December 06, 2004
Heeb Hanukkah Party
If you’re culturally Jewish but not religious, then a Heeb party is for you. If you want to be in a packed basement with lots of horny Jewish girls, then a Heeb party is for you. And, if you want to listen to decent music at the venue New York Press says is the “best bar to pick up dorky but cute girls,” then you should be upset you weren’t at this Hanukkah party at LIT.
The place filled up by 9:30 pm, probably because the $1 vodka drink specials ended at 10:00 pm. They gave out donuts and free copies of Heeb Magazine.
The highlight of the night was partying with the Assistant Art Director of Playgirl magazine. Jewish pornographers are interesting.
Posted by lawrencehecht at 10:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 04, 2004
Holiday Hackshop
I just love Eyebeam. If I wanted to start a collective work space, I would probably model it off of Eyebeam. I attended their Holiday Hackshop and learned to knit. That’s right, activists opposed to sweatshop labor were teaching people how to knit as a protest against The Man. I may not have agreed with their politics, but heck, I am glad they were there.
Posted by lawrencehecht at 09:52 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 03, 2004
What the Blog?: Literary Blogger Summit
The panelists at this Housing Works Used Book Cafe event spend hours each day reading online and print publications. Then, they write about what they read on their blogs. What motivates Maud Newton, Ron Hogan, Laila Lalami, Dennis Loy Johnson, George Murray and Michael Othofer to dedicate a significant part of their lives to their websites? I don’t know? Why am I a political junkie who doesn’t write about politics on the Net?
I attended this event with brooklynvegan, who has some pretty damn good photos of this event on his site. The panel discussion will air on C-SPAN's BookTV, which is really interesting because I listen/watch it almost every weekend. I listen to C-SPAN, cable news and talk radio as a supplement to my reading. I like listening because it is entertainng and because I just can't read 24/7.
Literary bloggers are like other bloggers in many ways, but are different because many were already writing their commentary before blogging technology became prevalant and because their writings are a little more snarky and negative just by the very nature of writing book reviews.
Here is my quick analysis of the panelists:
-- Dennis Loy Johnson is an excellent moderator and very telegenic.
-- Maud Newton is OCD.
-- Ron Hogan distinguishes himself by writing up reviews of public readings by authors.
-- George Murray is funny and has an appealing personality.
-- Laila Laima and Michael Othofer fill niches by writing about international and foreign-language authors.
Posted by lawrencehecht at 11:51 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
