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Welcome to This Week in Trumplandia. Check in with us every Thursday for a weekly roundup of the most pertinent content on our country, which is currently spiraling down a crappy toilet drain. You owe it to yourself, your communities, and your humanity to contribute whatever you can, even if it is just awareness of […]
...moreThe fact is that I write under duress, often in my bed, often at the last minute. I’m kind of a binge writer, I would say… Lena Dunham, a former Rumpus interviewee, sheds light on her creative process, Twitter, the third season of Girls, and her forthcoming book in a recent interview with Salon. In […]
...moreAfter decades of unlimited wealth and power, Gadhafi’s on the run. Such a steep decline from rich to running can only incite the imagination. Salon.com got a slew of authors to imagine the intricacies of Gadhafi’s current reality. Steve Almond imagined the unrequited love story of Gadhafi and Condoleeza Rice. Here’s one particularly enticing passage: […]
...moreSalon.com’s got an article on the correlation between mental illness and leaders—citing Winston Churchill and Hitler as examples. The topic of discussion is First-Rate Madness, Nassir Ghaemi’s book on the famous historical figures that showed signs of mental illness. Check it out.
...more“The book review page is an odd cultural territory, often inhabited by such hybrid creatures — unlike their contemporaries in other disciplines, where the lines between critic and artist are more pronounced.” All readers are book critics, but disseminating literary opinions to the masses is only part of the job description for some of us. […]
...moreSome things automatically disgust us, while others are learned triggered from an emotional experience. Salon.com is dabbling in some neuroscience, speaking with Daniel Kelly who is an assistant professor at Purdue University and the author of, Yuck!: The Nature and Moral Significance of Disgust. Evolutionarily, humans are disgusted by dangers like rotting meat to protect […]
...moreUh oh—here is the latest reason to be offended by normative gender divisions. The California Milk Processor Board has a new advertising campaign that focuses on the milk’s ability to alleviate PMS symptoms because of its vitamin D and calcium levels. The campaign’s approach to promoting this health benefit, however, is a sexist display of […]
...moreWhen you’re playing host for your literary idol, there is a lot of opportunity for panic and embarrassment. Wendy MacLeod recounts Jonathan Franzen’s visit to Kenyon, recalling her anticipatory anxieties, how to avoid sending out stalker-ish vibes, and what it’s like to be acutely aware of dining room acoustics.
...moreFor those of us who relish in rarity, there is a limited supply of uncorrected proofs out there. Among them is a “pad-bound” copy of Gabriel Garciá Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude, which is fragilely constructed and very hard to find, a Canadian 1984 and other classics with frightening price tags. (via Book Bench)
...more“If a high-schooler uses an off-campus computer to create offensive material that relates to his or her school life — writing nasty messages about school administrators or fellow students, for instance — is his or her speech still protected?” The limits and freedoms of student speech has been called into question after two students were […]
...moreCarmela Ciuraru finds a great many reasons for writing under a pseudonym– taking under analysis a reasonable desire to separate a personal from a public persona, living out a fantasy ego-and taking note that fewer authors choose to use them. Whitman proudly proclaimed his contradictions of himself, and Joyce Carol Oats had this to say: […]
...moreSalon laid off six of its 29 editorial staffers last week in an effort–according to CEO Richard Gingras’ statement to Gawker–to become “more of a true Web publication.” According to Gingras, the layoffs are tied to a fall relaunch of the site and a redesign of its backend CMS.
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