Come hear Ayun read the book live, and get yourself a signed copy! See the Public Appearance Calendar for dates and locations of upcoming appearances.
And hey, kids — make a drawing of your favorite animal's head, bring it to the reading, and Ayun will attempt to draw a matching heinie for you to take home!
Posted April 24, 2009:
Pssst! Webmaster Dave here! The big news is that Ayun's spankin'-new kids' book is being released on May 5, 2009. It's called Always Lots of Heinies at the Zoo, and it was written by Ayun with illustrations by Dan Santat.
An official Zoo-Heinies page is under construction, but in the meantime, you can get a look at the cover over to the right there, and here's the flap copy:
What is it about zoo residents? Is it because they're cooped up all day with nothing better to do? Is it because they lack the appropriate clothing for their unusual size and shape? Is there no laundry service? Whatever the reason, whenever you go to the zoo, what can you be sure to see? Heinies, and plenty of 'em. From demure to bodacious, Ayun Halliday and Dan Santat are finally willing to show us the true appeal of the zoo—There are always heinies, and lots of 'em.
You can pre-order the book (or if it's after Cinquo de Mayo, just plain ol' order it) from Powells.com, among many other online and neighborhood-type bookstores.
Ayun's gonna be doing a metric heinie-load of readings and signings, so be sure to check out the schedule in the Public Appearance Calendar!
Finally, in case you didn't see illustrator Dan Santat's glorious trailer for the book on the Home page, here it is again!
Clay Adams "Uncle" Bill Coelius Jeff Gurner Lusia Strus
AND THE ENTIRE STAFF OF THE EAST VILLAGE INKY:
Ayun Halliday India Kotis Milo Kotis
... with a special appearance by Greg Kotis as the alcoholic,
non-biological father of his own children
****Please note: although this dysfunctional family comedy features
children, Santa, and musical elves, it is NOT FOR CHILDREN — adults and extremely skeptical
tweens only, please. Inky and Milo have been apprised that the
red-suited man onstage is not really Santa and thus do not mind too terribly much when he "dies."
THE TRUTH ABOUT SANTA
runs
December 3–20, 2008
Wednesday–Friday at 8pm and
Saturday at 5pm and 8pm
Did the mention of gift subscriptions finish what the day after
Halloween started?
Don't sweat it. The holidays are sweeter than an elf-flavored
Marshmallow Peep when you get all your spending done at:
BUST Magazine's 2007 Holiday Craftacular Saturday, December 8, from 10 AM - 8 PM
at the Metropolitan Pavilion,
125 West 18th Street (between 6th and 7th Avenue),
NYC.
Inky will be holding down a table stocked with books, zines, t-shirts,
gift subscription notices and who knows what. I will be sitting in a
nearby folding chair, eating kielbasa, drinking beer, and wishing I
could knit as good as the other vendors. If your lust for handmade
gifts is at odds with your schedule and/or abilities, come on down and
get you some the sane, non-crazy-making way!
Looks like Powell's Books eyes was bigger than its stomach.
They're having a run on Dirty Sugar Cookies!
(They've also got 'em used and full price, so make sure you're on the
half-price page.)
Get 'em while they're hot! Might make 'em hotter...
Visiting NYC over the holidays?
Of course you are! You've just booked your flight to the Craftacular.
That's why we're dusting off The East Village Inky's Offbeat Online
Guide to NYC.
Webmaster Dave's in a vegan candy-corn-induced coma, I mean, a
guidebook-updating-frenzy, trying to get this turkey live by
Thanksgiving. I'll give a gentle yawp when the updates have been
posted, but please do stay tuned ...
Speaking of New York, Broadway is dead!
Off-Off-Broadway, however, will be pumping with new theatrical life
when Inky, and possibly Milo make their father-penned debut in Bad
Christmas, a 10-minute play Greg has written for the Monday Night
Little Theater at Dixon Place series, curated by Jeffrey Jones.
You know what else?
I'm in it too.
Yay!
