Politics
-
The Saturday Rumpus Essay: Walk On
As writers, we must write it out. Tear off the veils and air the rotting fruits.
-
The Storming Bohemian Punks the Muse #11: Politics, Madness, and Sanity
My family was always political, but I have a love/hate relationship with politics. Today, I can feel the country swinging towards madness. And make no mistake, a country can go mad. It is familiar territory, exciting and threatening, seductive and…
-
This Week in Trumplandia
Welcome to This Week in Trumplandia, a new Rumpus column in which I, your passionate, sometimes angry, mostly emotional, Aries/Taurus cusp host, will highlight PEOTUS-related news that you need to know. Who am I? I’m a freelance writer from Philadelphia (also,…
-
An Open Letter to My Brother, A Trump Supporter
Dear John, I, like so many other Americans, spent the past weeks worrying, crying, and searching for the people around me that I loved so they could be beacons when I felt most battered. I did not seek you out,…
-
Post-Election Dispatch: Charleston, SC
Right now as I write this, smoke from fires in the southeastern Appalachian Mountains haze the morning. We’re under orange alert—the air quality bad enough that schoolchildren will stay indoors today. This morning the coastal flooding is up again thanks…
-
Trump Dads: A Confession
Mine wears short shorts while he jogs, with a baseball cap over his baldness, and no shirt. His comes home from work and changes into a full gray sweatsuit, then sits at the head of the kitchen table to relax…
-
The Digital Dictator
I have existed from the morning of the world and I shall exist until the last star falls from the night –Roman emperor Gaius Caligula (AD 12–AD 41). Part of the beauty of me is that I am very rich.…
-
Touring Trump’s America on Colson Whitehead’s Underground Railroad
Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad won the National Book Award on Wednesday night. In his acceptance speech he told us, “We’re happy in here; outside is the blasted hellhole wasteland of Trumpland. Be kind to everybody. Make art and fight…
-
Job Insecurity 101
At California College of the Arts in San Francisco and Oakland, adjunct faculty have been trying for two years to win their first union contract. They are part of the Service Employees International Union’s Faculty Forward movement, through which some 13,000…
-
A Letter to My Male Friends Who May Not Know That They Are Women
Dearest loves, As you are, I am stricken. I am devastated. I am unmade. We have all felt a terrible blow. And yet, of course, we all feel it differently, and have different understandings of what has befallen us, and…
-
The Storming Bohemian Punks the Muse #10: Art Lives!
Sunday: I work through the voting guide, propositions, and candidates, making my decisions. My partner, Argyle C, Klopnick (ACK!), is sure, now, that Hillary’s victory is certain. I ‘m not yet a believer. I think Trump is electable. Monday: I’m…
