed microblogger, and Fimoculous forefather Rex Sorgatz spends some time with The Rumpus. “I WILL FUCKING CUT YOU, PACHELBEL!”
-
Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam
A Three Part Interview Roundtable Part 2 – Michal Zak (read part 1 here) Michal Zak is a forty-nine year old Jewish resident of Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam, a village with a population mandated at exactly 50% Palestinian Arab/Israeli Jew. She’s…
-
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…
-
Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam
A Three Part Interview Part 1 – Howard Shippin “I live as If the future is now” Fifty-five families live in Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam situated along Isreal’s infamous green line. The community keeps its population strictly split at 50-50—half Arab…
-
Rumpus Original – On Teaching Poetry To Women In Prison
I was nineteen. Prison seemed sexy and foreign—as did most forbidden things. Maybe I wanted to seem tough. Maybe I needed something to differentiate me from all the other over-achieving, world-traveled students at the university I attended. Maybe I felt…
-
Brief Thoughts on Alvaro Mutis’s “The Tramp Steamer’s Last Port Of Call”
There is a line of James Wright I have always loved: “Where is the sea, that once solved the whole loneliness of the Midwest?” Re-reading one of the great modern sea stories, “The Tramp Steamer’s Last Port of Call,” by…
-
Rumpus Original – A Review of Cadillac Records
Good music usually has a story. At 26 Beethoven lost his hearing. Bach had issues with authority. Sid Vicious’ parents were hippies. Sometimes these details explain the nature of the art, other times, they’re just interesting anecdotes that are nicely…
-
One Crazy Motherfucker
I Have Fun Everywhere I Go Memoirs can be split into two rough camps: those that place their narrator front and center, and those focused on external events. The former narcissistically inflates its protagonist, even when describing misbehavior or abjection…