I better start learning my lines, like it isn't some casual thing
where it's okay to forget your lines, and mill around stage with a
script in your hand because you never knew em to begin with, and...
say, about Milo, the thing is, mock-violence tends to over stimulate
him in such a way that he goes off-script in order to punch people in
the balls. So Milo may be played by a stunt Milo, or he may be replaced
midway through the performance by a stunt Milo waiting in the wings, or
it may be Inky's big chance to say his lines as well as hers while the
playwright gives him a Time Out on the Bowery!
In any event, mark your calendar for this train wreck and don't forget
to get a babysitter because this sort of filth is NOT for children,
especially the ones who aren't accustomed to the disturbing mental
acrobatics of Greg Kotis.
Monday, November 26,
8 pm - 9:30pm.
Little Theater at Dixon Place ... now with upholstered seating!
258 Bowery, 2nd floor.
212-219-0736.
Finally, anybody got some good Austin Texas recommendations to lay on
me before Friday? My friend Karen (you know, the one who gets the kids
if Greg and I go down in a plane together) are putting ourselves on
some post-R&R R&R next week. I think I'll need it even more by the time
this printer hell is resolved.
x
Ayun Halliday
Chieftan of Primatology
The East Village Inky
Did I forget to mention that you're invited to come along? Please.
Like we'd even consider traipsing around the Western Balkans without
you. Only thing is, rollaway cot are going to run us like 18 Croatian
Kuna apiece, so what we were thinking is, you sleep where you are and
we make a blog that you can check at your leisure. The kids are posting
to it, too, as a way to keep in touch with their classmates, so we're
keeping it clean, but don't let that scare you off! In fact, if you
find yourself compelled to comment, somewhere down the road, I'd be
much obliged. It'll make the small fry feel like big shots.
(As an added bonus, we've posted proof of Milo's shocking new hairdo.)
***
Wait, speaking of blog comments, I had no idea that anyone was
commenting on the food blog because I flunked How To Check and Approve
Blog Comments 101 back in 1982 (Got kicked out for inserting my floppy
disc in the vending machine in the gym, hoping it might result in a
complimentary Fresca.) So, thanks to all who commented! I hope I didn't
give offense by not publishing your comments! I didn't know how! I had
to take night classes to catch up, but I'm finally up to speed and
hoping you'll keep reading. There's some chipotle chicken quesadillas
in it for you. (or there will be Wednesday. Got to tank up before I
start stapling and stuffing)
Lest you think The East Village Inky has a lock on cyberspace, check out Webmaster Dave's excellent and freshly minted effort, Ocelopotamus.
He says it's about News, Culture, Politics, not necessarily in that
order, just like the New York Times!
Finally, I don't know who's been peeing in these people's Wheaties, but
there's been a rash of nasty reviews of No Touch Monkey! on Amazon.com.
The most recent Monkey-basher ("Poorly executed..like a self-indulgent
travel journal by someone's teenage kid") liked it slightly more than
The Bissel Lift-off Revolution Turbo Upright Vacuum ("Worthless") but,
that's not saying very much. ("I guess I expected something like "Dave
Barry Travels Abroad," but this book wasn't nearly as cuttingly clever
as it thought it was.")
One of these days I'm going to make a performance piece about all my
nasty Amazon reviews, but until then, I'm wondering if I might put the
bite on you to counteract some of the vitriol. If you've read (and, uh,
enjoyed) one of my books, please consider posting an Amazon customer
review using the links below!
I wouldn't want to be accused of hogging the love, so for every
positive customer review that gets posted, I pledge to write a positive
review of a book I have read and enjoyed. I'll even work your pet name
or your favorite food or the glowing adjective of your choice into the
review — just say the word! (What happens if I give a rave to a book
you loathed? I'm not sure. It'll probably add five minutes to each of
our lives and bring a tear of joy to some struggling author's eye ... )
1) The Big Rumpus is being published in the UK by Snow Press!
Except, because apparently they don't have rumpae in the UK, it's being retitled Mama Lama Ding Dong! (Apparently "Ding Dong" translates just fine.)
