Colm Toibin

Colm Toibin has the best interviews of anyone I've read of late. The comment about getting no pleasure from writing was incredible, and this bit about being bald as well as gay was a nice zinger.

Advice for surviving your 20s from Catherine Bohne

WHY did I start working in the bookstore? When I discovered the bookstore, in my early 20's, it was the sole (it seems to me now) haven from the terrors of trying to figure out how to live and be a grownup—life was hard and scary, expensive and confusing, and I seemed to find myself in one situation after another that I'd thought I wanted but didn't really suit me at all…the bookstore was simply the one place that felt calm and sane, peaceful and welcoming. I applied for the weekend job on a whim, got it, and just never left. Whenever other opportunities would come up I'd find that if I was honest, I'd really rather live in the world of the bookstore, and so although it sometimes seemed irresponsible (or at least quixotic) I just stayed and stayed—moving into positions of increasing authority seemed to happen naturally. And now I own it!

Interview on Bookslut with the owner of the Park Slope Community Bookstore (one of my favorite bookstores in the world), Catherine Bohne. (via Three Percent)

Re: LIVE LIKE YOU'RE IN FORBES MAGAZINE!!!

Soon the artists will all have to move to the Financial District because rent on apartments in Brooklyn is the only rent that isn't plummeting in this economy.

Please don't close, Terrace Bagels!

Photo via Yelp.

Word on the street is Terrace Bagels is closed "for a while."

This is the most important restaurant in all of Brooklyn. The Brooklyn Rocks coffee is delicious, and there's nothing like a fresh (boiled!) bagel just out of the oven. Send them happy thoughts, please.

I Lego NY

A little treat from the New York Times.

Brooklyn Morning

I can't remember whether I've posted about it, but I've been completely in love with Youngna Park's work for about half a year now. I finally purchased a piece called Brooklyn Morning (above) from Jen Beckman's gallery. It not only captures the mood of my neighborhood, but some of the magic that's leftover here in early daylight.

Younga Park has an incredible archive that makes me wish I could thank the internet for granting me access to such beautiful, high-res photos.

Check out her sense of light and geometry:


Her sense of space, color, and mood:


The way she uses simple props to construct a narrative:


And her unusual use of focus:


All photos courtesy of her archive. If you too want to wake up to a street full of confetti, check her stuff out.

Word problems for your 20s

Image via Culinary in the Desert.

1) When your wireless internet goes out in the middle of the night right before a job interview (and you have crucial information regarding this interview in your inbox), and your neighbors' wireless won't work for you, and their neighbors' won't work for you, and nowhere in your section of Brooklyn that is open has wireless internet available, where do you go and what do you have to pay for it? Please list all possible solutions. Extra credit if you don't have to leave your building.

2) If 35% of your income goes to taxes, is your income for your part-time hostessing job less than or equal to the amount you could get for unemployment in the state of New York?

3) If your significant other's car is broken into while you're visiting a city many miles away, and you had pretzels from Sheetz in the car at the time of said break-in, is it safe to eat these pretzels, or do you suppose they will coat your throat with shards of glass?

Black Wednesday

Yet again, we're on the cutting edge of things at our company: we're all unemployed, at least for now. Guess who else is? The publisher of Houghton Mifflin, 10% of Thomas Nelson, much of Simon & Schuster and Random House, according to Editorial Ass (also on Andrew Wheeler's blog, via GwendaBond). Maud Newton elaborates.

Even my coworker wrote about it. Gosh, we are so trendy. But we knew we might be laid off well before the economy crashed. That's what you have to do when you work in Williamsburg: be way ahead of the trends, and act pouty and pissed when you become a trendsetter. Or when you become homeless.

Fondon't

I usually peruse Craigslist for silly missed connection stories and free furniture, but last night I discovered the wonder of Household Items.

From an entry advertising a fondue maker:

Are you lucky enough to have a lactose intolerant spouse? Looking to prove to them that you know very little about him/her? Well, take a queue from my boyfriend and buy them this fondue pot that they'll get absolutely no use out of because cheese will kill them! It's really the perfect gift! I was certainly bowled over by the amount of thought and effort that went into it, and your lactose intolerant spouse will be too!

Everyone's from Brooklyn

But here's the one I've heard yet:

Thanks, Geoff.

Scenes from the Brooklyn Book Festival

Great stuff. But it still has nothing on the literary festival in Gambier, Ohio.