I like how there are about a million photos of me “drinking” without having an actual drink in my hand. Can’t really “brand” myself as a drinking connoisseur without one. It’s like if I just used pictures of myself on the chubby side to prove that I know my restaurants. I think maybe I should hire a pro photog to shoot me eating and drinking for this whole branding concept. Or maybe just abandon the idea of branding and continue doing what I’ve always done: eat and drink without reason.
Some branded twitter icons: can you guess who they belong to??
How to Write: Gene Wolfe
Every so often I get optimistic and explain the best method of learning to write to students. I don’t believe any of them has ever tried it, but I will explain it to you now. After all, you may be the exception. When I read about this method, it was attributed to Benjamin Franklin, who invented and discovered so much. Certainly I did not invent it.
But I did it, and it worked. That is more than can be said for most creative writing classes.
Find a very short story by a writer you admire. Read it over and over until you understand everything in it. Then read it over a lot more.
Here’s the key part. You must do this. Put it away where you cannot get at it. You will have to find a way to do it that works for you. Mail the story to a friend and ask him to keep it for you, or whatever. I left the story I had studied in my desk on Friday. Having no weekend access to the building in which I worked, I could not get to it until Monday morning.
When you cannot see it again. Write it yourself. You know who the characters are. You know what happens. You write it. Make it as good as you can.
Compare your story to the original, when you have access to the original again. Is your version longer? Shorter? Why? Read both versions out loud. There will be places where you had trouble. Now you can see how the author handled those problems.
If you want to learn to write fiction, and are among those rare people willing to work at it, you might want to use the little story you have just finished as one of your models. It’s about the right length.
How to Start Writing: Joyce Carol Oates
Stories come to us as wraiths requiring precise embodiments. Running seems to allow me, ideally, an expanded consciousness in which I can envision what I’m writing as a film or a dream. I rarely invent at the typewriter but recall what I’ve experienced. I don’t use a word processor but write in longhand, at considerable length. (Again, I know: writers are crazy.)
By the time I come to type out my writing formally, I’ve envisioned it repeatedly. I’ve never thought of writing as the mere arrangement of words on the page but as the attempted embodiment of a vision: a complex of emotions, raw experience.
The effort of memorable art is to evoke in the reader or spectator emotions appropriate to that effort. Running is a meditation; more practicably it allows me to scroll through, in my mind’s eye, the pages I’ve just written, proofreading for errors and improvements.
My method is one of continuous revision. While writing a long novel, every day I loop back to earlier sections to rewrite, in order to maintain a consistent, fluid voice. When I write the final two or three chapters of a novel, I write them simultaneously with the rewriting of the opening, so that, ideally at least, the novel is like a river uniformly flowing, each passage concurrent with all the others.
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The Poetry Brothel, produced by The Poetry Society of New York, is a conceptual group that presents poets as characters—or “high courtesans,” as they say. The Brothel aims to take poetry outside the classroom and lecture hall and “place it in the lush interiors of a bordello.” Made up of a cast of “Whores” who put on innovative events staged to feel like the fin-de-siècle brothels in New Orleans and Paris, this band of poets strives to evoke the avant-garde movements and French Symbolists of the 19th century. The poets act as whores, calling their audience their “Johns” and, as you can imagine, the events are not your Mother’s poetry readings. Their next event isn’t until January 23rd at The Back Room (invite below), but the group has offered up a list of their favorite nightlife places where poets can bide their time until then. Here is the Poetry Brothel’s top places to live the poet’s life: places where poetry is inspired, where poets hang out, or maybe where one can find the ghosts poets past.
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1) The Back Room - as much as we hate to plug our own venue (not really, we’re whores), Sunday nights at The Back Room are the best nights to meet poets, listen to poetry, talk about poetry, and be inspired to write poetry, because all those things are exactly what we at The Poetry Brothel aim to do.
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2) The Brooklyn Bridge - I don’t know about you, but most of the poets I know are broke half the time. (See Mike Todd’s famous quote: “I’ve never been poor, only broke. Being poor is a frame of mind. Being broke is only a temporary situation.”) Grab a flask of homemade absinthe, a moleskin journal, and a walk across the Brooklyn Bridge; you’ll be seeing ghosts and writing poems in no time. If you’re feeling friendly, you’ll probably also run into a few Walt Whitman fanatics.
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3) Goodbye Blue Monday – It’s a bar, coffee shop, art gallery, antique store, music venue, etc, with an artist-in-residence at all times. They have poetry readings most Friday nights (The Stain of Poetry) and some other nights throughout the week. The decor is as bizarre as the clientele, a mix of weirdo and beautiful poets, musicians and visual artists. Good times.