Check out the newly updated Rumpadong page for info on the UK edition of the book as well as all the links and dates for the Mama Lama Ding Dongvirtual blog tour! Mama Lama Ding Dong is an August release, so the bloghopping begins almost immediately.
You can purchase a copy of Mama Lama Ding Dong from Amazon UK by clicking the book cover over there to the right.
2) East Village Inky #31 is available now, with eyewitness accounts of Inky's first visit to American Girl place, David Blaine's snowglobe, Godzilla and the Hulk vs. Milo, and the eminently useful 2-sentence documentary roundup.
The Hall of Dirty Sugar Cookies is officially open for business! Visit the newest area of this site for a sweet and grimy selection of review quotes, excerpts, photos, and other goodies — plus all the dirt on the upcoming Virtual Blog Tour!
Itching for a taste? There'll be a whole spread of excerpts, review quotes, whipped cream and other delights available when the Hall of Dirty Sugar Cookies gets added to the site. Expect it by early May or so. Check back soon!
Dirty Sugar Cookies is not one of those creamy delicious Valentines to perfect meals, a toothless memoir in which every sauce is velvety, every dessert is sinful and every olive can be traced to a picturesque crone pressing her own oil in some Tuscan village. Certain chapters are perhaps best read on an empty stomach. Napkin-wrapped retainers get tossed into the school cafeteria's reeking garbage can, a hardcore vegetarian holds forth on "fecal soup," and it's possible that a fiend named Andy Panda might just ruin your banana pudding the way he ruined mine.
That's life, not to mention something that I love about it. I guess Dirty Sugar Cookies is a Valentine, a splattered, accidentally-dropped-on-the-floor, realistically self-mocking love letter to everything I've ever eaten and a few of the things I wish I hadn't.
Here's some advance sugar from fellow authors who have tasted the cookies:
"Ayun infuses her stories with all the elements of a great meal. She can be sweet, sour, hot, and salty, all while being funny and real."
—
Beth Lisick, author of Everybody into the Pool
"Finally, food stories for the rest of us! For those of us who fondly remember our most demented culinary experiences — the crazy Betty Crocker concoctions we made as kids; the creepy diners we loved; that Moosewood Cookbook phase we went through in college — Ayun Halliday is our dirty sugar mama!"
— Wendy McClure, author of I'm Not the New Me and The Amazing Mackerel Pudding Plan
"Dirty Sugar Cookies is a smart, irreverent, and hilarious look at life, love, motherhood, and all the living that goes on around the meals we eat."
— Samantha Gillison, author of The Kind of America and the food blog "Lunch for Two"
Perhaps it's just the unfamiliar glow of technical achievement, but I
plan to update it daily. Okay, every couple of days. Bookmark it so you
can eat tomorrow what I ate last night.
Pssst ... Webmaster Dave grabbing the mike for a minnim. Ayun asked me to stick in a plug here for a feature on e-poets.net about some crazy poet in Chicago whose work she seems to dig. I'm not sure what all the fuss is myself, but apparently Ayun likes this whack job well enough to write a short essay introducing his work, in which she compares him to Horton the Elephant and disparages his table-waiting skills. Well, you should know, Miss Job Hopper! Snap! Anyway, you can check it out here. Okay, passing the mike back to Ayun.
With postal rates and printing costs spiraling ever higher, we crunched some numbers and realized that Jambo's arcane bookkeeping system was costing US money. So this time, we've decided to pass the savings on... to OURSELVES!
Effective immediately, new rates for The East Village Inky:
A sample of the current issue is $3
A brand new subscription (for someone who's whose name has never been etched on the walls of the secret vault in our undisclosed location) is $12
Renewal subscriptions (for renewing subscribers only, Sneaky!) are $10
Back issues are $3 — if you don't have the current issue, email first to see what's available.
Speaking of that old rag, when can we expect the new issue?
Well, if Miss Chatty Pants can quit gossiping w/ her neighbors at the Boerum Hill Food Company long enough to tweak some drawings, it should ship out on the Spring Equinox or, just to hedge our bets, shortly thereafter.
