ORDER UP, my elvish friends.
Kent! Lorimer! Get in there! OUR COUNTRY FRIENDS is a highly recommended read
Hey Turkeys!
If you need a delicious long holiday weekend read, I’ve got a recommendation! Tastes like Chekhov. Very spicy.
Here’s my Book and Film Globe review of Gary Shteyngart’s hilarious, cutting, pandemic-era novel OUR COUNTRY FRIENDS.
In which my Hoosier ayuss reviews Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time
I resisted the urge to flaunt my insider Hoosier knowledge in my Book and Film Globe review of the new documentary, Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time , but I will just tell YOU that my mother ALSO co-edited the Shortridge High School Daily Echo, the classmate who calls Kurt “Walter” at the reunion may be thinking of his cousin Walter Vonnegut, who was my dad’s neighbor late in life, and the words Kurt writes on the chalkboard (the goblins’ll getcha if you don’t watch out) are from “Little Ophant Annie” by Hoosier poet James Whitcomb Riley, a favorite of my grandparents.
You’ve no doubt already heard the story about me realizing that the beautiful India A, who I met on a photoshoot with baby India and who babysat for us a couple of times(then have a mess of beautiful babies herself) is Kurt’s granddaughter, whilst reading in a New Hampshire hammock on my day off from summer camp…
It was a thrill to be in the first audience, on the 99th anniversary of Kurt’s birth. Read Ayun Raspberry-17 Halliday’s review here
Antiquated Future is now carrying the East Village Inky!
I’m genuinely chuffed to announce that Antiquated Future is the newest online vendor to peddle The East Village Inky! Supporting them = supporting me!
So much good stuff here, including my favorite, Is It Just Me or Are We Nailing This?: Essays on BoJack Horseman. Get you some!
37 Reasons to Kick in on the Creative, Not Famous Kickstarter!
I know some of you nice people already pre-ordered my forthcoming book, Creative, Not Famous: The Small Potato Manifesto, but for those of you what didn’t, you can be one of the first to get your mitts on a digital or tangible copy by kicking in the same amount as you’d wind up spending in a bookstore to our Small Potato Kickstarter campaign.
Bonus: click the link for sneak peeks at the contents, including anthropotato portraits of a few of our illustrious contributors (who, duh, are all getting a contributors’ copy on the house: Bob Laine, Lorijo Manley, Jenny Gonzalez-Blitz, and Moe Bowstern!
Plus a hastily shot video of me vamping it up with whatever props are on hand. You know you wanna click it.
In addition to the above named contributors, and a few who chose to remain tantalizingly anonymous, the book contains the wit, wisdom and anecdotal evidence of both highs and lows from
Drew Ackerman (Sleep With Me Podcast)
Rob Ackerman
Nick Balaban
Todd Alcott
Emmy Bean
Ellia Bisker
Rachel Kramer Bussel
Sabrina Chap
Karen Christopher
Delaine Derry Green
Meghan Finn
Connie Fu
Greg Kotis
Shelton Pritchard Lindsay
MariNaomi
Winter Miller
Mimi Pond
Heather Riordan
Akin Salawu
Christine Schisano
Trav SD
R. Sikoryak
Ben Snakepit
Stephanie Summerville
Steven Svymbersky
Edward Thomas-Herrera
Anthony Wills Jr
& J.t. Yost
One hell of an impressive roster if you ask me! I bet if you totted em all up, you’d be looking at over a thousand years worth of advice, observations, field reports, and battle scars.
So pull on your boots and get kicking.
DEADSTOCK!
A recent, long overdue rummage in our allotted storage space in our mercifully non-flooded basement led to a discovery of some extremely rare back issues of the East Village Inky, as well as some t-shirts and onesies that date to a time when Inky herself could fit in the 4T t-shirt she’s posing with at bottom right.
The elastic’s fresh, they’re free of mildew and earwigs, so I figured what the H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks, I’ll slap em up on Etsy and be done with it!
Which was a great idea, except shirt wise, it left some interested parties outside the US facing some extremely daunting shipping fees, just one of the things I was bitching about in our most recent, mail-themed issue.
A few gentle nudges from some ladies flying the Canadian flag led to the discovery that the company that printed these shirts way back in 2003 is still in business, and has affiliates that will print on demand outside the US, and ship far more affordably.
If you are in Canada, order here.
If you are in the UK, order here.
If you are in Australia, lucky YOU! Order here.
