Lux Lotus

The New News

Things related to my PR projects and such are smashingly good this week:

Roxana Robinson's COST is out just two weeks and already in its second printing (if you find a first edition, hold onto it!). The Wall Street Journal calls COST "summer reading of uncommon stature" and The New York Times Book Review praises it as "unusual for being as plot-driven as it is character-driven" and for "final words, which made me catch my breath..." Roxana also contributed a 'Book Notes' playlist to Largehearted Boy.

BLESS at Ludlow 38 is highlighted in The New York Post's "Haute List" today, as well as on fashion insiders' source, JC Report, and Sunday Styles' PULSE section in The New York Times.

July's edition of "Upstairs at the Square" will feature Aimee Mann and Joseph O'Neill on the 31st.

Plus, you can still sign up for "Innovative Publicity Basics," an online workshop that costs twenty dollars and is open to all, which I'll be conducting via email for two weeks starting July 1. I also discussed effective promotion for cultural projects with Kassia Krozser of Booksquare earlier this week for an upcoming podcast, so I'll let you know when that's online. And I'll be speaking in person at the Backspace Writers Conference in August here in New York.

18 Karat Chains

I'm heartily amused by the comments on a post by Anne Christensen at The Moment "rationalizing" a $5,000 Chanel jacket, and have to admit they're a hundred times more entertaining than the original, e.g. "I know I will still be able to wear this jacket 10 years from now" vs "better wear kevlar under that frock.  i assume that folks wearing $5000 sweaters will be the first to go after the revolution" and my personal favorite, "Pipp, like most individuals, conveniently ignores social context..."

From the LL Archives: Windowlicker, A Rose is a Rose, Crimson Horizon.

Windowlicker

Last night after I attended an event for work, I found myself in my sister's neighborhood and so I stopped by to catch up over La Dolce Vita. I mentioned that last week I was in the chic department store that she works for and that, with all of the designer handbags on sale displayed in bins, it looked like Canal Street with incongruous price tags. She noted that you can't plan for an economic downturn, and that retailers, now deluged with excess inventory, expected accessories to fuel profits in a way that has since slowed markedly. She said that fine jewelry now does best, because "people want real value." Although I like luxury, I can also say that I've never found much solace in things. Experiences, on the other hand, and the means to attain them, flicker with promise eternally.

[Giftcard for 5 New York-London roundtrips on Eos, $24,000 at Vivre]

Windowlicker - from the French for window shopping: faire du lèche-vitrine - appears on Tuesday and Thursdays at 10am EST-ish.

Lux Lotus 'Round Midnight Poetry Hour

DUALITY
BY TINA CHANG

"Perhaps I hold people to impossible ideals,
I tell them, something is wrong with your
personality, (you're a drinker, you're
too dependent, or I think you have
a mother/son fixation). This is usually
followed by passionate lovemaking,
one good long and very well meaning
embrace, and then I'm out the door. 

In daylight, I'll tip my sunglasses forward,
buy a cup of tea and think of the good
I've done for the world, how satisfying
it feels to give a man something to contemplate..."

Read the rest.

IMAGE: BRITISH VOGUE.

The News

All is coming up a pocketful of poppies in my world of work this week...

Rudolph Wurlitzer, author of The Drop Edge of Yonder, which Patti Smith recommends, has an exclusive essay at MaudNewton.com that could not be more of the (read: against the) zeitgeist.

UPDATE: Today Los Angeles CityBeat published a lengthy, glowing review: "Wurlitzer’s West is a sacred space, an American dreamtime, and a carnival of travesties and transfigurations..."

Also, a friend told me yesterday that he and his pals have been passing around the issue of Arthur with Rudy's interview (now online). From my favorite passage, you can see why:

Arthur: After Two-Lane, weren’t you going to go to India to direct a film?

RW: In the early ’70s there was a very short-lived wave of small films that were made by people like Dennis Hopper, Monte Hellman, Bob Rafelson, and, of course, Terry Malick and others, and I was sort of washed along in that wave. After Universal gave me a small amount of development money based on a script I wrote that took place in India, I went off on a location scout with the producer and a production manager. While we were wandering around Benares, we stopped in a small shop to have something to drink and got unexpectedly whacked out on some kind of hash-opium concoction which left us barely able to crawl. We got totally lost and ended up on the river where dozens of bodies were being burned over huge woodpiles like some kind of surreal barbecue. When we got back to the hotel, the production manager, who had never been outside of California, was so freaked out that he refused to leave his room except to go to the airport. By the time the producer and I returned four weeks later, we were barely allowed in the parking lot at Universal.

And, Roxana Robinson, whose new novel, COST, is out officially from Sarah Crichton Books/FSG next week, will be reading from her "scorching" (--Booklist) tale on Friday night in New York. Please join us for an evening exploring Heroin & Hollywood, with a little party to follow. The New York Times ran a profile of Roxana last weekend. Prepare to be fascinated!