Coming soon! The East Village Inky virtual stoop sale!
Yours from the bowels of the cyber-scullery,
Ayun Halliday
2. When a world leader of Jambo's stature departs from the earth, you can bet the media will take notice. Check out Time Out NY's observance of Jambo's passing (not sure how long the link will be live, but give it a go).
3. Buy your tickets to NYC now, so you can wallow in the splendor and horror that is Greg Kotis's new play Pig Farm. Previews begin in June. Here's a link to the Playbill story about Pig Farm. (And here I always thought Playbill was a magazine for horny ducks!)
4. Finally, culled from Ayun's latest news email:
Stupid? Lazy? Hell, you were smart to hold off on buying a calendar because long time East Village Inky reader Coleen Murphy has once again pulled together her cut and paste mama's calendar, studded with
recipes, resources and the reprinted chicken scratchings of yours
truly. Get yourself organazized!
How to order:
send $12 a piece plus $2 for mailing costs to:
Coleen Murphy
PO Box 741655
New Orleans, LA
70174
or via Paypal to coleen at bust dot com.
For calendar details follow this linky.
But perhaps you not only worry that the shipping manager will flake
out, you can't afford to travel to NYC. (No aspersions on your personal
fortune there, mate. I'm speaking as one who just schlepped the family
to Indiana for what it usually costs to get the whole zoo to Mexico.)
If you order the books via my Web Site, you'll get Powell's great
service and I'll get a nickel or something!
Your indie bookstore has the
pow-pow-power to order The Big Rumpus, No Touch Monkey!, Job Hopper and
other, equally filthy titles — don't delay! And any author who checks
her Amazon rankings as regularly as I has got no beef w/ any orders you
might place on that big gorilla, especially if you're inclined to chuck
in a customer review.
What else can I pimp you? T-shirts? Oh, that's just pathetic.
And now, time to unchain myself from this dusty computer, before I
start hawking the miracle elixir I whipped up out of fish sauce,
shaving cream and expired lice shampoo.
Happy Deadline Day! Happy Deadline Day, Everyone!
xo Ayun Halliday
Chief of Primatology
It's a big fat Weekend section article about the ever expanding memoir
shelf. Whatever Greg found when he googled this article made him turn
to me with a face of apology and apprehension ... He knew a big old
shite sandwich would make for a dismal 40th birthday present — then on page 2 we rejoiced!
One particularly fecund minor category is the bad-job memoir, which has
brought out the bitter best in writers ever since George Orwell's "Down
and Out in Paris and London." (Modern-style memoirs often turn out to
have lengthy pedigrees, even the druggy ones, anticipated by Thomas De
Quincey's "Confessions of an English Opium Eater," which was published
in 1822.) Two brilliant examples are "A Working Stiff's Manifesto," by
Iain Levison, and "Job Hopper," by Ayun Halliday.
Ms. Halliday, the author of an anti-travel memoir called "No Touch
Monkey!," evokes the low-grade horrors of telephone solicitation,
waitressing and minding the stuffed polar bears at a children's museum.
Her misery resonates on that dismal frequency all too familiar to the
overeducated, underemployed and undercompensated.
— William Grimes
There's an audio commentary track which mispronunces my name in the
audio commentary but that's a-okay w/ me!
The Job Hopper book tour is underway — I'll be hitting Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco, and Capitola, CA ... all before May Day! See the Public Appearance Calendar for dates, times, and locations.
Should you find yourself in NYC this weekend, take a gander at my brand spanking updated Guidebook — perhaps a few of
the joints mentioned won't have turned their radiators off for the
season, yet. You can refer to it in times of more reasonable weather as
well.
My old theater company, The Neo-Futurists, gets a number of mentions in Job Hopper and No Touch Monkey! Now the third book collection of scripts by The Neo-Futurists has been published — it's an ox-flattening anthology of 200 plays from our show Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind, including eight scripts by me, eight by Greg Kotis, eight by Webmaster Dave (who edited the book), and two by Little MoMo! Revel in such early Halliday classics as "The Tampon Play" and "Mechanical Monkey Singers Present Last Chance All Camp Singalong"!
