Posts by tag
jail
25 posts
The Worst Slush Pile
Until recently in Romania, prisoners could reduce their sentences by thirty days for each “book of scientific value” they wrote while behind bars. Now one man, who went to prison for…
Dressed to Kill
Italy has always provided the cutting edge in fashion. Now, the cutting edge is providing the fashion. Italian women in prison are now producing top-of-the-line fashion items that are pretty…
The Saturday Rumpus Essay: A Brief History of a Bad Heart
She studies you, still panting with an energy that consumes the room, and whispers in a reedy voice: “They say you fucked up your heart.”
Song of the Day: “Jailhouse Blues”
Sam John Hopkins wasn’t known as “Lightnin'” until a music executive heard him play in a recording session in 1946. Ever since then, Hopkins’s gutsy vocals and impressive blues guitar…
The Sunday Rumpus Essay: The Right to Remain
In jail for drunk driving, dried blood stiffening her jeans, Alexis Paige waits to hear if anyone was hurt in the accident she caused and tries to mean it when she tells herself she'll quit drinking.
Weekly Geekery
Shame. The Internet. Monica Lewinsky. You spend hours killing people, but you don’t feel guilty. So much data. So few uses. All your stories in one little app. Reimagining incarceration.…
A Letter to Eric
What follows is a love letter to my twenty-six-year-old brother Eric, written shortly after he overdosed on heroin. He survived.
Louisiana Town Votes to Save Library
Last week, EveryLibrary reported that “Mr. Lindel Toups, chair of the Parish Council in Lafourche, LA…is orchestrating a ‘special election’ this Saturday to take money away from the library to…
Playing By the Rules: White Privilege and Rachel Jeantel
Clue: Post-Racial Edition. It was the black kid in the hoodie, with his cell phone, and “hostile” girlfriend.