These Can Be Viewed As Complaints But They Are Not...

1. The only thing I had that could possibly explain the intense and incessant allergic itching all over my body would be the wine I drank.
2. I might be allergic to wine.
3. My 11 year old niece was interviewed in an online journal. I told a bunch of people. After reading the interview, one person said, "It was okay. It wasn't THAT special. I have nieces and nephews. I think you over-hyped it."
4. I find that to be an unacceptable response.
5. I lost my iphone in a cab yesterday.
6. Today a very exceptional man emailed to tell me he found it.
7. My friend Mark had an art show. He asked me which piece of art I liked best out of a series of 4 pieces. I told him. He gave me the painting.
8. I find that to be very touching.
9. I might be allergic to wine.
10. Sometimes I miss people who are no longer, for good reason, in my life.
11. But I miss them anyway.
12. Sometimes I like people who are not good for me.
13. But I like them anyway.
14. Can a person die from itching?
15. I love Paolo Nutini and his new shoes.

Mark Some Art

My friend Mark Hage is involved in two events and I highly encourage you to stop by one if you can't get to both.

He's part of a group show at Art Gotham Gallery at:

192 Avenue of the Americas (Sixth Avenue between Spring and Prince).

Friday, April 25 11am - 8pm | Saturday - Monday, April 26 - 29 1pm - 6pm.

****

The Second event is The Tribeca Open Artist Studio Tour (TOAST) where you can visit close to a 100 artist studios and see their work and habitat, (including Mark's) TOASTARTWALK.COM

His studio will be open to all on:
Friday April 25, 5:00 to 9:00 PM
Saturday, April 26, 1:00 to 7:00 PM
Sunday, April 27, 1:00 to 6:00 PM
(He will not be there Monday)

His studio is located at:
179 Canal Street (near Mott)
Fifth floor, studio 5A

Satyagraha Envy

I am so envious of all you Satyagraha goers. I have never seen an opera and this is the only one I'd like to see. I haven't even looked at the cost of a ticket because I already know I can't afford it. Whoever goes, please give a full report on all I've missed.



In this photo provided by the Metropolitan Opera, from left: composer Philip Glass, Rajmohan Gandhi (grandson of Mahatma Gandhi), his wife Usha, and daughter Supriya are pictured at the Metropolitan Opera in New York during the premiere of Glass's opera "Satyagraha," which depicts Mahatma Gandhi's early years in South Africa. (AP Photo/Metropolitan Opera, Ken Howard)

My Genius Niece!

My good friend, Nelly Reifler, interviewed my niece for Nextbook.org where Nelly has an amazing column on God.

Have a look at my girl, Maisie...

Who Would You Be Gay With?

I woke up with a fever this morning. This is day 7 of sick. Horrible. I have to sleep sitting up because when I lie down I start coughing. I have missed the one day of Spring we'll ever have. All I do is sleep, cough and watch bad television.

I started watching that show WORK OUT with Jackie Warner. Did you read the article in the Times last week about her and how all these Middle American housewives would be gay with her? I did and naturally, I had to watch it so I could see if I would be gay with her, too. And I have to say, I'm as unimpressed with Middle America and their gay choices as I am with their straight ones.

I would not be gay with Jackie Warner. I'd be gay with Rebecca, but not for very long. Maybe like 3 minutes. Maybe not even 3 minutes. Maybe I'd be theoretically gay with Rebecca for 3 minutes. I'd never be theoretically gay with Jackie Warner. Quite honestly, I wouldn't even want her as my trainer, but I do want her on my television. I'm really into this show for some odd reason I can't really explain. I find Jackie off-putting, immature and insanely selfish. She's a tall, taut skim of narcissism. I actually find her quite nasty and ladies, that ain't hot. So, Middle America, why is it that you'd be gay with Jackie Warner? Explain because I truly don't get it.