The book is called 200 More Neo-Futurist Plays from Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind, and you can order it from The Neo-Futurist boutique just by clicking on the book cover over there at the right.
Here's an excerpt from the Time Out Chicago review by Jonathan Messinger ...
It's easy to forget during the show — while watching the ensemble dash around the stage — just how well-crafted the plays really are. It's no insult to the company's acting chops to say its members are writers first, actors second.
Thankfully, none of the Neo-Futurists' humor or ingenuity is lost on the page. Take, for example, Ayun Halliday's "Play to Terrify You." It's five people on stage, describing various nightmarish scenarios: a man under your bed, a killer with a bloody hook, and a clown who comes through drains and toilets to kill you. It's a funny and quirky run-through of all the typical summer-camp ghost stories. Yet somehow, because it's a Neo-Futurist play, the group is able to make it personal to adults. The last actor tells the audience, "This play will terrify you later tonight when you're in bed alone and if you don't go to bed alone, don't be so smug. The toilet man will get you later."
Posted March 8, 2005:
Happy Tuesday, my little cabbages.
A small yawp to tell you that Job Hopper is now on shelves everywhere, including the first auction I've ever set up on eBay!
If you swing that way, please consider placing a bid. I'm trying to get
some good feedback scores and gain as much insight into the process as
a cavewoman like me can, before I attempt to unload some high ticket
items. (No, not Greg's Tony awards ... I don't think ... )
I'm going to make a million bucks I tell you!
Oh, and speaking of swinging that way, many heterosexual male readers,
as well as husbands and teenage sons of female East Village Inky subscribers have reason to rejoice because Job Hopper is excerpted in
the April Penthouse! Be sure to pick up a copy when you head to the
newstand for this morning's Sunday Times, boys! Tell anyone who asks
that you're acting on the instructions of Ayun Halliday!
Finally, there are more Job Hopper appearances looming on the horizon.
I'll be at Baltimore's Atomic books on May 14
and celebrating Mother's Day at Mamapalooza at the Bowery Poetry Club
(as well as Mother's Day Eve w/ an event at NYC's Real Birth).
Also look for some codly readings in Wellfleet and Cambridge, Mass this
July. See the Public Appearance Calendar for full details.
Hey, has anybody been to Isla Mujeres, Mexico? Want to tell an
aquariumtarian like me where to find the best fish tacos?
Speaking of Mexico, East Village Inky #26 is out, in which you, the reader, get to vicariously share a Mexican beach retreat with Little MoMo. Plus an LA wedding, a Berlin musical, and more.
Finally, like the proverbial hundredth monkey, I'm working on a new
book. Look for Dirty Sugar Cookies in the spring of '06. It's like No
Touch Monkey, with food instead of foreign countries, Job Hopper with
recipes instead of crappy day jobs...
xo Ayun Halliday, Laundry Officer
Posted February 8, 2005:
Webmaster Dave has just about passed out from the Photoshop fumes, but the brand-new Job Hopper wing of the site is now live and ready for business! You can peep at the back cover, read an excerpt from the book, check out advance review blurbs, and soak up various fringe benefits including work-related book & movie recommendations, and other perks.
Click on the image at right to read the Job Hopper book excerpt, and find out what it's like to get inside a muppet's head — literally.
Also, there's a Bert-load of Job Hopper readings on the horizon, including (but not limited to) bookstores in Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco, and Berkeley, in addition to NYC. Visit the Public Appearance Calendar at the bottom of the page for more details!
I'm honored to be included in a tsunami relief benefit here in NYC.
Please forward the info to any New York friends, or get your heiner
over to Jefferson in the West Village your own dang self. I'm too busy
write write writing a new piece about Greg's and my trip to Sumatra to
do much in the way of guerilla marketeering. Call it a sequel to No
Touch Monkey's dislocated knee. Okay, get ready because a big old
boilerplate of poop is hurling at you:
Thanks in advance for participating and spreading the word.
