Rumpus Original
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In Praise of the Long, Lunatic Novel
More often than not, the best surprises arrive in unmarked brown boxes. In this case the mysterious contents appeared to be harmless enough, despite the intimidating immensity of the thing: it was the new novel by the great Hungarian writer Péter…
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The Sunday Rumpus Interview with Lisa Carver
I first heard of Lisa Carver in the late 1980s, when we were both about 19 or 20. Performing under the name Lisa Suckdog in shows that involved screeching, screaming, pissing, and violence, she was often spoken of in the same…
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Decades of Nothing Between
These poems are often about the strange, complex and imperfect mapping of nature—human and wild—onto our 21st century lives.
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THE WEEK IN GREED #2: Soprano Defeats Romney!
A quick pop quiz for the upwardly mobile couch potato: what theme unites virtually all our marquee cable television shows?
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My Fruit Bat, My Gewgaw
These poems are about unintentional association, the ways our minds wander even when — especially when? — they’re trying to wrap themselves around a given idea.
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“Thousands are gathered outside the interior ministry…” a Rumpus Original Poem by Dora Malech
“Thousands are gathered outside the interior ministry…” Bloody lullabies soothe the centuries. Can’t see the cradles for the tops of trees but you know the rest: you can’t rest, poor babies.
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Swinging Modern Sounds #34: Excesses of Penis
The early, formative period of rock and roll criticism produced three great and indelible voices, three voices that have gone on to influence every writer who has written about popular music in the years since. Those three voices belong to…
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The Rumpus Interview with Luke Rathborne
Maine-born, Brookyln-based musician Luke Rathborne is still in his early 20s, but he is already off to a promising start. Rathborne has opened for the Strokes and played with Devendra Banhart, among other accolades.
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Adventures in the Narrative
Lawrence Weschler’s collection of essays, Uncanny Valley, compiles some his best essays with the same perspective that he brings to each essay – an impulse to find the subtle convergences in the mundane.
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Mario Vargas Llosa and the Sort of Book You’d Sacrifice a Sandal For
A few months ago my wife and I spent a day on Isla Colon—one of Panama’s Bocas del Toro islands in the Caribbean—where three different men asked if I wanted marijuana. When I told them no, they’d ask the obvious…
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The Rumpus Interview with Christopher Goffard
Wherever he went, the man of God carried his shotgun… Christopher Goffard’s You Will See Fire is a tense and harrowing look at the life and mysterious death – of a brave, at times, recklessly so – American priest living…
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A Super Bowl Preview For People Who Don’t Know Football (2012 Edition)
If Hollywood could cast the Super Bowl teams, it wouldn’t choose most of the guys who make up the New England Patriots and the New York Giants. It also couldn’t invent the stories of how these people got here any…