Cloistered
I can’t stop thinking about the nuns in Hollywood . . .
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Posts Tagged: Rumpus Original
Sketch book Reviews: Time is a Mother by Ocean Vuong
An illustrated review of TIME IS A MOTHER by Ocean Vuong.
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The Rumpus Mini-Interview Project #78: Lillian-Yvonne Bertram
In 2016, Lillian-Yvonne Bertram’s writing won the Narrative Poetry Contest. Bertram’s work is formally and thematically expansive and this sampling, called “Facts About Deer and Other Poems,” showcases her incredible range. In the poem “They were armed with long guns”—a poem written in ten parts—the sections move between lists, plain declarations like, “You know // […]
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Vincent Toro: Challenging Whiteness and Refusing to Be Colonized
Poet Vincent Toro on his debut collection, Stereo.Island.Mosaic, his writing process, and searching for identity.
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Interrogating the English Language with Safiya Sinclair
To be forced to speak in the language of the colonist, the language of the oppressor, while also carrying within us the storm of Jamaican patois, we live under a constant hurricane of our doubleness.
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The Rumpus Interview with Robin MacArthur
Robin MacArthur discusses her debut story collection Half Wild, life in rural Vermont, and how narrative—and fiction—is key to reaching across what divides us.
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The Americans by David Roderick
The Americans is no self-help book, no guide to suburban living. Rather, [it] offers all of us a chance to examine the places we make our homes, to remember what these places might mean in the context of American history, and to consider how they might shape American culture.
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Am I Black Enough For You?
“Oh, she’s double-handed,” the jumping girl said. “I knew it.” It was akin to the Sandman tap-dancing to abort a stinker of a performance at the Apollo Theater. I was done.
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The Rumpus Interview with Dungeonesse
I think writing a great, catchy pop song that is transcendent and universal and touches people is one of the hardest things in the world to do.
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The Rumpus Interview with Scout Niblett
Though Scout (née Emma) Niblett’s new record features a striking cover photo of her deep in a kiss, love songs are not on the menu.
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The Rumpus Interview with Kurt Vile
We talk to indie-rock musician Kurt Vile about his recording process, life on the road, and the all-time best Dead Milkmen song.
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The Rumpus Interview with Karl Briedrick of Speck Mountain
Lyrically, it’s about longing for something to change, longing for something to happen within the context of a relationship where it hasn’t felt like anything’s been happening for a long time.
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The Rumpus Interview with Missy Mazzoli
We talked to composer-performer Missy Mazzoli about the sometimes invisible world of new classical music, her relation to it, and what she’s doing to help to redefine what it means to be a composer in the 21st century.
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Songs of Our Lives: Johnny Cash’s “Hurt” and the Stooges’ “Search and Destroy”
It’d be a stretch to say that Johnny Cash and Iggy Pop are connected in any meaningful way.
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The Rumpus Interview with Jesse Sykes
The first thing you notice about Jesse Sykes and the Sweet Hereafter is Sykes’s voice. It’s a stunning blend of contradictions, cutting and vulnerable, breathy and scratchy, enigmatic and bare.
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The Rumpus Interview with Boots Riley of The Coup
Since returning from a brief hiatus in the mid-1990s, Oakland’s The Coup has flirted with perfection on three albums: 1998’s Steal This Album, 2001’s Party Music, and 2006’s Pick a Bigger Weapon.
...moreMust We Hate Creed?
(A Conveniently Bullet-pointed Argument Against Musical Malaise in 2012)
...moreALBUMS OF OUR LIVES: ANI DIFRANCO’S LIKE I SAID
Both hands, please use both hands. Oh no, don’t close your eyes. I am writing graffiti on your body. I am drawing the story of how hard we tried.
...moreThe Rumpus Interview with Merrill Garbus of tUnE-YaRdS
Merrill Garbus’s music is hard to define or readily summarize.
...moreThe Rumpus Interview with Alice Bag
“She looks like a Babylonian Gorgon,” a reviewer once wrote of Alice Bag in a show review. Her then-band, the Bags, was at the forefront of the late seventies punk scene in Bag’s native Los Angeles.
...moreThe Rumpus Interview with Jeremy Thal of Briars of North America
I’ve never been much for scenes… and am not sure what scene I’m in now.
...moreForever Changeless: The Beach Boys, The Smile Sessions
In June of 1967, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band came out. Brian Wilson is said to have heard it and wept. Wilson, the Beach Boys’ main songwriter, producer, erstwhile bass player, and singer-of-high-harmonies, knew he’d lost the race with the Beatles.
...moreThe Rumpus Conversation Between Jon DeRosa and Karolina Waclawiak
Jon DeRosa is best known for leading the drone-pop collective Aarktica. Late last year DeRosa kicked off a new solo pop project with the release of the Anchored EP.
...moreThe Rumpus Interview with Todd Snider
While the electric guitar marks a departure from Todd Snider’s last few records, Agnostic Hymns and Stoner Fables falls squarely into the groove he hit after 2004’s East Nashville Skyline. A laid back traditionalist whose wry lyrics belie his stoner persona, Snider trades in smart, sharply observed songs delineating the travails of American have-nots.
...moreWho Cares When Your Record Was Digitally Remastered?
I’ll admit I’m obsessive about dates in general, and music-related dates most of all. So when I started using the music-streaming service Spotify, I was pleased to see a year listed next to the name of every album in their expansive library—presumably the year when the recording was released, which I consider crucial information.
...moreThe Rumpus Interview with Geoffrey O’Connor
When you are on the cusp of hating a song, you simply decide to commit to what you have and celebrate. It’s like marriage really.
...moreThe Dreams of a Shrinking Nation
I’ve been thinking a lot about the decline of the Japanese birth rate lately. It’s a peculiar obsession, admittedly, but one that should worry Japan lovers everywhere. And while it wasn’t on my mind as I hurried up Wilshire Boulevard early on the evening of Oct. 1, it would be later as over 2,000 Japanese […]
...moreThe Rumpus Interview with Luke Rathborne
Maine-born, Brookyln-based musician Luke Rathborne is still in his early 20s, but he is already off to a promising start. Rathborne has opened for the Strokes and played with Devendra Banhart, among other accolades.
...moreThe Rumpus Interview with James McMurtry
I call James McMurtry late one morning when I’m visiting Austin, Texas. By now, I’ve seen him play three times, in Arkansas, Oklahoma, and California, and I’m always struck by the way audiences in different parts of the country identify with his songs.
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