Tuesday November 6: The Brooklynites at Word in Greenpoint. Various Brooklyn dwellers—including the usuals Jonathan Lethem and Paul Auster—read their bits from writer Anthony La Sala and photographer Seth Kushner's new book about Brooklyn. There will also be a slide show. As yet no word on whether there'll be punch and pie. Word Bookstore. 126 Franklin St., Greenpoint. 7:30pm. Free.

Also tonight: Booklyn Arts Alliance, a publisher/educator/distributor of books based in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, kicks off their monthly First Tuesday salon. Have some questions about your book project? Want to meet some book artists? Join Mr. Mcginnis and myself there this evening and definitely bring punch and pie. 37 Greenpoint Avenue, 4th floor. 7-10 pm. Free.

Wednesday November 7: Miranda July and Harrell Fletcher at City Lights Books showing work from and talking about their new book Learning to Love You More, a collection of completed assignments from their website/project of same name. 261 Columbus Ave., SF, CA. 7pm. Free.

Thursday November 8: The Atlantic's 150th Anniversary at NYU's Bobst Library. Atlantic contributors on hand to read and talk about the magazine include Christopher Buckley, Arianna Huffington, P.J. O’Rourke and Tom Wolfe. They say there will also be a surprise musical guest. Hm! And you get a free copy of the current issue. 70 Washington Square South. 7:30. Free.

Wednesday November 7-Sunday November 11: Paper Magazine LA Project. NY's Paper Magazine continues to celebrate their love for Los Angeles with this annual LA Project thingy, a series of parties and art events based out of a temporary storefront on LaBrea. For a list of events, go here. The opening night party is tomorrow and is an exhibit of paintings by Phyllis Diller and polaroids by Henry Garfunkel. Over the weekend, the storefront will be open 24 hours. 233 South LaBrea (near 3rd Street). Various times. Free.

The Fart Party
by Julia Wertz
Published by Atomic Books
7" X 10"
178 pages, black and white, softcover
$12.95

Julia Wertz has gained a healthy cult-following on her comic blog, fartparty.org in a very short time - and she's only been drawing and writing comics for less than 3 years! Atomic Books has recently released Julia's first collection of comics (gathered from the blog and the self-published photocopied comic of the same name), which I read straight through in one sitting. Most mainstream and "underground" comic-strips at the moment are just not funny... at all. They're either totally stupid or overly self-conscious (desperate, actually) in an attempt to be idiosyncratic, but Fart Party is hilarious. As is the case with most auto-biographical comics there's a healthy dose of self-depreciation, but in Fart Party we are spared the cliche nerd-boy self-loathing polluting most comics. Julia doesn't take herself too seriously. In Fart Party you get to see the kind of girl you actually know, a sometimes boozy cute girl who reads, wastes time, grumbles, burps and gets irritated with you. Like David Sedaris she is able to convey the absurdity of mundane experience in a way people can relate to; you totally side with her and so you crack-up. Her economical, simple line drawings are highly effective at storytelling and very cute... I'm totally jealous she's got it all so right in such a little time.

The Fart Party is available for $12.95 at Atomic Books

Girls Like Us #6 has the amazing Edwige on the cover. Edwige the French punk, the friend of Warhol, the often photographed, the model, the icon, the lovely, the fabulous. Inside is an interview with her and a gallery of photographs of her life. Also inside is an interview with Electrolane's cute drummer Emma Gaze, photographs of people under the covers and behind pillows by German photographer Birgit Wudtke, an interview with Parisian DJ/Producer Fany Corral of Kill the DJ, and more. Every issue of this magazine is a great balance of people I know/have heard of and people I know nothing about but am psyched to discover. Plus, they have an archive in the back of pages from older dyke-y books and magazines. It's good to stay abreast (ha, sorry) of these things.

Found #5 is the CRIME issue. As a nerd for crime novels and cop shows, I am pleased by this. Inside, as usual, is packed with stuff. In this issue, find a former FBI agent's life story, prison guard poetry, found notes about arson, pot, and self-amputation, academic crime, crimes of the heart, found eyeballs, found crack, and the story of a guy who found a million dollars in the road.

The November issue of i-D, like many before it, has Kate Moss on the cover. Kate Moss and i-D are such a natural pair. According to Wagazi blog, the appearance of a blond Kate Moss on the cover of this month's i-D increased sales at Borders Books in the UK by 56%. This is the !*#? issue, a youthful punk rock fuck off kind of issue. Among the fun/chaos inside is good old Malcolm McClaren going on about the old days, LA Punks and their super fun all ages club The Smell (Mr. Mcginnis and I used to go there when we lived nearby), some pretty photos of boys in black by Alasdair Mclellan, and a look at Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, Terrence Koh, and Banks Violette as new icons of darkness. Interesting.

