RUMINATE Blog

News from the North

I’m 35. Not particularly old, not particularly young. I can run and jump. I feel it in my knees the next morning.

My son is five months. Such a tiny sliver of lifetime yet substantial enough that it’s hard to look past and remember anything without him. Those pre-Levin memories are there

Works with Soul: Micah Bloom

Dangerous Margins

A relatively new show on cable called Portlandia is a sketch comedy series on the Independent Film Channel about “life in hipster enclaves and the self-consciousness that make hipsters desperately disavow the label” (Margaret Talbot, “Stumptown Girl,” The New Yorker, 2/2/2012).

Dancing Near the Edges of Apostasy?

In one of my recent Google searches I came across an object relevant to my research on ritualized habitual consumption. My first reaction was gratitude, and maybe a giggle or two. But then I noticed with disappointment the site on which I found the object: The Museum of Idolatry, Artifacts of Apostasy.

Now, I must give props where props are due;

The Mother, the Poem, and Sentiment(ality)

I was sitting in a crowd of poets at a summer writing conference. In front of us sat a panel of editors discussing the submission process from the editor’s view. The most singular comment of that afternoon came from an editor of a prestigious review. He told the crowd of writers