Ok, kiddles: News & Notes from last night's Book of Ages party now on display over at BOA.com.
· Gala '30 on 30' Minute-By-Minute Party Wrap [bookofages.com]

Just as insidious spyware program Cydoor installs itself on PCs without users' permission, we're passing along this invite to a party they're co-hosting here in NYC next week without their permission. Go ahead and RSVP! Make them uninstall you!
· The Official Ad:Tech Party! "The theme of this year's party will be a toast to the success of the online advertising industry."
· RSVP Here Immediately! [adbumb.com]
· Privacy Power: Why Cydoor Sucks [accs-net.com]

Remaindered for $5, on a homeless person's towel outside Grand Central Station: A Million Little Pieces by James Frey—autographed by the author. (P.S. The book is terrific.)
· Meet the New Staggering Genius [observer.com] 2/3/03
· Gawker Exclusive: The James Frey Interview [gawker.com] 5/14/03
· Even James Frey is Sick of Reading about James Frey [bookslut.com] 6/03

As of 8:42am this morning, the doors of Schiller's are still open, the neon is lit, schoolkids from across the street are inside sipping pernod, and breakfast is being served. God save the Queen!
UPDATE: Will you join in our crusade? Who will be strong and stand with me? Committed Patrons of the Cause:
· Ian: "I for one will be wearing a Save the Martini t-shirt until this is resolved." [ebway.org]
· Liz: "The hipsters annoy me, too—tearing through town with their infernal electroclash music, and leaving in their wake a devastating trail of legwarmers, ironic t-shirts and upper-middle-class guilt. But I have to side with LES blogger Lockhart Steele on this one." [The Kicker]
· The SLNY Guy: "another carafe of the cheap please." [She Loves NY]

When we brunched there Saturday morn, we never imagined that Schiller's could be a Liquor Bar no more. Yet that's the rub from Community Board 3, which has requested that Keith McNally's boistrous boîte lose its full liquor license. Reputed crimes against the neighborhood, according to an article in today's Times, include:

· Illegally close proximity to high school across street;
· Large neon LIQUOR BAR sign is "annoying";
· Employees from Schiller's use hose to wash bar mats and trash cans on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant at 4am, creating "a din";
· "General resentment" that new bars and restaurants in neighborhood are turning a "residential area" into an "entertainment bazaar."

Mentioned in this space back in May, "Daily Candy for Dudes" knockoff Double Agent has launched. Here's the pitch from an email sent to list subscribers (accompanied, natch, by a photograph of a sultry lass):

My name is Nonna and I'm a spy. I work for a secret organization called Double Agent. Our mission? To uncover what you need to know about what girls really think and want.

Each week an agent will send you a classified briefing containing intelligence on topics like:

1. Picking up girls on Friendster.

Times front page darling Gawker breaks the news that The Smoking Gun has found documentation of the new 11 Spring Street owner. He's none other than Lachlan Murdoch. Choire's even got the goods on how Lachlan financed the $5.25 million deal. Smooth.
· 11 Spring Street: Mystery Solved! [gawker.com]
· 11 Spring Street Property Transfer Report [tsg.com]
· 11 Spring Street Sells [ls.com]

We'd like to take a moment out of your busy day to alert you that the JA/JVG/LS publishing venture Book of Ages 30 ("literature with a lower case L," in the words of our esteemed agent) is as of today available for purchase.

In conjunction with the "eagerly anticipated" (—Gothamist) volume, we just launched an accompanying website that includes a 30-centric weblog. Do check it out. And, in the immortal words of Aaron Bailey at 601am, "[G]o buy it right now. Now!" (Also: thanks to Matt Gross for making us sound much brighter than we are in a New York Magazine Q&A this week.)

Shilling aside, it will be interesting (well, interesting to me) to see whether weblogs can help promote sales of a book. Talking to our publicist at Random House last night, she confirmed something we posted about a few weeks ago: that only the biggest authors get budgets from publishers to create websites—and even then, they're usually created in-house. That isn't exactly a formula for fresh thinking.

