Arts and Culture

#LitHappens: A bookish fairy tale come to life

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My boyfriend’s company hosts magical holiday parties: employees and their plus-ones dress like they’re going to the Oscars, the food and drinks roll out generously all night, and software guys and gals known for being reserved in the office break into funk moves on the dance floor with holiday abandon. Among the many parties we’re grateful to attend each December, this one is always poised to be a winner.

This year’s fete was no exception, and in fact was particularly memorable for one big, hunky reason: FABIO.

Fabio

Ripe for Refactoring with Fabio (I don’t know; it’s a computer joke)

The party’s theme this year was a literary one, so different rooms in the hotel that hosted it were decked out with the trappings of different genres, authors, and other book-related motifs. There was a Dr. Seuss room, a fantasy fiction room, the Library of Alexandria, etc, and a t-shirt screening corner where you could get a custom-printed frock with your choice of literary pun on it (eg: “#LitHappens”).

And, in one room, there were blown-up, illuminated romance novel covers and a mini photo studio where The Man himself stood ready to receive his fans. We could hardly believe it, but it was not a buttery imitation—it was the real-deal Fabio!

Of course we hopped on the (surprisingly long) line and hammed it up with Mr. Lanzoni (I went the zany route, natch, while Arthur piloted the straight man trope). I can sincerely say that the Italian Stallion was a total doll, patient and affable throughout what I have to imagine was, though a thrilling night for Fabio fanciers, a pretty repetitive and boring few hours for him.

So here’s to you, Fabio! Thanks for reaffirming my love of books, sunsets, and hugs this holiday season, all in the same photo op.

“Knitting is Sitting for Creative People”

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I just Googled “knitting jokes” and that came up. Pretty good, ay?

I also know it to be true, because I spent most of the day last Sunday in Gowanus with the good people of Knitta as we attempted to cover two white Ford trucks and a grip of cardboard boxes in loops of yarn.

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Grace and me with much yarn

What I didn’t know going into this was… pretty much anything. My friend Grace only told me she was going to “help out with an art installation involving yarn” and that they needed extra hands. Sure!

At 9:00 am, when I arrived at the production warehouse that would be our staging area, people were already busy spreading out big yarny expanses to sort them by pattern.

Furled
Unfurled

As the unfurling continued, I began to suspect something…

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Skyy mobile

Wait—this was going to be a vodka ad!

Well, so be it. Lesson number one.

The twenty or so of us crafty types got to work plastering the trucks and covering the boxes, which would later get stacked in the back like presents.

Cube!
Cubes in the back

The skilled knitters among us did the heavy lifting of actually knitting things together when that was called for; the others (like me) took turns whip stitching, hot gluing, and velcro-taping the fibers into place.

Our fearless leader, Magda Sayeg, a not-quiet woman in big eyeglasses, would be my lesson number two: she’s the mother of yarn bombing, people!! It was an awesome trip to hang out and get guidance from a real street art luminary all day. Also fun: although Magda looks like she’s about 20 years old, her two kids showed up at one point. They were very nice, and I think they’re in high school!

It was satisfying to watch our collective labor start to add up to something as the day wore on, and I was also stoked to see about one-third dudes making up the itinerant knitting crew. Yeah, fellas! We all chatted and snacked on really delicious Amy’s Cheddar Bunnies and listened to dreamy dance music as we worked. The time passed quickly.

Ergo, lesson number three: Doing crafty stuff is meditative and fun, even when you have to keep staring at a vodka hashtag.

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Knitta circle

Bonus points: on my bike ride home, the best Brooklyn sunset! Shots straight from the phone:

3rd Ave + 10th St
4th Ave + 10th St
5th Ave + 10th St

A sci-fi plebe gets initiated

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I should have known when I learned that a friend of mine named her blog after a Philip K. Dick novel that she was into science fiction (or should I say speculative fiction? help!), but I really didn’t think about it.

