slate
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Discussions on Language
“Ugly and pointless new usages appear in the media and drift into everyday conversation: Faze, as in “it doesn’t faze me” Hospitalize, which really is a vile word Wrench for spanner Elevator for lift Rookies for newcomers, who seem to…
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Catalogs and Covers
What does a memoir that documents the painful loss of a family member and J. Crew’s summer catalog have in common? Nothing, which is why memoirist Robin Romm wrote this piece in Slate about their eerily similar aesthetic. The popsicle…
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More Spears Style Appreciation
Another shout-out to Rumpus’ poetry editor Brian Spears for his post “A Note to My Fellow White Males,” appeared today on Slate. The editor of Lez Get Real, a site with “A Gay Girls’ View on the World,” was revealed…
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Burns Gets Burned
Remember all those VHS tapes that added up to a compendium of everlasting Civil War knowledge? It turns out Ken Burns’ Civil War documentary series isn’t entirely accurate, but in fact, “deeply misleading and reductive.” This may feel like a…
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The Victorian MFA Debate
The next time you get into a debate over the value of a creative writing MFA, try this handy visualization exercise: imagine that everyone involved is wearing a monocle.
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A Dog Is Barking Everywhere
Foghorns show up in much of my writing, but that’s because I cultivate a disingenuously melancholy disposition that my actual life, full of hilarity and good-natured insults, completely belies. But today I discovered that “a distant barking dog” appears in…
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The Mythologist Of Our Time
Ray Bradbury conjures up for me images of sun-drenched Nebraska meadows, autumn landscapes beset upon by Buick-sized ravens and dusty towns overrun by sinister carnivals. He reminds me of the childhood I never quite had except in my head. He’s…
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Charcoal versus Gas
Grilling is such a big deal that Mike Judge built an animated series around the charcoal versus propane debate twelve years ago and the show is still going strong. I don’t doubt that Hank Hill would print out, photocopy, and…
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Brian’s Saturday Morning Links
Not enough sleep? Echoes of a faint hangover? Then it’s time for Saturday Morning Links. Dahlia Lithwick and Doug Kendall point out that conservative politicians who are upset about empathetic judges probably ought to stick a sock in it. Whether…
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Brian’s Saturday Morning Links
Looking for a way to set your company apart from the rest of the herd? Try business cards made of meat–beef jerky, to be specific. I don’t even want to know what that office supply closet smells like after a…
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Saturday Morning Links
Okay, all you (us) iPhoniacs out there–who’ll be the first to come up with an App to make sure we become the downloader of the billionth app? Dan Kennedy channels former Alaska Senator Ted Stevens on that fancy new Twitter…