On Reading
So deep into this other world do I drop, I no longer notice, nor do I care, what’s happening outside the book, in the “real” world. Like a drug, the book seduces me. I can’t resist.
Rumpus Original
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THE RUMPUS INTERVIEW WITH OLOF ARNALDS
Iceland’s Ólöf Arnalds (cousin to contemporary classical wunderkind Olafur Arnalds) is only in her early 30’s, yet has already charted an impressive career path that is only gaining traction with…
The Sunday Rumpus Essay: Spill
"There is a point at which mourners become weak. When they crack and spill. That is what I was waiting for."
The Saturday Rumpus Interview with Louise Mathias
I may have seemed in need of connection to Louise Mathias, when, upon meeting her, I gushed about what Joshua Tree meant to me. It’s true that I’m in need of connection, always, especially with poets, especially to places like the high desert
Reelings #5: TO THE WONDER
Malick seems to be interested in what is outside and underneath and around the framework of our lives. He's not interested in the stories we tell as much as the moments that cause us to throw our hands up into the air.
Swinging Modern Sounds #44: And Another Day
David Bowie, who isn't doing press for his new album The Next Day, provides Rick Moody with a workflow diagram for the album. A Rumpus exclusive.
The Sacred and the Profane
There is a total silence in the West on India’s culture of dissenting women in the face of severe patriarchy and authoritarianism. It doesn’t quite fit, does it, into the dichotomy carved out for Indian women by Americans and the British...
The Rumpus Interview with Kevin Smokler
Reading is a wild act of daring and risk. Reading a book, imagining the world different than how it is where you’re currently standing, is a great psychological, social risk.
Deep Throat #3: On Being and Unbeing A Singer
It would be easy and satisfying to say that I stopped singing because of the crack in my throat. It would be false. It’s true enough that there was one.…
The Rumpus Review of Trance
The dictionary defines memory as “the ability to recall.” For a computer, it’s an exact science when regurgitating programs, data, and facts, but for humans, that process can be ephemeral,…
Making’s Progress; or, A Defense of Poetry
"But how poetry can touch this utmost experience of being, before which language falters, I do not know, and can’t know, I am unable to know–unless I turn to poetry again...”
Drawing the Connection
Art is an act of finding, making, and forcing meaning; a synthesis of witness and imagination; a course that veers always toward empathy.