Lowboy

Charles Bock gives an appropriately enthusiastic review to John Wray's incredibly excellent, Lowboy. I read the galley a few months ago and felt that it wasn't simply well-written, insightful and intelligent, but actually and truly, important. You can hear him read at the Happy Ending Series @ Joe's Pub on May 6th with Wells Tower and Arthur Phillips, but definitely enrich that experience by reading it now.

This kid, who happens to be very related to me, was so Lower East Side about her dad being on Entertainment Tonight. She was like, "Whatever, dad. Can we watch iCarly?"

More photos from Bent on Learning Benefit (is this photo dropping instead of name dropping?)

Russell Simmons & Francesco Clemente
Christy Turlington, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jennifer Connolly
Jennifer Connolly, Paul Bettany
Local school kids doing yoga demonstration (they were by far the best part of the night)
Gwyneth Paltrow, Christy Turlington
Mike D, Russell Simmons
Gwyneth Paltrow, Eddie Stern (my brother), Stacey Bendet
Eddie Stern, Peggy Rice (my grandmother!)
Christy Turlington, Eddie Stern

and of course...always in my heart, but not actually at the event...

Craig Ferguson

From Entertainment Tonight -- there's an annoying burger commercial upfront, just cringe and bear it...

Academy Award winner Gwyneth Paltrow uses her Yoga skills for a good cause!

"I started practicing yoga 20 years ago with Eddie Stern and it changed my life, so when he asked me to come ... I felt I owe him so much," Gwyneth tells "The Insider."

The actress joined forces with Alice + Olivia and Urban Zen Foundation to host a gala thrown by Bent on Learning, a non-profit organization that offers instruction in yoga and meditation to students in New York City public schools and youth centers.

"I think New York City public schools need some TLC, and, I think, yoga is a nice way to get centered. It is a great idea," Gwyneth adds.

The gala included a silent auction and a performance by the 'Slumdog Millionaire' dancers.

Bent on This!

My brother (he's the baldie in the pink shirt) is on the board of BENT ON LEARNING, a program that offers instruction in yoga and meditation to students in grades K through 12 in New York City public schools and youth centers as a means of reducing stress and improving concentration, self-esteem and overall health. Last night there was a benefit hosted by Gwyneth Paltrow and sponsored by Alice + Olivia and Urban Zen. A bunch of tabloid television shows covered the event. You can watch my bald-headed brother tonight on these four shows.

Entertainment Tonight – CBS @ 7:30PM

The Insider – CBS @ 7PM

Access Hollywood – NBC @ 7:30PM

Extra – NBC @ 5:30PM

BELOW: a few of the guests (if you don't recognize me, I'm the blonde one directly below this sentence. I look very different at night).





The photographers didn't care so much for the men, I guess, and to that end, I've decided to put together my own gala to celebrate and honor just a couple of them. Nothing fancy. Probably at my place.

FRANCO-GATE

Carl Wilson is going to be on the Colbert Report on March 4th, which competes with the Happy Ending Series', Temporary New Yorker Night at Joe's Pub, but since The Colbert Report isn't on until 11:30 and Happy Ending starts at 7pm, you're allowed to do both.

And should.

Some more links to read about what



said

about



and his book



which is about



New York Magazine

Eye Weekly

Idolator

Bar Mitzvahs and Celine Dion!

Some of you may remember way back when I had a crush on a book. Well, I'm true to my crushes, considering this one never died. I'm happy to know I'm in good company. James Franco gave a red carpet shout out to Carl Wilson for his amazingly lovable treatise on schmalz, bad taste and, who else? Celine Dion. The book Celine Dion's Let's Talk about Love: A Journey to the End of Taste is a must read. And not because James Franco says so, but because I say so!

I'm also a huge fan of Publisher and his publisher Continuum Press's series 33 1/3

Without further ado, James Franco from the Red Carpet Bema....(there's an annoying Herbal Essences commercial to wade through in the beginning..).

Movie Trailers - Movies Blog

Where I'll be Tonight (in case my stalkers want to know)

Dark Was the Night

Fifteen years ago, I worked on a Breeders video (Iris) for the No Alternative compilation, to benefit the Red Hot organization. Hal Hartley directed the video (Hi Hal!) starring Parker Posey and Sabrina Lloyd. I was a big Breeders fan, but I'd never heard of Red Hot. In time, my love for Red Hot far exceeded my love for the Breeders (there's still love, it's just, well -- dwarfed).