Last night Ms. Keough, myself and our pal Mariana went down to Greenpoint to meet these cool, crafty kids at Booklyn. We checked out a lot of gorgeous books, had some beer and got a few cool presents, pictured above. They've really inspired us to get down to business on our own book projects. Booklyn is an incredible resource for learning about bookmaking and maybe even getting your own book distributed. If you don't know them, nows the time. Thanks Amy and Cat, and also Jeremy!

A nice fellow named Hamish MacDonald writes a long, full of info post on the pros and cons of the various methods of publishing a book for No Media Kings website. There is also a ton more useful info in the comments area.

Curiously Crafty has a straightforward how to for making a simple hardcover journal.

A tutorial on bookmaking from Instructables. As usual, lots of helpful hints from the comment gallery.

Interview with magazine god Fabien Baron [via magCulture]

Flickr Finds: Mad Magazine covers 50's-70's

Check out Visual Resistance, a great street art blog

The 6th Annual New Orleans Bookfair
Saturday, November 10th 10AM to 6PM
500-600 Blocks of Frenchman St.
New Orleans, LA

Even the little ole' scarred town of New Orleans is having a bookfair this fall. Believe it or not, people still live there, still read and write and are still producing books, 'zines and events! New Orleans is alive and kicking! Even though you might not be in N.O this weekend, you can still check out these wonderful New Orleans books and organizations - buy some stuff to support the local creative economy!

Monday November 12: Bob Christgau, writer, former Village Voice music editor, and all around awesome guy, presents a reading from Best Music Writing 2007 which he edited with Daphne Carr. Contributors include Sasha Frere-Jones, David Kastin and Elisabeth Vincentelli (who ponders the politics of the Eurovision Song Contest). I've always wanted to know more about the mystery that is Eurovision. And I'm a longtime fan of both Bob and Housing Works Bookstore. Housing Works Bookstore Café. 126 Crosby St. 7pm. Free.

Tuesday November 13: An Evening with Grand Union at Anthology Film Archives. Ooooh! Grand Union was an improvisation group of downtown New York choreographers that originated at the Judson Church specifically out of Yvonne Rainer's Continuous Project-Altered Daily. Members of this amazing group will be reuniting at this event, including Rainer, David Gordon, and Douglas Dunn. This program is a part of Performa07, the performing arts biennial that's going on right now all over town. Anthology Film Archives. 32 2nd. Avenue. 7:30pm. Price unknown. I assume regular movie ticket price. Side note: Reinventing Dance in the 1960s is a good book to read about this period of dance and performance art history.

Also on Tuesday: Circus '68 at Home Sweet Home, 131 Chrystie between Delancey and Broome. Hosted by Flaunt Magazine. 10pm - Late. Free beer. See Flyer Below.

Wednesday November 14: A reading series at Happy Ending? I can't recall an evening spent there sober enough to pay attention to someone reading something... But I'd like to give it a shot, er I mean a try. This week's guests are short-story author Jonathan Baumbach (On the Way to My Father’s Funeral) and novelists Sam Michel (Big Dogs & Flyboys) and Irini Spanidou (Before). Happy Ending. 302 Broome St. 8pm. Free.

Thursday November 15: Bruce Benderson reads from his new book Sex and Isolation at NYU's Bobst Library. Bobst. 70 Washington Sq South. 6pm. Free.

One of my favorite stores in London was Muji (partly because It was one I could actually afford)... FINALLY Muji is coming to NY in two days! And yes.... they have a few magazine accessories.

Flickr Finds: The Modern Ephemera Society

Yes... House and Garden is dead. So what. Bleck. Media Life reports that publishing houses are headed for more tough times.... while Dave Eggers suggests a more appealing alternate model.

The very talented Julia Rothman (she of the marvelous Book By it's Cover Blog) has designed an extremely cute mug... BUY IT (Select "JULIAR" from the drop down menu to see it)! Available at Urban Outfitters for $14.00

Ever since Mr. Mcginnis and I went to the Booklyn Salon, I've been all inspired to make more handmade stuff. I want to make a couple of rubber stamps for a new project. Instead of using a custom rubber stamp company, I looked around on the internet for some instructions for making my own. Scrapjazz, a scrapbook web forum, has good detailed instructions here. Alma Stoller has a really good rubber stamp carving tutorial over here. She also makes stuff and you can buy her stuff at her ETSY store.

Good morning everyone. I about to head out of town for Thanksgiving and will be taking the week off. I hope you all have a great week and I'll be back to my regularly scheduled program on Monday, November 26th.