The Sweetest Thing (+Smart Marketing)

Girls Write Now, the nonprofit for which I am the vice chair of the board, is having its spring reading on June 8 at Barnes & Noble in Tribeca, and one of the main sources of raising funds is selling ads in the program that is handed out at the event. I totally slept on this so I am posting it as it's a genius way to reach a desirable audience (hundreds of teens + parents + writers + creative professionals + cultural influencers + people with disposable income). And also, it's a fact that 100% of Lux Lotus readers are engaged in dreamy endeavors...

"It's the perfect opportunity for local businesses to reach a diverse yet targeted audience of young people, publishing professionals and the GWN community's family and friends. Ads range from $50 for 1/3 page to $75 for 1/2 page to $150 for 1 full page. Is there someone that would like to support GWN but can't attend the reading? Someone you know who would like to reach our audience? WE NEED ALL ADS BY MAY 24. IF YOU DON'T HAVE YOUR OWN ART, WE WILL DESIGN THE ADS."

Drop me a line if you'd like details. XO.

Bright Lights

This morning I went to the New York Women's Foundation breakfast, which was awe-inspiring. I attended with Maya Nussbaum, executive director of Girls Write Now, and we sat with our friend Hali Lee and the Asian Women Giving Circle. CNN journalist Christiane Amanpour spoke eloquently to the hundreds of attendees and I couldn't see straight I was so starstruck. I was also very moved by the Ugandan activists who pooled their funds to raise $1000 for those displaced by Hurricane Katrina. And Nevada Littlewolf, a city council member from Minnesota, who beautifully introduced Marie C. Wilson, who herself gave a rousing speech about courage, persistence and what it means for the world to invest in women. She also gave the crowd a mandate to, in some way in the next 24 hours, highlight the work of women currently doing great things...

Today, I'm thinking of Amy Guth, who, since we were goofing off at breakfast in Omaha last fall and she casually mentioned that she was thinking of putting together a literary festival in Chicago, has masterminded the inaugural Pilcrow Lit Fest, happening next week. I can't wait to go and support her vision -- the social highlight of the weekend is a benefit for public libraries in New Orleans! -- and especially a conference line-up that is the most gender-balanced I've ever seen (A cursory tally reveals 31 women out of 57 participants, which is extraordinary. Just ask Jen).  Other accolades today go to my friend Coco Young, whose Williamsburg-by-way-of-Marseille style is featured on a whole page in this month's Lucky magazine, and my neighbor Lindsey Thornburg, who makes capes perfect for traipsing across enchanted landscapes in (and isn't that always the plan?). And the sublime new Elizabeth Peyton show at Gavin Brown, especially the still-lifes.

Also, the biggest lesson I took away from this morning's event is a maxim that I've tried to incorporate into my own life and embrace by example, that anyone can be a philanthropist. In fact, you New Yorkers will have an opportunity to step up on May 27th when Roxana Robinson and Janice Erlbaum read at the beyond brilliant Other Means Reading Series (the hook: featured authors choose a charitable organization to direct the reading's suggested $5 admission towards; this month's good cause TBD).

On Publicity

Just added another speaking engagement, so here's the schedule through summer:

• Pilcrow Lit Fest in Chicago (May 22-25)
• Nebraska Summer Writers' Conference (June 14-15)
• Backspace Writers Conference in New York (August 8)

Plus, this summer (July 1 -14), I'm going to teach "Innovative Publicity Basics," an online workshop that costs twenty dollars and is open to all. I probably won't do it again, ever, so avail yourself if that's your thing!

Related from the LL archives: all my favorite thoughts on the topic are best viewed in neon.

In other news

Here's the latest on my beyond smashing literary publicity projects:

If you want to see what a post-retreat glow looks like, come on out tonight (Monday) for "Art & Activism: Writers on Politics Now," which I've put together with authors Stephen Elliott (My Girlfriend Comes to the City and Beats Me Up), Janice Erlbaum (Have You Found Her) and Nick Flynn (Another Bullshit Night in Suck City). I came back for this irresistible happening, so please join us if you're in the neighborhood! Janice is the subject of a fantastic profile running in the downtown papers this week.

Min Jin Lee's nationally bestselling debut novel, Free Food for Millionaires, was praised (again!) in this week's edition of The New York Times Book Review.

Rudolph Wurlitzer's The Drop Edge of Yonder was reviewed by David Ulin in The Los Angeles Times, noting the consistent theme in a body of work that has "merged a Beckett-like sense of ennui with the cool irony of the counterculture to explore the territory between what we perceive and what we are." See also: the current issues of Arthur and The Brooklyn Rail.

The Bardot States

Last night I got home from ten days at an ashram, aka "hippie camp," aka Sivananda Yoga Ranch, upstate in the Catskills. In short, it was the most personally illuminating period of my life, and the eight hours of meditation daily (two two-hour yoga sessions, two hours each in the morning and the evening of seated meditation/devotional chanting in sanskrit) might just have blown my mind. Everything feels... better. And looks better, too. On my way back, I strolled by a park and was like, "are those tulips glowing?"  I'm sure I'll have more to say later about my usual enchanting escapades, although most of the highlights were internal rather than external. Except for that cute backpacker. Hahaha.

{image source}