Now there's a new one compilation - their 20th release to celebrate their 20th year - and it's unbearably good.



The National's, Aaron and Bryce Dessner produced Dark Was the Night to benefit the Red Hot Charity. It's a double cd format (there are other formats, as well which you can find on their site). I've been listening to non-stop for a week. It's one of the best purchases you can make. If you don't believe me, consider what Red Hot does (read below) and then scroll down further and go listen to the three songs that represent the quality of all THIRTY ONE songs (that's right, peeps -- 31).

The Red Hot Organization is the leading international organization dedicated to fighting AIDS through pop culture.

Since 1989, Red Hot has produced fourteen groundbreaking albums, related television programs and media events incorporating the talents of leading performers, visual artists, producers and directors to raise funds and awareness for HIV and AIDS.

To date, these efforts have donated nearly 7 million dollars for AIDS relief around the world.

Arthur Phillips Wrote a Song for You.

This just in from Kirkus Review. I added the star, since they forgot to.



A betrayed husband’s fascination with a charismatic singer is given several intriguing twists in this subtle fourth novel from the versatile Phillips (Angelica, 2007, etc.). As he did in his widely praised debut novel Prague, Phillips focuses microscopic attention on the intellectual keenness and emotional vulnerability of each of his straying, struggling principal characters. Foremost are reluctantly aging director of TV commercials Julian Donahue, still sunk in grieving over his two-year-old son’s death from a mysterious infection; Julian’s estranged wife Rachel, whose own sorrows have steered her into promiscuity; and rising musical star Cait O’Dwyer, a bewitching Irish beauty who has become the darling of dimly lit jazz clubs and college campuses, and whose smoky sensuality brings back to Julian the vocal witchcraft practiced by Billie Holiday in her heyday.

The simplicity of the tensions thus created is then skillfully complicated, as Phillips juxtaposes Julian’s convoluted self-justifying fixation (“He could believe, with Cait in his life, that he could be free and tethered, young and old, joyful and mourning, forgiven”) with a trenchant objective analysis of both his conflicted youth (among a loving and judgmental family) and his destroyed marriage. Whenever we expect it to suffocate in solipsism, this novel’s scope instead widens. Intriguing parts are played by the footloose members of Cait’s touring band, a sinister rock star turned painter (Alec Stamford) and Julian’s older brother Aidan, an autodidact underachiever whose many failures are crowned by his embarrassing appearance on Jeopardy (from which, as it happens, author Phillips retired as an undefeated champion).

The problem is Cait, whose ostensibly irresistible allure is never fully convincing; no more so, in fact, than is her reputation as a soulful songwriter—who, for example, rhymes “keep your distance…[with] don’t leave a witness. (Amanda here -- I beg to differ. In other words, they're wrong on that point. Right on all the rest. Especially the last sentence.) ”Still, the novel’s clashing harmonies seduce and fascinate. And Phillips still looks like the best American novelist to have emerged during the present decade.

King Me

Couple well known facts about me (well known to me, I mean): I am a troubled sleeper and I am a late bloomer. Troubled sleeper - I have always felt a strange responsibility to stay up and make sure nothing happens to anyone in the night. What I'd do if something bad were to happen you ask? Probably fall asleep from the anxiety and stress.

Late bloomer - count the ways. So, it adds up that I'm late to a book that I'm sure every other writer has read in all its various translations. I've never read a Stephen King book. I don't like horror, fantasy, sci-fi, none of it. Couldn't interest me less. Toss me a psychological thriller, a suspense, even a courtroom drama, but not horror. No sirree. Then I'd really never go to sleep.

Here's the deal. This book is a goddamn page-turner. It's a book on writing for chrissakes and I'm missing subway stops and pulling it out on check out lines, because I'm riveted. Riveted! By what? Learning how to write better? Reading about learning how to write better? No, this guy is just great fucking conversation. I want him to talk my ear off.

Too bad I finished it yesterday.

AFFLICTION NIGHT Part I

Gillian Crosson has done it again! Here are some photos from AFFLICTION NIGHT.

Following photos feature: some cast members of the Broadway musical, HAIR, Jayne Anne Phillips (long hair), Daniel Knox (piano), Sarah Manguso, Jason Toth, and me...

AFFLICTION NIGHT Part II

More photos amazingairre...

The following photos feature: Some members of the cast of the Broadway Musical, HAIR, Jayne Anne Phillips (long hair), Sarah Manguso, Daniel Knox (piano) and Jason Toth.

