Other
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NYR’S Apocalpyse Now
Malise Ruthven of the New York Review of Books blog ruminates on the history of apocalyptic rhetoric in literature, art, and politics from the Enlightenment to now. Ruthven focuses on the paradox of apocalyptic thinking where “prophets who predict the…
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The Unified Field
The new Fleet Foxes backed arts and lit magazine, The Unified Field, launches on September 18th and proceeds go to 826 National. The new lit mag will come with an 10″ vinyl pressing of unreleased, raw tracks from the likes of…
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Melville in Jerusalem
Herman Melville was not a happy camper after Moby Dick was panned by critics and failed to have any financial success (only 3100 copies were sold during his lifetime), but instead of pouting about it in America, he pouted about it in…
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“Visible Man”
“Sometimes I catch people staring as I bike past them. Wide-eyed, mouths slightly open as if to question the color of my hair. Red like Mars, like the rings of Jupiter… In the split-second of my passing, I wander into…
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Dan Weiss’s Morning Coffee
There should be some big black hole information coming in a couple hours. This week’s ephemera: Victorian teens, the legs of the Paris opera, and early 20th century bathing machines. Important news: it is good when things look nice. Let’s…
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“He hit Send”
The Millions discusses successful uses of technology in current fiction and those books that we must suspend disbelief for their plot lines to function. The article’s most eloquent insights, however, come from David Gates, in conversation with Jonathan Lethem in The…
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Ted Wilson’s 150th Review of the World
Next week The Rumpus will be publishing my 150th Ted Wilson Reviews the World! To celebrate, I’ve decided to allow you, the readers, to decide what I review next. Please cast your vote for any of the following in the…
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Making Sense of a Complex World
“For all its erudition and analysis, The Golden Bough has for more than a century helped cement the idea that magic is inappropriate, wrongheaded thought. Yet what separates magic from religion or science is not its methodology—Frazer himself notes that it ‘is…
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An Alternative To The Euro
The Wall Street Journal covers a group in the Catalonia region of Spain that, in response to the country’s current economic crisis, has created an alternative form of currency – the Eco. “The Eco is exchangeable through checks, electronic payments, and even a mobile…
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Breaking News: Poets don’t do it for the money
Charles Simic, a poet himself, tries to explain the method behind the madness for the frustrated folks who just don’t get the place of poets in a capitalist society: “To write a six-hundred-page novel takes years. You go and work…
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Dan Weiss’s Morning Coffee
The winner of this year’s New Scientist Eureka photography prize is everyone. Today’s bad ass of the week: astronaut/antarctic doctor Scott Parazynski. Oh hey look, it’s all the mars landings together. 19th century English eccentrics. The future continues to be…
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“Neighbor Boy”
Rumpus contributor Conner Habib continues his Guys I Wanted To Fuck in High School series — which chronicles his frustrated coming of age in small-town Pennsylvania — with a new entry full of thresholds, rumors, and willpower. “This isn’t just about…