When we have enough time, I like to walk around whatever town or city I’m playing at and check out the public art. It definitely gives a sense for the place; its inhabitants, their politics and fears, the tolerance of its police anti-graffiti division. Last time I was up in Bellingham WA, up near the Canadian border, I found a few cool images just around the corner from the Wild Buffalo (where we were playing that night), and around the corner from the Boundary Bay (which we played the time before).

Alright, so I’ll begrudgingly acknowledge how cool camera phones are.

Oh, and “Emobama” is better than “Emo For Obama.”

[The following entry was written by Synthesis Weekly columnist Emilie Clark. She can be reached at emilie@synthesis.net ]

I Was Told There’d Be Cake
By Sloane Crosley
Riverhead

I, like everyone else interested in book publishing, journalism, music or theater, have always fantasized about moving to New York City. That’s where it all happens, you know, and I heard if you can make it there you can make it anywhere. I discarded that pipe dream a while back, but NYC still interests me. Which is why I read Gawker on occasion and keep up on the New York literary world though the Internet. I guess it’s inevitable to know a lot about the city and its inhabitants since most media spawns from within its confines. This is a long-winded way of saying that I had some definite preconceptions about New York publicist Sloane Crosley’s debut book.
According to The New York Observer, Sloane Crosley’s path to writing started with a mass e-mail to some friends describing a story that would later become an essay in the book. The story is about how when moving from one apartment to another (three blocks away) she locked herself out of both apartments. It’s a funny story in the book and I’m sure it was a funny e-mail, but that’s not important. What’s important is that one of her friends — and therefore e-mail recipient — was the editor at The Village Voice and offered to publish a polished-up version of the story. This is essentially how Crosley became famous. And it’s also why I’m having a hard time liking her. I can’t help but wonder how different my life and writing career would be if I were friends with the editor of The Village Voice. But I guess my envy is really neither here nor there.

Now that we’ve whetted your interest, the actual review can be found after the jump… (more…)