Yeah.... we haven't been posting enough... we feel so guilty. Especially since we got written up in the current issue of Paper Magazine (with Daft Punk on the cover) and my counter tells me we have a lot of new hits. All I can say is I'm giggling like a schoolgirl.... although I feel like they haven't looked very hard into our archives. Hint.

Anyway, we've been busy. Ms. Keough is in school and madly completing projects while I'm overwhelmed by watching cartoons. We also just launched a new design of our site, R&S Media and are in the throws of completing our zine, which will be coming out in early December (We decided to put our money where our mouth is).

ALSO, Ms. Keough has photography in the current issue of Famous Magazine, which is available at better magazine stands and bookstores.

Tuesday November 27: Celebrating the Renegade Press at ACA Galleries in Chelsea. This series features a different indie publisher each month. November's guest is Big Game Books (of Washington, D.C.). Big Game Books editor Maureen Thorson will host and there will be readings from Sandra Beasley, Shafer Hall, Ada Limón, Logan Ryan Smith, and music from Alex Battles. Wine, cheese, and crackers, too. Curated by Boog City editor David Kirschenbaum. ACA Galleries. 529 W 20th St. 6 pm. Free.

Wednesday November 28: True crime writer Joe McGinniss reads from his book Never Enough about a pair of rich, doomed brothers—one murdered in Hong Kong and the other found stabbed to death in Connecticut. I'm a nerd, I love this kind of stuff. Upper West Side Barnes and Noble. 2289 Broadway @82nd. 7pm. Free.

Also Wednesday: Former Harper's editor Lewis Lapham is talking about his new magazine Lapham's Quarterly at Border's Books. His journal will have new articles on current events as well as historic essays on similar topics (war, economic issues, etc). Interesting. Border's Books. 461 Park Ave @57th. 7pm. Free.

ALSO also Wednesday: Jeez Weds is a big day this week. The PEN American Center has a new series at South Paw in Brooklyn where they bring artists and writers together to discuss what makes writing matter today. This week we've got writers Rick Moody and Wesley Stace (also known as the musician John Wesley Harding) and singer-songwriter Sufjan Stevens.

Saturday December 1-Sunday December 2: The New York Center for Independent Publishing is having its annual indie and small press book fair this weekend. There are tables full of books and things to browse as well as a bunch of talks and programming from publicity how-tos to a panel on sex and violence with Amy Scholder, Chad Post, Slava Mogutin, and Sinan Antoon. Also, weirdly, A Public Space literary journal faces off again the New York Review of Books in a literary trivia quiz contest. I'll probably go to this on Sunday. New York Center for Independent Publishing. 20 W 44th St. Sat 10am–6pm. Sun 11am–5pm. Free.

Foto en Copyright
By G.P. Fieret
32.8 x 24.9 cm, 160 pages
Published by Uitgeverij Voetnoot/
Fotomuseum Den Haag

In this book there are pictures of naked women on beds, taking their shirts off in rooms, sitting with cats in chairs. There are women on the street, friends talking, the photographer dressed and laughing, naked and posing, cars parked outside, abstract forms that seem to be made of things like car windows but echo the shapes and angles of the arms and legs of some of the nudes. Fieret has such an amazing energy and warmth. He's always shooting and we see everything from very intimate moments to a glance out the window. Then he gathers all this stuff and takes it into the darkroom and starts messing with it. Some are pretty straightforward, others have fogged paper, are solarized, made with sandwiching multiple negatives, moved around, etc. Then he signs and stamps his name all over them. The result is so dreamy but has this forward moving rhythm throughout it. It's in the way he edits and organizes. You can tell that Fieret was also trained as a graphic designer and a poet. This book is a document of a man's life, a time, and a city. The images were taken in the '60s and '70s and they look like that moment—a friend's mom looked over my shoulder and said "Oh the 60s!" while I was leafing through—but they still feel modern to me.

In addition to the gorgeousness of its contents, Foto En Copyright is a good smelling and beautifully printed book. Available at art books stores. We bought ours at Spoonbill & Sugartown. It may also be possible to buy it here, in German. Our resident German just left the house wearing my lucky sweatshirt, so I can't say for sure.

J&L Books are having a party tonight for their four new titles at ICP. They make such lovely things. If that's not enough to send you up to ICP, they're serving wine and snacks. I just got the email today so, here is the info:

Stuff I Gotta Remember Not To Forget by Darin Mickey
Golden Palms by Ed Panar
72 Girls and Some Boys Who Could Be Models by Anne Daems
J&L Video by various artists

Friday, November 30th from 6 to 7:30pm @International Center of Photography, 1133 Sixth Avenue (@ 43rd), NYC