One brilliant weblog book-promotion venture is Kevin Smokler's Virtual Book Tour, which sends authors from weblog to weblog to chat, post, or just hang out. (Currently, Dennis Hensley is virtually touring in support of his book, Screening Party.) How will we tell if the Book of Ages website is having any impact? Well, there's the excellent All Consuming, which tracks what books webloggers are talking about, and OnFocus's Weblog Bookwatch, which inspired it. And of course, in the end, it all comes down to Amazon sales rank. We'll keep you posted.
· Book of Ages 30 [bookofages.com]
· Virtual Book Tour [kevinsmokler.com]
· All Consuming [allconsuming.net]
· Weblog Bookwatch [onfocus.com]

Word from a seemingly reputable LS.com tipster is that Lower East Side citizen of the decade Moby is packing up his mixers and moving a few blocks to the new luxury development at 7 Essex Street (@ Canal). Apparently, Moby sprung for one of the penthouse triplexes in the building, which the 7 Essex website says carry an asking price of $2,395,000. The bigger question: is the 11-story building the right fit for someone of Moby's ilk? Pluses: the open loft space is delivered as a "white box" for the tenant to customize, and the lobby looks as tripped out as Berlin's newest boite. But the development's website doesn't point out that the "spectacular park and skyline views" across the "newly renovated" Seward Park give way to a maze of ugly public works highrises. Not exactly what you'd call a million-dollar view.
· 7 Essex Street [vestadevelopment.com]
· Franke, Gottsegen, Cox Architects [newyork-architects.com]
· Moby's Journal [moby.com] entry from yesterday: "well, although i assume that there are probably a few brothels on canal street by the manhattan bridge, i've never actually been to one and i imagine that were i to find one with my telescope the curtains would be drawn which would, of course, defeat the purpose of trying to look at a brothel through a telescope."

· Palmermix gets to the bottom—okay, close to the bottom—of the "Is Friendster going to start charging?" rumors. (His answer: no.) [palmermix.com]
· Examining the "demythologization of the Williamsburg/LES axis of retro" [ebway.org]
· It's font mania day at the New York Times! Did you notice the differences? [corporate-ir.net via romenesko]

Sitting 'round the ol' Rivington Street apartment last night, we sniffed something rather akin to smoke. For no good reason other than sheer laziness, we dismissed it. A few minutes later, a stronger whiff arrived. Shit, did we leave the iron on again? By now we were legitimately unnerved. A look out the window revealed nothing but other neighbors looking out their windows. So it was out to the street, where we found a scene out of Armageddon unfolding just up the block on Essex. Fire trucks everywhere. The entire block shrouded in thick, thick smoke. Angry firemen prevented us from getting close enough to get a good look at what was going on, but across the street from the fire, Teendrama.com's own Dens Crowley was poised for a series of sure-to-be award-winning photos. Verdict: furniture store fire!
· Fire at Stanton and Essex [teendrama.com]
· UPDATE: 11 Families Left Homeless by Fire [NY1 via deanna]

Here's something heartwarming for Red Sox fans. Manager Grady Little has been put up for auction on eBay.

You just saw it happen, the Yankees thrilling victory over the Boston Red Sox in extra innings. Now, and one time only, get your official piece of memorabilia from the 2003 ALCS. That's right, you can now own Grady Little. Watch as he takes your team within five outs of the World Series, and then proceeds to squander it away.

In solemn honor. Please see entry from October 2 if clarification is required.

In advance of Game 7 tonight, the Yes Network is polling visitors to its website, asking, "Who has the advantage in the Game 7 rematch between Roger Clemens and Pedro Martinez?" An enterprising Red Sox fan apparently has written a script to run the vote up in favor of the Sox; the results as of 9:45am this morning:


· YES Network [yesnetwork.com]

Several alert readers, including neighbor Chris and our esteemed Mr. Frankenstein, have emailed to remind us that Paul O'Neill is the brother of New Yorker (former NYT) food writer Molly O'Neill. Suggests Chris helpfully, "Perhaps they're adopted."
· Molly O'Neill Q&A [starchefs.com]
· Molly O'Neill's New York [thirteen.org]

One highlight of the Sox-Yankees series (which ain't over yet, kids) has been the daily musings of ex-Yankee jackass Paul O'Neill in the pages of the Post. Some choice words from a man whose writing ability seems roughly that of a talented fourth grader:
· On Wakefield: "Over the years, I faced him a lot and talked to him a lot. He knows what he has. He has a knuckleball." [Tuesday]
· "What are you trying to accomplish? As a Yankee, you're trying to win a 27th world championship." [Sunday]
· "Pedro and Roger—if they miss—are going to miss inside. As a hitter, this makes you get out of the way." [Friday]
UPDATE: Ken writes with a Yankee fan perspective. "Paul O'Neill is a warrior-hero-poet. If you want to talk 4th grade, I watched a Grady Little press conference after Game 3. If I did not follow baseball, I would have thought it was really special that the Red Sox organization let a local retarded man manage the team for a playoff game." Well, can't argue with that. That said, we're hoping our Very Special Manager is communicating well this afternoon with the small gnomes that live in his hair on his scalp and help him manage.