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4) KGB Bar - Hosts literary readings almost every night throughout the week, and on Monday nights they’re always good. Best American Poetry series editor David Lehman started the Monday night reading series there back in the early 90’s, and since then, it’s become somewhat of a literary mecca. If you want to hear award-winning poets in an intimate setting, KGB is the place to do it. Get there early. It’s small and fills up fast.
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5) Cafe Loup - On Tuesday and Wednesday nights particularly, Cafe Loup is the place to go to meet up-and-coming poets. Professors and students alike in MFA programs at the New School and NYU go there after class to drink and mingle with each other in a more informal setting. In addition, many of the major readings throughout the year (Best American Poetry, National Book Critics Circle Awards, National Book Award) take place at the New School Auditorium (which is a block away from Loup), and Cafe Loup is always the after-party destination.
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Runners up include:
Bowery Poetry Club
Chelsea Hotel
Battery Park City
Raines Law Room
Rose Live Music
Check out my contribution to a Nightlife/Fashion Week story for the Daily News!
New York Fashion Week is about more than just the runways. It’s about the after-parties, too.
Why? Because where they are held are always the city’s next hot spots.
“Fashion houses are always about the next and the new, so naturally they try to pair off with restaurants and bars that are up and coming for their parties,” says BlackBook associate editor Cayte Grieve.
Leading the pack this season is Nolita lounge Mulberry Project, which will will host bashes for Andrew Buckler and Kaelen.
“Our events are with smaller, lesser known but extremely talented designers,” explains Mulberry Project co-owner Patrick Cabido, who, with partners Ian Parms, Matty Gee and Nick Boccio, opened the underground bar on New Year’s Eve.
“What was most important to us was to stay true to our venue, which is called a project because, like fashion, we’re always evolving.”
Other downtown after-hours happenings include the VMAN party at the not-even-open-yet Mondrian SoHo, which is rumored to make its public debut in March. Beauty & Essex (pawn shop in the front, two-tiered restaurant in the back), which hosted a DKNY men’s show on Tuesday, will throw a Pantene bash and a Maybelline party this week.
And Grieve says The James, which has rooftop bar Jimmy and the new David Burke Kitchen, “will be a big draw for the fashion crowd.”
Uptown, the Empire Hotel as well as the Hudson Hotel — which both came into the spotlight when Fashion Week moved north to Lincoln Center last season — will be places to see and be seen once again.
The Empire will host Gwen Stefani’s L.A.M.B. and L’Oreal bash as well as a Gilt Group event, while a few blocks down, Good Units at the Hudson Hotel will put on a Wildfox party and the Eva Minge runway show.
“If designers can offer their guests a first look at what’s perceived as the next big thing, they’ve exemplified their own brand of savvy,” says Grieve.
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Check back for a few more selections for party crashing this week:
Bill Murray Pushes Green Bay Fan at Playoff Game, Calls Ray Nitschke a Pussy
The Legend of Bill Murray CONTINUES!
He’s so magical!
As the social media woman of the house, I will be spending time answering questions from the interwebs on behalf of BlackBook and the BlackBook family. Sometimes, I will connect you with other BlackBookers, and have them answer questions from the interwebs. Sometimes, while interviewing bands or celebrities or nobodies, I will alert the interwebs so that they can ask these special people specified questions, and these special people can answer them on camera. Sometimes, after a rough night, I will refuse to answer questions on camera, and perform Q&A puppet shows. Interwebs: ask your questions!
“Some people are saying that you’re destined to become the next household name. How does it feel to hear something like that?
Does that mean I’m like Tide or some washing powder?”
Please read my profile on the next “Tide” or “Spiffy” actress (and now girl crush), Rosamund Pike.
Model Diary: Dana Drori Talks Althusserian Philosophy - BlackBook
“Despite our shared sense of self-assuredness, however, we both often find ourselves interpellated (in the Althusserian sense) into the industry’s ideology, in which we are replaceable and disposable things that have no personal identities.”
This chickadee is one of our interns (!)
Not only am I privileged to attend the VS fashion show (with performances by Katy Perry and Akon) I get to spend the afternoon getting a Victoria’s Secret Makeover of some sort? I’m guessing spray tans and highlights…
VS Fashion Show tapes tomorrow November 10th.
BlackBook Obsessions Party @ The Royalton - Photos - BlackBook
This is me and gregg—gregg and I. gregg may look innocent, but he’s a source for all sorts of office entertainment. let me explain: he’s always the first to take off his shirt at a party. he didnt here, but he did other fun stuff (making out) that made water-cooler chatter that much more wonderful this AM.
