Small Breeds
How do people function without the false promises of pressure?
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Posts Tagged: cities
A Certain Way of Singing: Talking with Dorthe Nors
Dorthe Nors discusses her newest novel, MIRROR, SHOULDER, SIGNAL.
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The Rumpus Poetry Book Club Chat with Nikki Wallschlaeger
Nikki Wallschlaeger discusses her new collection Crawlspace, why she chose to work with the sonnet form, and how segregation in American never ended.
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The Sunday Rumpus Interview: Amy Benson
Our American obsession with the personal and individual has made us the tremendous resource consumers we are in the world.
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The Rumpus Interview with Lauren Elkin
Writer and academic Lauren Elkin discusses her latest book Flâneuse: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice and London, the freedoms and constraints of urban space for women, and the power of first person.
...moreUrban Poetry
In a modern world where hyper-connectivity often results in disconnection from our immediate surroundings, creating the space to explore poetry can make us more reflective and engaged citizens. Over at the Guardian, Rosie Spinks writes about how poetry can both express urban life, and make it more beautiful.
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The Saturday Rumpus Essay: Twenty-Three Pieces of the Sunset Bowl
[A]ll over town, pits in the ground stayed pits in the ground. Those cavities were my consolation. For the moment, we were all in the hole.
...moreWeekly Geekery
Boy meets lichen, proves 150 years of science textbooks wrong. Want to improve your social skills? Try fiction, not speed-dating. How wasps gave us Shakespeare. In psychology, American undergrad = caveman. Birds lose sex appeal when singing over city noise. (Unlike Benedict Cumberbatch.)
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Out the Road
Long before reaching it, I knew about the end.
...moreSidewalk Stanzas
Boston’s City Hall and Mass Poetry, a Massachusetts-based poetry nonprofit, has embarked on an urban art project: They’ve stenciled poems onto Boston’s sidewalks using paint that only appears in the rain. Sara Siegel, the program director at Mass Poetry, says: “We want to bring poetry to the people. This is a fun, quirky way to […]
...moreHome Sweet Brooklyn
It’s very easy to be anonymous in Brooklyn, but it’s not as easy to make genuine, human connections, or even to form strong connection to this place, because things are constantly changing and constantly moving. In Meet the Regulars: People of Brooklyn and the Places They Love, author Joshua D. Fischer sets out to learn […]
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Jen Fitzgerald’s Poetry Mixtape #1: Poetry That Moves Like a City Street
I’m spending National Poetry Month at the Millay Colony, former home of Edna St. Vincent Millay. My colleague and friend, poet and writer Jen Fitzgerald, will be writing the Mixtape column this month—and we are all lucky for it. Enjoy Jen’s robust selections and I’ll see you in May. –Anna
...moreThe Hipster Consumes
…I can eat hip, wear it, and hang out with people who do the same. I do like artisanal food and vintage clothes. But I’d trade their proliferation in a heartbeat for the chance to eliminate my high-five-figure student debt or buy an apartment. Kashana Cauley writes on “hipster” consumer culture and its deeper interests […]
...moreA Conversation with Ivan Vladislavić
Tristan Foster interviews South African writer Ivan Vladislavić on the importance of art in his writing, having a large body of work, and the appeal (or lack of appeal) of cities: Our love for cities is always unrequited. Johannesburg is not an easy place to live: I’m deeply attached to it, and endlessly intrigued by its […]
...moreLess Room
New York is the worst. What are all these writers still doing here? My years spent in New York (where I had also grown up), had made it clear to me there was less and less room for failure in that city, and therefore less room for creative freedom. Fatin Abbas picks up and moves […]
...moreCity and Sustenance
At Hazlitt, novelist Orhan Pamuk discusses the influence of food and food vendors on his latest work, the ritual of drinking boza, and the inspiration that the city of Istanbul provides: I walk in the city all the time. It’s not because of research; it’s a lifestyle. I like it. I belong to that city […]
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The Saturday Rumpus Essay: Song in the Subjunctive
Perhaps the city looked more poignantly lovely because I was conscious of its tragic history.
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Spotlight: Ben Nadler and Alyssa Berg
Writer Ben Nadler and illustrator Alyssa Berg team up on a graphic story titled “The Broadway Express.”
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The Rumpus Interview with Michael Helm
One of the key themes of Helm’s novels is whether or not imagination can help humanity deal with a troubled past. Can the stories we tell about each other…help us reach some sort of peace?
...moreThe Golden Gate Bridge = The George Washington Bridge?
Want to leave NYC but fear too much about abandoning your beloved Red Hook/Boreum Hill/Washington Heights/Harlem/Upper West Side…? Check out The Morning News’s list of counterpart neighborhoods throughout the US and abroad. Rumpus pal Alexander Chee recommends Portland, Maine’s Vinalhaven in place of Bushwick, and former Saturday editor Michelle Dean praises Toronto’s Leslieville as Park Slope’s […]
...moreIntertextual Cityscapes
According to his website, Matthew Picton is interested in “humanising the city by deconstructing the clean, uncompromising aesthetic of the cartographic city plan and imbuing it with the unique history and culture of each place.” Deconstructed, his works — bird’s eye view layouts of cities including New York, Tehran, and Portland — are layered representations […]
...more‘Who’s Up, Who’s Down, Who’s New’
Monocle Magazine‘s annual global quality of life survey is freshly released for public consumption. A city’s livability and lovability (amongst other things) are considered in this reflection on what makes a city great. Adaptability, innovation, and connectivity are prized characteristics by monocle correspondents, though even Japan’s vending machine culture is explored. Spoiler Alert: Zurich ranks number one.
...moreBurrowing
“Cappadocia had been cobwebbed by trade routes in those days and was constantly under attack; the underground cities served as fortification from invaders…What made me curious was that the ancient inhabitants were believed to live underground for months at a time.” At The Paris Review, Will Hunt writes about his explorations in subterranean colonies, ants, […]
...moreDream City
Salon kicked off a new column called Dream City with an exploration of how “cities of the future” are being designed. “…The inescapable truth is that the new urban reality we’ve created — the one with spiffed-up boulevards and cutting-edge transit and high-design parks and bike lanes and BeltLines — is more expensive than the […]
...moreLinear Parks
Linear parks have sprung from abandoned rail lines in cities nationwide. This article looks at the most well-known of these industrial transformations, New York’s High Line park, along with examples of other abandoned railroads, bridges, canals and factories that have been reshaped into parks. The piece also discusses linear parks from an economic point of […]
...moreCity Inspirations
With 80% of the population expected to inhabit cities by 2050, governments may find ideas for reforms in examples of urban transformations elsewhere. This piece looks to Colombia, whose story of “political metamorphosis” is told in Bogota Change, part of the Cities on Speed film series. At the center of the story are two successive […]
...moreOn The City And The City
“‘No two persons ever read the same book,’ the writer and critic Edmund Wilson said. Let me expand that sentiment outward into the geography of experience: it seems increasingly clear to me that no two persons live in the same city.” At The Millions, an insightful commentary on China Mieville’s The City And The City. […]
...moreMorning Coffee
Evidently we’re thinking about cities today. New Scientist takes an in-depth look at drowned cities, fact and fiction. Thank you New Scientist. The winning design for Mexico’s pavillion at the 2010 Shanghai World Expo. 1/100 scale architectural models. If that is your thing. Egypt’s garbage city. The Dutch are turning climate change into an opportunity […]
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