Thomas Page McBee
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SELF-MADE MAN #21: Love Your Zombie
Sometimes I get this ragged wind in my chest. It’s a graveyard in there, too: instead of clothes holding my ghost shape, it’s my old self that calls out from beneath bone.
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“Trying to Illuminate the Darkest Places”
Two Rumpus treasures in one…treasure chest? Necklace? Treasury?? Okay, this metaphor didn’t work out, but Thomas Page McBee‘s interview of Cheryl Strayed (aka Dear Sugar) did. A small preview: But what I’ve found as a writer is that every time I…
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SELF-MADE MAN #20: On Dignity
On train platforms and slushy sidewalks, I find myself feeling strangely tender toward people bundled up against the cold New England winter.
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Ode to Orlando Cruz
The Rumpus’s Self-Made Man, Thomas Page McBee has an eloquent personal essay on BuzzFeed about Orlando Cruz, the first active boxer to come out as gay. In the macho world of boxing, Cruz is a pioneer for the LGBT community and…
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“How Do We Become More Than What’s Sold to Us?”
I imagined the sour-faced exec watching the video of our conversation and asking the teens why he paid for a bunch of queers to talk about Andy Warhol, and I have to admit, I was INTO IT. The Rumpus’s Thomas…
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SELF-MADE MAN #19: Notes on Negative Space
I’ve known what many would call evil: child abuse, a close call with a murderer. I know about other people’s dark impulses, and so I’ve been all the more terrified of my own.
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The Rumpus Interview with Zadie Smith
For our first interview of 2013, we sit down with the incomparable Zadie Smith for a thoughtful chat about identity, the pleasure of reading, and how to write honestly about the state of humanity.
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Thomas Page McBee on Words and Writing
The Dictionary Project interviews Thomas Page McBee about language, the definitions of words, and of course, his Self-Made Man column here on The Rumpus. A tiny preview: For The Rumpus, you write a column—or essays in installments—entitled Self-Made Man? If…
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SELF-MADE MAN #18: In Real Life
I used to believe that collapsing the Venn diagram-space between the public and private self was the best way to ensure authenticity.
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Self-Made Man #17: Real Men
If masculinity could be defined by a quick Google search or a drive down a billboard-studded highway, then a “real man” is a paradox, captured crudely at the uneasy intersections of faith, love, public service announcements, politics, and advertising.
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SELF-MADE MAN #16: Trapped in the Right Body
Binaries are luxuries I can only study clinically; they lost their soothing qualities when I prioritized my reality over yours.
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SELF-MADE MAN #15: Everybody Passes
We are all walking through life as if what mattered most were the symbols of our acquisitions and not the fluttering flags of our hearts.