Sounds Like Beautiful

I've all the love in the world for Kaki King and her fingernail scat.

Holy cow

Uh, so, well, March 4th's show sold out in like fourteen seconds, so there are no tickets left. Well, that's not altogether true. There are TEN TICKETS LEFT that you can buy through me. I am the box-office for the last 10. So let me know. And again, holy cow.

Oh No!!

NEW YORK (AP) -- Noted New York publisher Alfred A. Knopf (Kuh-nopf) Jr. has died at age 90.

Knopf's wife, Alice, says he died Saturday of complications from a fall in mid-January.

Knopf was the only child of Alfred Knopf and Blanche Wolf Knopf, giants in the field of publishing. He left his parents' company, Alfred A. Knopf Inc., in 1959 to co-found Atheneum Publishers.

Among Atheneum's releases were Theodore White's ''The Making of the President, 1960'' and Edward Albee's play ''Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf.''

Knopf retired from publishing in 1988.

I was going to write about the Sufjan Stevens Listening Party, but instead I went whoring around on YouTube, found this and now I have a little crush.

Just added!

Glen Hansard of The Frames will be joining Julie Orringer, Ryan Harty and Andrew Sean Greer as part of "Temporary New Yorker Night" on March 4th at Joe's Pub.

The Frames



Does Letterman have a cold in this video?

Glen Hansard and Marketa Iglova singing the song.

Google Alert Sucks

But Melynda Fuller, does not. This just in (a month or two behind...)

FEATURE
Every Reading Series Deserves a Happy Ending
Amanda Stern moves her show to Joe’s Pub

by Melynda Fuller

New York has long been the literary capital of the world: Dorothy Parker and her round table at the Algonquin, Norman Mailer digging up controversy with the Village Voice, and Jack Kerouac and Hunter S. Thompson at the White Horse Tavern. But the city’s scene can still get stale. Enter the Happy Ending Music and Reading Series, moving to Joe’s Pub in January.

Started in 2003 by Amanda Stern, author of the novel The Long Haul and host of popular events like the PEN American Center’s lit series, Happy Ending quickly became one of the best-loved literary tickets in town. In the LES massage parlor turned bar (also named The Happy Ending for “extras” available at the end of massages decades ago), the first event had a star-studded lineup: A.M. Homes and Mary Gaitskill each read from work while Rick Moody performed with his group the Wingdale Community Singers.


Amanda Stern, founder of the Happy Ending Music and Reading Series

Since then, the bi-monthly event has hosted everyone from David Rakoff to Jennifer Egan to Nick Flynn. It was called “the city’s most vital author series” by Time Out New York. The New York Times Magazine lauded Stern as “a new bohemian…who is keeping downtown alive.”

What sets this series apart is the compromising positions the performers may find themselves in—something the building is no stranger to. They always in some sense take a risk, whether that means a shy writer singing in front of the audience or reading from a high-school diary. Musical performers are expected to cover a song and get the audience to sing along—difficult for even the most popular bands to accomplish in a place like New York.

December 17th marks the last event at the Happy Ending Bar, with writers Sadia Shepard, Ben Markovits and Sana Krasikov and music from Randy Kaplan. But once settled in their new digs, there’s no doubt that the Happy Ending Music and Reading Series will remain one of the stalwarts of the New York literary scene. With the New Year, a new legacy will begin downtown.

Whoops...

In October, I had a short short story (flash fiction the kids are calling it, I think) on Joyland.ca

How We Rise.

Sam, the Intern

Sam is my new intern. She is amazing. Every month Sam will write up a post, post-show to tell you how it all went from her end. Here is her first post. She writes about AFFLICTION NIGHT -- February 4th. Readers: Jayne Anne Phillips, Sarah Manguso with a special appearance by members of the cast of Hair. Music: Daniel Knox.


SAM, THE INTERN

As an intern, there are certain things you never want to happen, especially on your first day on the job. If your boss is a comedian, the very last thing you want to do, EVER, is spoil the punch line. But guess what? I managed to do just that. How did such a thing happen you ask? I’ll tell you. Amanda is in love with Craig Ferguson (the late night television host with a Scottish accent), but sadly, he recently got married to a blonde who I thought was younger than I am. So to open Affliction Night at Joe’s Pub, Amanda wanted to profess her love to the entire audience. My job was simple: When she said certain words, and I heard the cue, I pressed a button, and images were supposed to appear on the screen behind her, photos of her beloved Craig. Before the show, I set everything up, the powerpoint was ready, the images looked great, it was perfect. I left my laptop all set and ready to go, and proceeded to ask the performers if they needed anything, handed out drink tickets, smiled at the cast of Hair because they’re all so perky, and learned that Daniel Knox hates the smell of mint.