Only several years later (which was already several years after I’d met her) did the topic of sci-fi come up in earnest between us. We were in a rental car on our way to a wedding and she said, apropos of not much, “Have you ever edited a book?”

I said not exactly, but mentioned a few things that kinda-sorta came close. Why was she curious?

“Well, I wrote a sort of sci-fi novel maybe 10 or 15 years ago,” she said, “and it’s basically been sitting in a drawer since then. Recently, I’ve been feeling like I’m ready to do something with it, but I think it could use a second pair of eyes. I’m not sure exactly what an editor would do, besides be a genius and fix all my mistakes… But let me know if you want to talk about it.”

I was SUPER intrigued. For one, my friend wrote a secret book!! For two, it was a sci-fi book—especially weird!! For three, I love me the prospect of a crazy new project.

I’ve found that one of the best things about my first year-and-change of full-time freelancing has been the ability (or heck, sometimes the necessity) to take on a wide variety of editorial gigs. As I heard the author John Vaillant recently say, “I am a professional generalist.” Aside from the thrill of solidarity it gave me to hear a big-name writer identify himself that way—I’ve always been a mega-generalist and sometimes struggled with my lack of speciality, but he’s proof you can have an awesome career as a jack of many interests—his quip also perfectly described one of my favorite job perks: variety.

I told my friend that, although I: a) am not a fiction writer, b) am not even a huge fiction reader, and c) have never, to my recollection, read a sci-fi novel*, I was confident that I could at least do a decent job of copyediting her book, and that if I found I had any developmental suggestions for her in the course of doing so, I’d pass them on. She agreed to hire me, and off I went.

Dune

Dune! Power! Kyle MacLachlan!! (courtesy Flickr user KAZ Vorpal)

I’ve been combing through her formidable 480-page book since the middle of last month, with the goal of finishing by year’s end, and I’m having a blast with it, for many reasons. To name a few:

  • The change of pace is invigorating (see the jollies of the generalist, above). I love what I normally do, which is writing and editing external communications for nonprofits. It’s interesting, it has clear goals, and it’s for a good cause. But fiction! I can crank up the artfulness and shelf for a time the thoughts that the text I’m working on will need to be fact-checked, or instigate a call to action, or fit in a 500-word box. Our only goals here (though they are heady ones) are to tell an engaging story in the most appealing way we can. Hooray for that creative focus and freedom.
  • I’m getting to know my friend better through reading her impressive writing, which is lovely. And I’m probably enjoying reading the story more myself since I know who wrote it. Double win! Oh, and I’m gaining a better understanding of why people like sci-fi. Triple win!
  • As the weather cools, this is the perfect long-form project to curl up on the couch with: blanket over my knees, cup of coffee on the end table, laptop just where it was designed to be. Another nice change of pace: there’s nothing frenetic about this task.

So this post is part shout-out to my talented and industrious friend for believing I might be of some help to her labor of love, part written revelation about the wonderfulness of changing things up at work, and part teaser—’cause this book should be out on Kindle next year and I’ll be engaging in even more shameless self-promotion then!

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Hey other freelancers: Do you like the way variety shapes your professional life? (Or maybe you hate it?) Penny for your thoughts in the comments.

*Unless you count a college boyfriend trying to read all of Frank Herbert’s Dune to me in installments. I tried hard to keep up with it, but usually fell asleep before he finished.

Buy my poetry for $1!

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Hello several friends who subscribe to this blog!

As you already know, because I cannot conceal my outsize pride about this little project, my tiny poetry books are here!

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One 8.5 x 11 sheet—skillfully folded and packed to the gills with strange journal clippings and b&w photos from a 28th birthday party in a hotel room in Queens and from Trees of Mystery in approximately the same year—can now be yours for the low, low price of $1 cash.

Did I mention they’re hand-numbered in gold-tone ink on the back??

Just drop me a line and I’ll give you my address. Send me a dollar in cash, and I’ll mail a book back to you. Easy peasy.

