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Poetic Lives Online: Links by Brian Spears
You would not believe the crazy crap that’s happened the last two times I tried to do this column, but I’m back at least for this week. For Rumpus Poetry Book Club members, save this Tuesday for our conversation with…
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The Big Lie About the Wisconsin Pension Story
Turns out that what Governor Walker is asking public sector workers to do in Wisconsin isn’t contribute more toward their pension–he wants them to take a pay cut. See, the pension system in Wisconsin–like most pension systems nationwide–is funded by…
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Science Saturday
Sulfuric acid doesn’t dissolve a corpse quite as quickly as the mafia claims. From China a fossil of a walking cactus. A frigging walking cactus. Space Shuttle Discovery launched for the final time Friday, and here are some great views…
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Saturday Morning Links
You know who just got another shipment of authors copies of his debut book of poetry? This guy. Harper Collins tells libraries they can check out e-books 26 times before they’ll be locked up. The sad thing is that Harper…
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Skating with Beethoven
In 1927, the book The House Without Windows was called “almost unbearably beautiful.” The author, Barbara Follett, was only 13. When Barbara was lonely, the child prodigy would pretend that “that Beethoven, the two Strausses, Wagner, and the rest of…
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The Writers of the Future
While many wonder about the future of printed books, author Lauren Groff imagines those books’ future writers. In one of her many visions, she tells us, “The writer of the future will crouch in wind-swept aeries miles above the electronic…
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Rumpus Women on Firedoglake Book Salon
The Rumpus Women, Vol. I contributors have been on tour. We’ve read in bookstores, bars, and family rooms in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Brooklyn, and Denver. The readings have been awe-inspiring: smart, funny, charming, sad, honest, brave. In case you couldn’t make…
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Dan Weiss’s Morning Coffee
Today might be a good day to check out the CIA Museum Flickr feed. When celebrity endorsements are from the past they become way more interesting. For some reason scientists want to know what it would be like to think…
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Dan Weiss’s Morning Coffee
It is a very slow day, so I am opening with a look at an Olympic velodrome arena. We can all agree that it is a bummer that Slash’s guitar got in the way of his relationships. It is always…
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This is Solidarity
Author V.V. Ganeshananthan reflects on her choice to attend the 2009 Galle Literary Festival in Sri Lanka, just 500 kilometers from violent conflict. Ganeshananthan explains why she “refused to disappear” despite a boycott of the festival organized by Reporters Without…
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Memory, Reason and Imagination
Books once belonging to Thomas Jefferson, our most bibliophilic president, have turned up at Washington University in St. Louis. The books were part of Jefferson’s retirement library, so-called because he started the collection after donating 6,700 books to the Library…