The Fast-Paced Life of the Litterateur

Another whirlwind extended happy hour of literary schmoozing. First I ducked into the humidor at Nat Sherman's to sit back and enjoy a cigar while I chatted on the cell phone with Jacqueline deMontravel, who's just finished writing the sequel to her debut novel, The Fabulous Emily Briggs. I'm trying to lure her into Manhattan some time in the next couple weeks so we can pick up another chick lit writer, take over a booth at some swank cocktail lounge, and dish dirt about the genre. Of course I'll report back with the juicy details.

From there, a quick walk halfway down the block to Coliseum to see Stephanie Elizondo Griest read from Around the Bloc, in which she recounts her youthful adventures in Moscow, Beijing, and Havana. Of the three writers there from Best Travelers Tales 2004, Steph was definitely the most lively of the bunch; she's about to hit the road, so visit her site, find out when she's in your town, and check her out.

And then it was off to the launch party from Rem Koolhaas' newest book, Content. Having just wandered back home from this bash, I honestly can't say I've done more than flipped through this yet, and couldn't possibly begin to make a coherent statement about how it reflects upon the cultural moment of present-day architecture, but it certainly looks fascinating, like a superthick issue of Metropolis...or, as Phoebe from Mastermind put it, maybe more like Tokion. And it's got a small amount of advertising to offset the production costs, making it available for just $14.95.

Though I spent much of my time catching up with Phoebe and her backstory with the magazine, we eventually got caught up in another conversation with Stephanie Klein and Tony Hightower, who runs The Evil Twin Theory (and is nearly 1/4 of the way through a project to post a song a week to his site, eventually to collate the MP3s onto four 13-track CDs). Both of whom seemed quite fun, and I'm looking forward to digging into the blogs a little more fully than I just did to get their URLs.