I was doing intern things, making runs to Walgreens, meeting the stage manager, and placing playbills on the dinner tables. But minutes before the show was to start, my laptop fell asleep and had to be restarted! I almost fainted. Amanda was already onstage, welcoming everyone to Happy Ending, and I was scrambling to fix this catastrophe! But Amanda was already onstage and beginning her routine. When it came time to plug the photos, the LCD settings were off, so when I clicked on the images, Craig was all distorted. Oh my god…I couldn’t fix it in time. I was shaking out of sheer panic. And right before Amanda was to say her punch line of the evening describing how every time Craig looks into his child bride’s eyes he sees her, I clicked on the photo that was supposed to be shown only 3 seconds later, a photoshopped shot of Amanda and Craig. A little part of me died when Amanda said into the mic, “that wasn’t supposed to be happen.” But there were chuckles, and more laughs when I quickly switched back, and showed it again when it was supposed to be there. Lord…that was bad.

The rest of night went well, except for another blooper on my part during Knox’s sing-along portion at the end of the show. My desktop was shown for everyone’s viewing pleasure. Daniel forgave me though; he said it took the pressure off of him. HA! Let’s just say my computer and I were not friends that night. Afterwards, I sold t-shirts and CDs while pouring out my fears to Shawn, the guy selling books, waiting for Amanda to pull me to the side and say “Sam, I’m gonna have to let you go.” Why God, WHY? It truly was Affliction Night. But as it turns out I wasn’t fired, Daniel gave me a CD, and I suggested he take the party to McSorley’s up the street. I think they wound up at Continental instead. That’s unfortunate…

2 for 2

Wednesday night's show was SOLD OUT! And what an unbelievably amazing night it was. 10 members of the cast of HAIR sang "America" by Simon and Garfunkel with Jayne Anne Phillips (her son, Theo Stockton is in the cast) and brought tears to nearly everyone's eyes. It was really moving and I choked up. Daniel Knox blew everyone away, as I suspected he would, Sarah Manguso tore it up and everyone clamored to buy books and cds (though no one bought a tshirt! the tshirts are marked down from 8 billion dollars to 15 dollars and yet, nothing! No movement!) I was really happy with it all. I invited Gillian Crosson to join me and SS for Doveman's show. Gillian introduced me to Justin Bond and Our Lady J and we sat at the table next to them. Doveman's show was extraordinary. More on that later, I must do some work or I will get fired. (Sometimes I fire myself when I procrastinate for too long).

TK: Doveman's show, my show, Beirut's show that I'm seeing tonight at BAM, the party at the Baronessa's house last night, Sufjan's "listening party" and lot's more...

Bam Bam!

Thank you, anonymous, for the Flintstones. I'm assuming it was you, but please let me know if I am mistaken, and a different anonymous person gave the stage manager at Joe's Pub vitamins to pass along to me. Though, that is doubtful. She refused to tell me who they came from. Two people, she said. Which two people, I asked. I can't tell you, I promised. Obviously, we had to fire her. I can't abide by such a strong moral compass. I actually ate the Flintstones during the next show and gave some to friends, who, when I told them who gave them to me, worried they were laced with poison. I suppose I'm writing now to tell you that we did not die and to thank you for not trying to kill us. I am still sick, though, so next time, please leave antibiotics. You know what else is good? Advil Cold and Sinus. That stuff is amazing. Zinc lozenges work, too. Oh, and also Adderall if you can get your hands on it, because I have so much work to do. But, Adderall keeps you up, right? So maybe toss in a small package of Lunesta or Ambien?

Almost Sold Out!

There are about 10 tickets left for tonight's show with Jayne Anne Phillips, Sarah Manguso, Daniel Knox and members of the cast of Hair. And when those are gone, we be sold out.

Tonight is going to be incredible, so if you're one of 10 people who want to come experience incredibleness than you are in luck, as there are 10 tickets left!

Joes Pub
Show time 7pm
Price $15

Not a computer virus

I have a cold.

Remove

I know it's ridiculous, but it still pains me a little bit when people ask to be removed from the mailing list. What people don't know is that I do this all manually, so I know who wants off and then I retain that information for later use and confront them publicly until they beg to be put back on. But, really it just pains me a little until I delete them and then get on with my life.