The Paris Review

Even if, like some of us, you already have Great Gatsby fatigue, you can enjoy playing with this (raven-haired) F. Scott Fitzgerald doll. Send him and Zelda out on the town. Let Hemingway insult him in a rental car. Send him to the south with the Murphys (although you’ll have to use a Barbie and Ken or someone to play them). Bring him to the movies and let him weep into his tiny martini as you watch Baz Luhrmann’s extravaganza.

DAY ONE

7:00 A.M. Wake up to dog barking and strong skunk smell in house. Fear that door to garden was left open and skunk is loose in house. Get out of bed to confirm. Garden door is not open and skunk is not loose. Go back to bed for thirty minutes. 

7:30 A.M. Get out of bed. Wash face. Gather belongings, including black cocoon coat purchased for an imminent trip to Paris found for sixteen dollars the day before at a second-hand store. Head home to Mount Washington.

8:00 A.M. Arrive at home. Make tea. Take daily vitamins. Make new favorite quick morning oatmeal: half cup of oats, two heaping tablespoons of maple syrup, cinnamon, chopped apple, fresh dates, walnuts, boiling water. Settle in to enjoy oatmeal and tea. Realize that laptop, aka lifeline, is in Amos’s car. Freak out. Cancel all morning obligations, citing laptop debacle. Text Amos.

8:05 A.M. Amos drops off laptop.

8:10 A.M. Finish oatmeal. Finish tea. Resume all morning obligations. Including: reviewing reactions to Sybil’s sad demise on last night’s Downton Abbey, looking at Atelier Bow-Wow’s pet architecture—otherwise known as teeny tiny buildings on teeny tiny sliver of land—for an article, researching Bruno Munari’s useless machines for a contribution to the new arts journal, synonym.

9:15 A.M. Tackle e-mail. Respond to e-mails from three weeks ago. Debate including ‘apologies for the delayed response.’ Decide against it thinking, No need to always apologize. For all they know I answer e-mail every few weeks because I live in a cabin removed from civilization and spend most of my time in nature. Read More »

Chances are, anyone who has spent any time in Manhattan’s East Village is familiar with the work of Jim Power, aka “The Mosaic Man.” For the past three decades, Power has been on a single-handed quest to beautify an area which, when he started decorating lampposts with beautiful tile work, was far from salubrious. Despite twenty years of homelessness and the city’s destruction of some of his lampposts, Jim has remained undeterred and is a beloved fixture of the neighborhood. Etsy—with whom Power now has a shop—pays tribute with a video.

Jim Power and the Mosaic Trail from Etsy on Vimeo.

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Watch this beautiful video about Brazenhead Books, a secret bookstore that’s been tucked away in Michael Seidenberg’s apartment on the Upper East Side ever since the rent for his original retail space in Brooklyn was quadrupled. (Jonathan Lethem used to work there.) “This would have not been my ideal,” he says. “I wouldn’t have thought I want to have a bookshop in a location no one knows about.” But Brazen says it’s a continuation of being the kind of bookseller he wants to be—not on the street, not at book fairs, but inside, the shelves lined with first editions, knickknacks, and, one hopes, a cat. “I don’t know if it’s my familiarity with failure,” he adds. “I find ways to survive without it making enough money to be what you would call a successful business. If it’s all about money, there’s just better things to sell.” And how do those of us who’ve never been find him? He’s in the phone book, he says with a smile. Hiding in plain sight.

There's No Place Like Here: Brazenhead Books from Etsy on Vimeo.