If you've never explored Jim Naureckas' New York Songlines site, kiss the next hour of your life goodbye. With a pleasingly minimalist decor, he details the history of New York City, street by street. A recent addition to the Songlines is our very own Ludlow Street ("named for a hero of the War of 1812—Lt. Augustus Ludlow, second-in-command of the U.S.S. Chesapeake; he is famous for being told by the mortally wounded Capt. James Lawrence, "Don't give up the ship"). Jim tells us he's looking for LES folks to help him determine where other bodies are buried, so to speak, so don't be afraid to drop him a line.
· Ludlow Street [nysonglines.com]
· Rivington Street [nysonglines.com]
· New York Songlines [nysonglines.com]

Patrick sends along this evening shot of Rivington hotspot Schiller's. "No idea on the mystery woman," he writes. "Is she an actress? Pornstar? Hipster? It boggles the mind." Indeed.
· Weird City [mokolabs.com]

New York's Simon Dumenco weighs in on the Time Warner DVR, and makes an important point that's been on our mind, too:

Honestly, I sort of didn’t want to like this DVR as much as I did. Because I love my TiVo. I love saying “TiVo” (great brand, that). And being a TiVo subscriber has felt like getting to be part of a supercool, futuristic club.

Indeed, the biggest issue (save for the hard drive meltdown two weeks ago that necessitated a new box) is that I can't decide what verb to use when mentioning the thing. "I DVR'd it" just don't got allure. I've defaulted a few times to "I Tivo'd it," which gets friends asking, "You have a Tivo?" (and somehow feels dishonest). "I Time Warner'd it"? Uh, the search continues...
· Bang Your Box [nymetro.com]
· Life is About to Change [ls.com]
· UPDATE: It's Not TiVo, it's... [gawker.com] choire gets to work on this

As mentioned in this space back in May, and then as discussed at length on Gawker, the building at 11 Spring Street in Nolita is intriguing. Like, mondo intriguing.

Why? Reasons include: (a) curtains in every window, with eerie candles every night; (b) owner seldom (never?) seen entering or leaving; (c) ramps for horses between floors instead of stairs (used to be a stable); (d) one of the most famous locations in the world to post street art; (e) nearby neighbor is famed photog Jay Maisel; (f) was known as an "ice house." So when it went on the market in May, questions swirled about whether the building would be maintained, or divvied up into yet another high rent downtown condo. After speaking with the seller's broker, Larry Michaels at Douglas Elliman today, we have some good news.

"The deal on the building has closed," Michaels whispered. (Actually, he spoke in a normal tone of voice, but we've always wanted to write that.) "It's been purchased by a buyer who plans to restore it to its original texture and develop it into a single residence." What about the future of the curtains and candles? Probably gone, but "at least it will be occupied by a single family that will restore it to its original status. I'm grateful it got into these kind of hands." Would he confirm the buyer rumored by Ms. Bekman? "No, but it will be public soon." The family plans to add a penthouse too, and architects (apparently really cool architects that designed a swimming pool surrounded by aquariums for a residence nearby in Nolita—anyone got the scoop?) are at drafting tables now so work can get underway within 90 days.
· 11 Spring Street [ls.com]
· 11 Spring Street [gawker.com]
· 11 Spring Street at Night [lightningfield.com]

On the heels of the Bowery piece in the Times Mag last weekend, we decided to look anew at one of the hottest downtown rows going, the spit of Spring Street that runs one single, solitary block from Elizabeth Street to the Bowery. The block, longtime home to once-trendy, now semi-decrepit bars Sweet and Vicious and Vig, and home for the last six months to the Jen Bekman Gallery and überBrit menswear designer Duncan Quinn, is anchored at its far end by the legendary 11 Spring Street, which went on the market in May. Well, 11 Spring Street sold recently for a reported $5.6 million, a few hundred grand below its $5.95 million asking price. (Full update forthcoming.) And, as we found out when we interviewed the very well informed Ms. Bekman, that's only the start of the action on the block...