THROWN TOGETHER
A reading to benefit Tsunami survivors
@
Jefferson
121 W. 10th Street
New York City
Phone: (212) 255-3333
Sunday January 23, 6 - 9 PM
Complimentary Hors d'ouevres/Cash Bar/$15 at the door
100% of proceeds will go to Oxfam's Asia Earthquake Fund and
Heifer International's Tsunami Rebuilding Efforts Ý
READINGS BY:
Adam Goodheart (The Last Island of the Savages) was a founding editor
of Civilization magazine. His essays have appeared in the Atlantic
Monthly, the New York Times, Outside, and Travel & Leisure.
Ayun Halliday (Sumatran Free Range Chicken) is the author of No Touch
Monkey! And Other Travel Lessons Learned Too Late. Halliday is BUSTmagazine's Mother Superior columnist. She also contributes to NPR,
Bitch, and The Utne Reader.
Suketu Mehta (Peace in Paradise On Sri Lanka) is the author of Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found, which the Economist chose as the Book of
the Year for 2004. Mehta's journalism has been published in the New
York Times Magazine, Time, and CondÈ Nast Traveler, among other
publications.
Bob Morris (Some Adventures in Karma on India's Holiest River) writes
the Age of Dissonance column for the New York Times Sunday Styles.
Morris is a contributing editor for Travel and Leisure, and has also
written for NPR, The New Yorker, Vogue and Details.
Daniel Asa Rose (Prom Queens in the Mist — A Thai Rhapsody), the
senior book reviewer for The New York Observer, won the O. Henry Prize
for his collection of short stories Small Family With Rooster. ÝHis
recent memoir Hiding Places: ÝA Father and His Sons Retrace Their
Family's Escape from the Holocaust earned starred reviews in Publishers
Weekly. He has also been a humor writer for GQ, a travel columnist for
Esquire, and a food critic for the past 20 pounds.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Okay, WKREast Village Inky is back, broadcasting as live as we
cavepeople know how.
The final news we're scooping your way concerns a certain Brooklyn
public school's dance marathon. Relax, they don't shoot horses (yet!)
but Inky plans on hoofing her brains out, with all pledges benefitting
the PTA's Afterschool Program, a fine cultural institution that in
large part makes the East Village Inky's slightly belated publishing
schedule at all possible. If you'd like to donate to this worthy cause,
which is sock hopping in the gym come Jan 22, throw a buck or two in an
envelope and send it to:
The East Village Inky
attention: Inky's Dance Marathon Pledge Team
PO Box 22754
Brooklyn NY 11202
and you'll have funded not only a lively hoofer, but also a worthwhile endeavor in a strapped but striving multi-culti-urban public school.
Dig?
welcome to the world Romeo Pascal and Ruby Turner!
xo Ayun Halliday
AWOL Head Laundress
The East Village Inky
Posted December 5, 2004:
Just in case you missed it on the front page, here's a look at the front cover of my forthcoming (March 2005) book Job Hopper: The Checkered Career of a Down-Market Dilettante. Click the book cover to pre-order it from Powells.com.
The new Job Hopper wing of the site (with excerpts, review quotes, and all the other tempting side dishes you've come to expect) will be under construction soon, but in the meantime here's what my publisher has to say about the book:
If it's true that the average worker will hold an average of seven jobs over the course of a lifetime, Ayun Halliday is anything but average. In her brief stay on this planet, Halliday has managed to rack up a terrifying array of short-lived stints in the paid job market, including ersatz costume designer, belligerent artist's model, bain of professional secretaries everywhere — aka "temp", and portraying Bert of Sesame Street to enthusiastic department-store crowds. Clinging to her "true" vocation — acting — by a hair, Halliday's diligent avoidance of hard work, regular paychecks, and anything remotely resembling a dress code will warm the hearts of anyone who has suffered canned lunches in sterile break rooms or gotten busted photocopying a resume on the job. Honest and uproarious, Halliday is an unapologetic, loose-lipped icon for the slacker in us all.
