Virtual tour

The American Woolen Building, and other interesting NYC signs and nomenclature, from 14th to 42nd Streets.

(Via MUG)

Up to and after — Reading tonight

Hello...this is Ed Park in a photo by Sylvia Plachy speaking...Remember when I said I'd remind you about my upcoming readings etc., constantly?

So...

I'll be reading tonight at 7 at KGB (85 E. 4th St.). Here's what New York has to say:

Ed Park, while a founding editor of The Believer, is really making his name with his debut novel, Personal Days, which was inspired by how shitty it was to work at The Village Voice in the time leading up to—and after—the paper was bought out by the weekly-paper conglomerate known as New Times. If that book were not such a fantastic leap away from his specific experience (we were there), into realms more universal, and more hilarious, you might think the new short story he’ll read tonight would just take a spade to the same territory. But Park digs deeper—wider, even!—and we can’t wait to hear what he does in the short form, and how his impish language sounds out loud. — Nick Catucci

(Does this mean I'll be reading a short story? I guess...??)

(Full info here...I'll be reading with April Wilder, whose story is also in the current issue of The L Magazine.)

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Thursday morning bonus: The conclusion to Dzyd Douglas's ukulele musings.

And while we're talking music? You need to check out Dzyd Bbbecky's latest post, on "Sleng Teng," and download those two songs! (It's a tantalizing form—essentially, these are ecstatic variations on a rigid theme: "Sleng Teng was created on a Casio keyboard...The riddim has been versioned near two hundred times...") The first song especially is a TOTAL KNOCKOUT. Maybe I will just play it tonight in lieu of a story...

His Dark materials

New York magazine asked some folks for their favorite "overlooked" book of the past 20 years...I picked...this.

Extra value (?!) for Dizzyheads: The unedited version! (Though I like the way they boiled it down...)

In brief chapters, with the most scrupulously intense sentences—pitch perfect, pitch dark—this side of Renata Adler, _______ conjures a hugely sad New York novel that feels at once state of the art and stunningly ancient. (It ends on September 8, 2001.) His epigrammatic wit, always right below the surface, makes the darkness bearable—don't we all know someone who could be described like this?: "If you ask Edie how she is, you don't have to say another word for at least an hour."