Jackie Warner



Rebecca

Sick Doings

Sometimes when I'm too sick to work, but not too sick to putter around my house complaining that I'm too sick to work, I go through all my things and start (but never finish) organizing. I came across some more childhood pictures of me and my siblings. Some of the best times in my childhood were when we left the city. I remember this one vacation where we went to the Adirondacks. There was no electricity, a lake and a rope swing. And I had the time of my life. I don't remember anything specific that made it great, just that we were leaving something for somewhere temporarily better? Who knows. I guess specifics don't matter when that sense of happiness is still with you. So imagine my surprise to flip through pictures of three preposterously contemplative kids in a place I remember as being one of significant joy. Did we not have fun? Why were we so subdued, so solemn? Were we too aware of the subtext of the trip -- that it would be the last with just the four of us? Were we on some level cognizant that our lives, when we returned, would change forever? That once our mother remarried and I was no longer the youngest of 3, but the youngest of 6, that this part of our lives would become our history? I remember us as happy. Except for the very last photo, why are these pictures contradicting my memories?

A Regular Day for the Stern Kids

Can you guess which one I am?

Complaint #4,980

I am still sick. That is my complaint. I have some sort of Biblical Plague.

Anyway, here's a funny story to tell while I'm in my sickbed.

A friend calls me yesterday from her cell phone. We're talking, it's kind of breaking up, but not so badly that anyone needs to call anyone back. She asks what I'm up to this week and I tell her that I was planning on seeing Denis Johnson at the New School tonight, but that I'm too sick to go. And she says, "Janis Joplin? Oh my God, she's playing tonight?" After a second of stunned silence (my end) she said, "I thought she was dead."

I'm gonna go get two tickets to the Jimi Hendrix show now. He's playing at Housing Works this weekend.

Sick in the Second Person

Sometimes you forget you have a blog and so you don't write anything on it because you forgot that you had it. You sometimes forget you have a blog because you got sick and when you get better you get sick again and when it is 10 o clock on a Sunday night and you are lying on your couch staring at your TV wondering whether to turn it on or go to the kitchen and eat something you remember that you have a blog and maybe you should post something. And so you do. That's second person for you.

Tonight - back at HE

Don't miss!!

Tonight -- 8pm, doors at 7pm

STEFAN MERRILL BLOCK
DARCEY STEINKE
PAGAN KENNEDY

with musical guest:

MARCELLUS HALL

302 Broome Street
Between Forsyth and Eldridge
FREE

Host: me.

Junot How Much This Pulitzer Weighs?

He's never read at Happy Ending, but we've volleyed emails back and forth for a couple years now, and he's all right in my book. But it's his vital, banging book, that you should read. This book, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, won the fucking PULITZER PRIZE yesterday. Can you imagine winning a Pulitzer for your first novel? I mean, I don't have to imagine, because I won the Pulitzer for my first novel, but not many other people have, so Junot and I are in a very small sub-section of people who have to deal with the rigors of prestige really early on. At least we have each other. Maybe the guy who won the Pulitzer for Science can create a cream for Shadenfreude so all the other winners can move freely through this time period without much chafing.


JUNOT DIAZ

Guggenheim at Happy Ending

Apparently they don't send Guggenheims to my part of Brooklyn, but they do send them elsewhere. I'm very pleased to announce that two of the fiction recipients of the Guggenheim this year are Happy Ending veterans. I'm insanely happy for them and you should be to. They are:


SAM LIPSYTE



DEAN BAKOPOULOS

Bag Lady

It started in 2001 with Erika. She had this bag and it was...exceptional. Leather, falling apart at the seams, beat up like a baseball mitt, a top flap that flops and thick, moroccan style stitching. I wanted it. I had to have it. She bought it at INA, the consignment store. The one they had, Erika now had. I'd never find it. When The Clown and I ran away to Europe with the Cirque du Soleil for a year, I saw a version of Erika's bag in a store in Madrid, but it wasn't the same. It was stiff leather, not structured and floppy at the same time. The store owner had plucked it straight from a Berber Bag assembly line. It was the bag, but it wasn't the bag at all.