I may never rise to Node Pajomo-like levels of mail art greatness, but I am happy to be dipping this first toe in the water. Thanks for deigning to join me!

What Trisha Brown calls the “bees going into your face” part

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In June, I had the pleasure of writing for one of my clients about BEEcosystem, a modular honeybee hive made for today’s urban lifestyles. It sits inside your apartment!! You let the bees out to frolic and pollinate through a tube. You have to see it; it’s great.

BEE

BEEcosystems at work in State College, PA

I interviewed the invention’s founders, awesome Pennsylvania dudes Mike Zaengle and Dustin Betz (I really do love Pennsylvania), and they had lots of interesting and important things to say about reestablishing our connection to the origins of our food, Colony Collapse Disorder, and how one in every three bites we eat was probably produced by a pollinator.

But what’s stuck in my mind most since then was Mike saying, “I had thought being outside in the yard with the BEEcosystem tube coming through the window might make me nervous, but after I worked with honeybees for a while, I realized they’re much friendlier than I thought. You can definitely walk around doing yard work all afternoon and they won’t bother you!”

Hot damn.

BEEcosystem is in the midst of a Kickstarter campaign to get this shizz off the ground. Throw a little dough their way, honey, and help grow the buzz!

Oh, and what was that about Trisha Brown at the beginning? It’s an all-but-unrelated quote (especially now that Mike’s weighed in about the bees not going into your face) from a wonderful interview with her by the inimitable M.J. Thompson—titled “Dancing? ‘It’s Awesome’ “—in one of my erstwhile stomping grounds, The Brooklyn Rail. I read it in 2009 and haven’t forgotten it. An excerpt:

Bob [Rauschenberg] and I were very close. I had the best dialogues with him. Bob had a fix on me like no one else. He called me at least once a week, especially when he was in New York, and said, “I’ve got an idea for you.” And I’d say, “Wait, I’m already working on the piece. Write it down, save it for me. And if you have another urge to talk to me call my office, it’s four in the morning.” He had a sterling vision [Thinking for a moment, then demonstrating: hands and arms cutting downwards quickly, away from her face]. Do you remember that part? What I call the “bees going into your face” part? I was working the edges of what was acceptable but at the same time the piece was a study in structuralism and scale and bees going into face.

Trisha

Love you, Trisha! (photo from artsalive.ca)

Teach a 20-something punk to write a good memo, and she’ll write good memos for life

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For a couple of fun, lucky years in my 20s, I worked as assistant to the director at the Asian Cultural Council (ACC), a grantmaking nonprofit that awards cultural exchange fellowships to artists and scholars from the U.S. and Asia.

Looking for a tear-jerker with great music? Look no further!

As well as being fun, the ACC is an extremely classy place, so not only did I get to attend the super-cool performances and openings of loads of top-shelf international artists, I also honed a grip of executive-level writing skills (first forged at ACC’s sister foundation, the venerable Trust for Mutual Understanding) that I find myself coming back to quite often as a full-time freelance provider of editorial services to nonprofits. Skills like:

  • ghostwriting correspondence and statements for a VIP
  • culling meeting notes down from chaos to the essentials
  • drafting invitations to donors that made giving us loads of money sound like a treat
  • and more!

This past spring, I was extremely stoked to see an email from ACC’s current director in my inbox. She said they had some writing and editing needs on the horizon, and wondered if I might be available to help. I couldn’t say yes fast enough.

Almost six months later, I’m still having a blast popping in on my old workmates in the office, reacquainting myself with all the great things they work on, and helping them craft communications—like this—that speak to the gravity and longevity (and yes, the fun) of what they do. (If you peruse that newsletter, check out the story about Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan. Definitely my favorite to write.)

You never know when an old skill—or old friends—will show up in your life again. But unless that skill is effectively squandering time or that friend is a psychotic clown, chances are you’ll be pleasantly surprised!

Going off the menu: Our EatWith Sunday in the city

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Thanks to my friend Naama Shefi, Director of Communications at EatWith, my man and I enjoyed a lovely Sunday brunch today at the Lower East Side’s historic Essex Market.