Posted November 22, 2004:
Did I mention you can pre-order Job Hopper from Powells.com?
Although we cannot facilitate a sexual release for you, we have facilitated the release of the long-awaited East Village Inky #25 (November 2004) ... in which a 39-year-old Hoosier New Yorker keeps mum on recent travels through Mexico & Berlin, as well as a certain 4-year-old skate-punk's first haircut, in order to focus, like so many other unreliable news agencies did in September, on the Republican National Convention, which resulted in many fun-filled activities deemed boring by an otherwise patient 3-thumbed 7-year-old.
Although it cannot facilitate a sexual release for you, AGAIN the East Village Inky has been nominated for the Utne Reader's Independent Press Award! Click the dang logo for more info.
Read a review of Greg Kotis's new show Eat the Taste. Then go taste it for yourself! Complete show details are in the Calendar.
I'm in a bunch of Ayun-thologies that have been newly added to the bookstore. You can visit said bookstore for more details, or use the handy quick links to Powells.com below:
Thanks for your patience! The July Inky, henceforth to be known as the August Inky, got shuttled to a back burner when I realized the fall
deadline for my new book meant Sept 1, not November 4, the date I'd
randomly lit upon because the leaves were red when we got married.
Mailed the completed originals back to their Manhattan printer, but
then the printer was on vacation and he must have had a good time
because he printed it inside out. Actually, it made me feel good, like
maybe I'm not the only one ... And when I apologized for any
miscommunications on my end leading to the waste of a tree, he told me
that his paper's made from eucalyptus which "grows like weeds" ... which
sounds about suspiciously like my habit of classifying fish as
vegetables. Anyhoo, he says I can expect a big old box of them printed
outside out on Monday and if there's breath in my body, and I'm home
when the UPS man rings, I'll staple those suckers up and get em out the
door before Little Momo and I scamper off down Mexico way. So they're
coming! They're coming! But boy howdy are they late.
Is everybody having a nice summer?
Oh, and while you're lacking for your regular reading material, why not
pick up a copy of Bitch: Feminist Response to Pop Culture. I've got a
little story in there that will probably make you reconsider ever
hiring me to give you a massage, but more than that, it's one of the
worthiest rags I know, and more than deserving of your support!
Coming in Spring 05, my next book:
Job Hopper: The Checkered Career of a Downmarket Dilettante
[... Way to bury the lead, Miss Ayunnee! — Webmaster Dave]
Posted June 23, 2004:
Ahoy there Cape Codders.
If you could alert your friends in the Boston area to these events, both at the Wellfleet Public Library in Cape Cod, I'd be much obliged:
July 14 — Memoir Writing workshop: Why bake like a lizard when you can spend a sunny summer afternoon
indoors at the library with the creator of The East Village Inky? Learn how to write your torrid memoirs in two and a half hours (bring a
thimble, because my great wisdom ought to fit in it for convenient
carry out!) It's absolutely free at any rate!
Bring a notebook and bury the kids up to their necks in sand.
July 19 — No Touch Monkey! reading: Then, Grasshopper, you will have a chance to see if the learned teacher
knows what the hell she's talking about when I read aloud from No Touch
Monkey! And Other Travel Lessons Learned Too Late the following week.
Full details on both events (including directions to the library) are in the Public Appearance Calendar.
Go see Avenue Q - it deserves its success, and Inky better not welsh on
her promise to refrain from singing some of its saltier lyrics at
school, in friends' homes, on the stoop...
I've got two teeny new illustrations in the new Found magazine book, which is wildly deserving of your attentions! The book, not my teeny drawings.
Jambo lovers will want to pick up a copy of Bust magazine's summer 2004 issue. I know he has his fans.
If you were going to buy a book about someone's crappy day jobs, which title would get you laying down the lettuce: Job Hopper or Dilettante? Email us at HQ to let us know!
We're heading to the summer palace for most of July and presumably mail will be forwarded, but just in casey, place your East Village Inky orders NOW!
Inky's father and I would like to welcome our first born child to the age of reason on July 3. We need all the help we can get wrangling her little brother, who will be entering the formidable fours on July 13.