Then, this past year, I was walking in my neighborhood in Fort Greene, at this festival, when I saw a guy wearing the bag. His was beat up, perfectly worn in and I followed the bag through the street fair. When he stopped in front of the essential oil vendor, I stopped and asked him where he got his bag.

"I made it," he said.

"You made it?"

He nodded.

"So you could make another?"

"Yes. Do you want one?"

"Well, sort of."

"So I'll make you one."

"No, you don't understand. I want that one. I want yours."

"Mine? But, this is mine."

I don't know what possessed me, it was as if he were wearing my bag, as if he had stolen my bag and I was trying to be cunning to get it back from him.

"I'll give you a $100 for it."

He looked around, to see if anyone else was listening, to see if he was the only one who thought I was insane.

"One hundred dollars?"

"Yes. We'll go to the ATM right now."

"What do I do with the stuff in my bag?"

"We'll get you a plastic bag and put everything in there."

He thought for a minute and then said, "Okay. Let's do it."

So we went to the ATM, I took out $100, we asked the deli guy for a plastic bag, the guy dumped the contents of his bag into the plastic bag and handed me the leather bag.

"Take care of it for me."

"I will. I will."

And I have. It's my favorite bag.



Worth it?

Joe's Pub Photos -- THE SHOW

As always, all photos, unless otherwise stated, were taken by Gillian Crosson.

Joe's Pub Photos -- PREP

Joe's Pub Photos -- ATMOSPHERE

More Drawings from Joe's Pub

More drawings by Michael Arthur

Shara Worden of My Brightest Diamond



Rob Sheffield



Daphne Carr



Amanda Michael Jackson Stern



Alec Bemis

From Daphne Carr's Blog -- about last night @ Joe's Pub

Daphne's Blog

150 Secrets at Joe's Pub

Last night I read a part of my forthcoming NIN book as part of the Happy Endings Series. Part of the series' form is that each reader must perform a "risk," so I decided that I would write down 150 of my secrets, print them, cut them into individual strips, and pass them out. After my reading, which seemed to go over well even with a heavy theme, I conducted the whole room reading these secrets simultaniously. The Happy Ending audience is into experience art, I can tell, and so the crowd was thunderously loud and it was incredibly terrifying for 10 seconds to hear various bits of long hidden secrets rise up over the din and threaten to be heard whole.

I read with Sirs Rob Sheffield (who played excellent uku to "You Are So Beautiful") and Alec Bemis (whose risk worked well given my NIN theme and Rob's reading about Catholic sleepover camp, see below). We were sandwiched between short sets by My Brightest Diamond. Shara played a great set dressed fin de siecle Parisianne garb, her voice a magnificent thing.

I was terrified that some blogger might post my secrets today, but instead found this wonderful surprise: ink drawings made by Michael Arthur. Whoa! I'm honored.
dc's blog •

Are you human?

Where will you be next Thursday, the 10th of April? I'll be here:

The Brightest Night

Last night at Joe's Pub was a phenomenal success. I'm completely blown away by My Brightest Diamond. Shara Worden is going to be a big star. I'm convinced of it. Lots more to post on this event, with pictures and such, but for now -- drawn during the show by Michael Arthur, I give you these to look at.


Shara Worden



Me and the unbelievably talented readers: Rob Sheffield, Daphne Carr and Alec Hanley Bemis

Best T-shirt EVER.

Can't figure out how to rotate it the other way, but you get the idea. This shirt has done all the work for you already - it's ridiculously soft and beat up. I only have 24 of them. Whatever is leftover from tomorrow night's Joe's Pub event, I'll bring to next weeks HERS. $15. Whaddya think? There are tons of different color shirts, too: army green, orange, black, gray and cherry (yes, cherry)!