“Eat dinner with fellow food lovers at the home of a chef in your city or when you travel,” says EatWith’s website. Friendly, hungry people can browse shared dining experiences going on in over 150 cities, or book an EatWith chef for a private event.

I’m a huge fan of all the sharing enterprises that have rushed the market, tsunami-like, in the past few years. Pioneers like Craigslist, and now sites like Airbnb and NeighborGoods, have removed the middleman from the equation and allow people to share and sell their own stuff directly with other individuals. In these affairs, the personal reputation you earn makes or breaks your interactions, which seems like a pretty fair way to go about business to me.

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A somewhat less Libertarian-y reason I enjoy these kinds of doings is that they’re a great way to meet fun people who also like to get out into the world. This morning, we sat near a Caribbean pediatrician, a young investment banker, and a native Texan who now writes movie reviews for The Hollywood Reporter. Not a bad haul!

Oh yes, and the food was also wonderful. Emily and Anais made tiny beer mustard deviled eggs, an asparagus bruschetta on olive bread, and a grilled pineapple sandwich on a sticky cinnamon roll, as well as other treats—all as good as they sound. The cucumber gin basil fizzy totally sealed the deal.

So get thee to EatWith, I say! It’s a fun and fresh method for getting one of your three squares in while brushing up on your conversation skills, and maybe even acquainting yourself with a new culinary idea or two. For example, I will now be making all my sandwiches on sticky cinnamon rolls.

“If he were alive today, he’d probably subvert social media…”

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“…in the same way he helped to reinvent western culture in his own time.”

Right on!

Thus spake my friend Lily Wen: DJ, Lindy Hop champion, and now record label entrepreneur, regarding the late great Alan Watts.

Alan Watts. Image via Ingienous Designs.

The old codger himself (image via Ingienous Designs)

I feel like I’ve always been vaguely aware of this British philosopher-hippie who helped bring Eastern provocations to the West, but I felt a spike of connection with his work last week, at the pre-release party for the vinyl EP Face the Facts, out today on Lily’s Figure & Ground label.

The record takes the occasion of what would have been Watts’ 100th birthday to present four “spoken word” tracks taken from hundreds of hours of his seminar recordings, set to music by New York woodwind musician Jas Walton.

Figure & Ground’s website describes the original material as “psychedelic Californian ruminations, intriguing incantations, and compelling thoughts on existence.” When I heard some of them at the party (held at the wonderful and cozy Unoppressive Non-Imperialist Bargain Books in the West Village), I did feel as though I were sitting in Watts’ houseboat living room, awash in mind-stretching inducements to alternate ways of viewing the world.

It was very cool.

Lily’s gotten some great press for her efforts, including write-ups in the San Francisco Chronicle, Wax Poetics, and Elephant (which I suggested she pitch to—yay!).

The record goes on sale in stores worldwide starting today, via Fat Beats distribution. If you’d prefer to stay in the living room, you can order a copy in digital or vinyl format from the Figure & Ground website instead.

Cheers, Lily! And cheers, Mr. Watts.

Brokelyn makin’ me feel like a genius

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I never thought my cheap homemade lunches were much to write home about (though I would occasionally write home about them when I thought my mom would be particularly proud).

In fact, though some of my office coworkers over the years commented on my consistency and… uniqueness, would I periodically take heat from colleagues who turned their noses up at such frugality, and wondered why I would spend time assembling lunch at home when a world of delis waited right downstairs.

Well, guys, Mama’s finally getting her due!

Mmm! Cheap!

Mmm! Cheap!

I pitched the idea of my $2.50/day lunches (and how they’ve saved me $14K in the past decade) to Brokelyn, and when they bit, I felt real validated. See, it was a great idea after all!

Learn how to manifest this life-affirming meal choice for yourself here, and check out some of my other stories about good cheap things here.

Got any cheap tricks I should know about?