Older news items we can't bring ourselves to delete ...
Can't say enough good things about
Deviant Goods - an independent, low-tech enterprise which is
spreading good cheer by hand knitting soft-on-the-pate "Fuck Cancer" caps for
chemotherapy patients ("chemo sux," "$!@* Cancer," and other sentiments are also
available.) Angela's also got devil bunny slippers and an ornery, violent
pink squid hat that I'm saving my pennies for - if you find yourself
purchasing one of the higher ticket Deviant Goods, mention that you're a
member of The East Village Inky Peaceful Motherloving Army and I might just
get some points toward my squid chapeau.
Back before I started falling asleep in my clothes reading aloud from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, I used to stay up til well past midnight, performing in bizarre two-minute plays, some of which I had written myself. With my fellow Neo-Futurists, I bought the props, cleaned the bathrooms and baked the brownies we sold at the concession stand. (My innovation was to substitute mayonnaise for eggs and oil, to the horror of my cohorts.) Some of the Neo-Futurists' monologues, including a few penned by yours truly, have been published by Hope and Nonthings Publishing as Neo Solo: 131 Neo-Futurist Solo Plays from Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind. (Clicking that title link will take you to the Amazon.com page for the book.) If you or someone you know aspires to a low-budget life on the wicked stage, you might want to check it out, if only to read the one hundred percent true account of Greg Kotis' first kiss. (I met him when he auditioned for the Neo-Futurists, but that play is not about me.)
Check out my review of five kids' CDs on the brand-new Ayun's Picks page. Here's a teaser:
"You shouldn't have to listen to crap just because you have kids and Bubbles
the Rainbow-Colored Cuddlicious Unicorn is hellbent on unleashing his
message of friendship, giggles and sharing on everyone under the age of
five. I just reviewed five children's CDs for Hipmama and some of them are
so good, I want to listen to them after the kids are asleep. They're all on
hardworking indie labels. Santa isn't the only person who'd thank you if you
stuffed a release or two in your little Who-lou's stocking. I reckon they'd
make excellent shower gifts too (assuming you've already given the lucky
pregnant devil a copy of The Big Rumpus for her birthday)..." [More]
You can snag an autographed copy of The Big Rumpus and a small token of my esteem by sending US $17 (includes US shipping -- foreign orders please inquire first) to:
Ayun Halliday
PO Box 22754
Brooklyn NY
11202-2754
Please make check payable to "Ayun Halliday"
If you want to buy a copy online, skip on over to the Bookstore.
Inky's monkey scrapbook welcomes your two-dimensional monkeys at the PO Box above.
Join me and some fellow NYC-based zinesters of the female persuasion (Victoria Law, Jenna Freedman, and Lauren Jade Martin) for a reading of Alison Piepmeier's just-published book Girl Zines: Making Media, Doing Feminism.
From the horse's mouth: "In the past two decades, women have produced thousands of unique zines which serve as engaged and tangible evidence of the third wave feminism. Join us for a reading and discussion, exploring these quirky, personalized booklets and the meaning of being a revolutionary girl."
Dang, this is shaping up to be a holiday tradition! Inky and I are hauling a granny cart full of Heinies, Inkys, self-mocking anthologies, vintage sewing patterns, and possibly even some issues of her first comic and the disturbing corn husk dollies I make with young Milo to the Metropolitan Pavilion in hopes of monopolizing your holiday gift giving! If you feel you must comparison shop, 200 other vendors far craftier than I will be on hand, along with DJs, tasty treats, and much more. Listen to the best tunes as you browse handmade wares, from jewelry and essential holiday accessories to home décor and cards. Goodie bags for the first 500 attendees, amazing raffle prizes and more! Admission: $2 (I advise all you claustrophobes to get there early, and not just because there's a goodie bag involved.)
I'm available for readings and book signings!
Unfortunately, my travel budget hovers around zero, but perhaps you've got a harebrained scheme or even a juicy travel stipend up your sleeve. Contact me!