If you are in the US, ordering from me on Etsy is a good way to go, though in the name of full disclosure, there are more styles and sizes to be had on this printing company’s US site…I don’t rake in as much lettuce, but hey, if you are willing to rep my zine with the image of our first-ever sticker on a pair of thong panties, far be it from me to quibble over pennies.
Let’s make a collaborative Charming Disaster zine Friday Sept 17!
The Chief Primatologist of The East Village Inky is DELIGHTED to be joining Charming Disaster, one of her favorite bands, for their weekly Quarantine Livestream, Friday September 17 at EST.
We’re gonna spice things up with a live collaborative project as we listen- illustrating Heart of Brass from their Spells + Rituals album. Grab a phrase and come prepared with a black pen and a piece of standard white printer paper, folded in half, portrait style (or the digital equivalent thereof), and for those who favor collage, a glue stick or rubber cement. FUN!
The lyrics are here, but I’ll paste em below, too.
If you’re worried about your artistic abilities, fret not. Whatever you make will be wonderful.
If you’re STILL worried about your artistic abilities, I took the liberty of snagging some images from the public domain of some of the jolly items namechecked by the song: a dirigible, a diving bell, laudanum… that sort of thing. Access them here!
Print em out and be ready to embellish them during our time together – collage, drawing, handwritten words…it’s all good!
Or go hunting in the public domain for images that speak to you.
After the livestream, be sure to email your creation to me and/or Charming Disaster as a jpeg or PNG file.
What will it become? A zine? A music video? A major sensation? Play along and see!
#charmingdisaster #zine
Watch on Facebook
Watch on YouTube
Heart of Brass from SPELLS + RITUALS by Charming Disaster
© all rights reserved
In the dirigible’s gondola, the clouds fog up your monocle
You wipe it with a handkerchief embroidered with a monogram
Looking for lost continents, you’d better check your pocket watch
We won’t be home for luncheon but they’ll keep the platters warm
CHORUS:
Not as pure as gold (a captive of the scientist)
Not as sharp as glass (he practiced his/her experiments)
Not as strong as stone (flesh and blood will never last)
My baby’s got a heart of brass
Underneath the diving bell, return to the submersible
Before the lonely nautilus can wrap you in its tentacles
Moistening your handkerchief to polish your discoveries
The needle of the compass doesn’t point to any north
(Chorus)
Quince paste laced with laudanum will get you through the tedium
Of waiting to be rescued from inside the sanitarium
The esoteric brotherhood suspect you’re up to nothing good
The ampule in your handkerchief will put them all to sleep
We’re all some kind of machine
We’re only cogwheels, pistons and steam
All of us powered by water and heat
It makes our tick-tock hearts beat beat beat beat
Beat beat beat beat beat beat beat beat
The automaton forever sits, its hand upon the writing desk
Gently grips a fountain pen that circumscribes an arabesque
Deciphering the messages encrypted by the alchemist
A handkerchief will wipe away the secrets that it keeps
(Chorus)
Floating down the Amazon, we wonder if we’ve gone too far and
Plunge into the whirlpool at the basin of the waterfall
Scribbling this chronicle, the fog clouds up your monocle
A handkerchief can stopper up our message in a bottle
We have left it gently bobbing on the surface of the water
As we sail around the spiral into mystery or miracle
Cry into your scry glass, inquire of your oracle
Squint into your spyglass, you can see us wave farewell
Pete’s Mini Zine Fest 9/18
Look at all these fckn zinesters! The East Village Inky will see you at Pete’s Mini Zine Fest 9/18. Bring proof of vaccination & small bills!
East Village Inky, No. 64: MAIL
Whomp! There it is! The people have spoken! This issue is dedicated to the miracle that is MAIL!
More intel, including how to get your mitts on a copy here.
CICADA MANIA!!!
Necromancers of the Public Domain, my other long running project, in which we resurrect a forgotten, aged book as a 1-Night-Only Variety Show has been on hiatus since Covid clobbered NYC theaters. But a few days ago, I caught a serious case of BROOD X Cicada Mania, and it led me to a book from 1907 that is just screaming (like a sex-crazed male 17-year cicada) to be Necromanced.
So we’re doin’ it, but not in a tree. Not even in an Off Off Broadway theater. Rather we are doing it in the Virtual Realm so EVERYONE can celebrate Brood X with us.
Monday, June 7, 7pm EST
streaming on YouTube, Facebook, & Theater of the Apes
Links to be announced
After that the show will make like a cicada and burrow into a strange netherworld (Theater of the Apes‘ website) for another 17 years.
FREE! Donations to Theater of the Apes & the performers always welcome.
More intel HERE