JB: I loved that Bowery article! I am a landgrabber! Who knew?
LS: You're so opportunist. It's sad.
JB: That's why you love me.
LS: Well, of course. So what's your take on your little piece of downtown Manhattan?
JB: It's a scrappy block, way more authentic than other Nolita blocks. In fact it doesn't really feel like Nolita at all—it's way more LES. It's diverse—it has the whole Chinese influence and a significant holdover of Italian flavor. Business is pretty good. I mean, I still have a long way to go. It's kinda tough, being at that dead end and all...
LS: Yeah, but you've got that hot designer [Duncan Quinn] on the same block! Have you met him?
JB: Yes, of course, silly. I love a cute boy in a suit. Seriously, those shop boys are turned out. They're the dandys of Eastern Spring Street. They opened about a month after me, sometime in April.
LS: Any scoop on who bought 11 Spring Street?
JB: There are a swirl of rumors about that. The unconfirmed dish that I heard was that...
...Ian Schrager bought it to turn it into a private residence, which is sort of curious to me, considering he can't seem to unload his Starck-designed Central Park place. And, Brian McNally owns Cafe Lebowitz, which is kittycorner. Brian used to own 44 at the Royalton, and people say he and Schrager didn't part amicably.
LS: What else is happening on the block?
JB: Ostensibly, a Cuban place is going in next to Sweet and Vicious. The Bruce Lee etched window place two doors down from S&V is supposedly turning into a real retail business. I hear that the store next door to me, [porn wear purveyor] Ulla, is trying to get someone to take over her lease. The weird acupuncture "business" is supposedly not getting its lease renewed. Oh, and supposedly some sort of two level nightclub is going into the ground floor of the new construction monstrosity on the east side of Bowery.
LS: That horrid apartment building for hip ibankers? Dear God.
JB: Also, check out the building where my friend William Ryman, an artist, lives. He's got one of his Oontas in the top floor window, looking out over Spring Street. His building is on the east side of Bowery. NY Chair Co. is the ground floor tenant, and it's next door to one of the last flophouses on the Bowery. 
LS: What's in store for the future of Eastern Spring?
JB: It's definitely changing a lot. I think in order for it to transform hugely though (which is not really what i want, i kind of like it not being too posh), Jay Maisel would have to move out of the bank building on the northwest corner, which i don't see happening. He's a super nice guy, by the way. He's a commercial photographer and he's been there since the '70s at least. Owns the whole building. Overall, I've been very warmly received in the neighborhood. There is still diversity and there's still a vibrant, very vibrant, artists community, in spite of all the hype that everyone is in Brooklyn now. There are all those studios over on Chrystie St., and there a lot of artists living in LES loft spaces. People are really happy to see me there, and i think somewhat relieved that i'm not Sigerson Morrison or Calypso or what have you—which isn't to say that I wouldn't love to shop at those places if I could afford it.
LS: So you'll be sticking around.
JB: Sometimes people come and ask me if i want to move to Chelsea, as if that's the true sign of me being successful. I couldn't want something less. I love being part of a community, and I love my neighbors, love giving biscuits to the neighborhood dogs. Of course i would love more space, but my dream scenario is that i get to graduate to a large space on the Bowery and maintain the Spring St. spot as a project/satellite gallery or even a bookstore.

Our thanks to Ms. Bekman. If you haven't already, join her mailing list. And this Saturday, stop by her gallery from 11am to 3pm to check out the first Mmm, donuts! event to celebrate a show closing ("coffee + donuts + lots of fun").
· Jen's Mailing List [jenbekman.com]

Here's the aftermath of our Monday night celebration. Quest begins anew tonight. And away we go...
· Cowboy Up! [fotolog.net]

Peeking in on Weblogs Inc., the new Jason Calacanis for-profit weblog venture that was all the buzz a few weeks back, one notes three launched blogs, including the previously mentioned Social Software site (which today, to its credit, appears to break some industry news). More enjoyable for the layman, though, is Jason's new personal blog. Never afraid of offering an opinion, he also continues to showcase his mastery of over the top self-love.

Am I hyping by thinking that there is a couple of million dollars out there to be made by blogs? I don’t think so, but what do I know, I just took Silicon Alley Reporter from a 16-page photocopy to $12 million in revenue a year in four years.

We'd never watched the Red Sox at the Riviera Cafe, the storied West Village haunt for Sox fans, until Game 3 against Oakland on Saturday. Drawn by forces beyond our control, we gathered there that night, then again on Sunday afternoon. Little omens got us rolling: Peanuts. "The Quote." And so it was once more to the well last night. In a timewarp to start the game (the TV set we'd positioned ourselves near was running five seconds behind two other nearby screens thanks to a Dish delay), we unfroze ourselves and carried things through to the rightful conclusion.

Midgame, the Fox 5 crew stopped by to check out the fun. Familiar faces in the above photo (shot by the masterful ES himself): CL, TdeM, MBS, LS. (Not in photo: secret agents for the cause KDunk and Ms.) We're going to give this magical spot a rest for the first few games of the Sox-Yankees ALCS, but rest assured, the magic is there, should we need to summon it again.
· Hold the Nervous Breakdown for the ALCS [espn's Page 2]
· Last Night [megnut.com] meanwhile, nearby in the WV...
· Red Sox Village [hello.typepad.com]
· Red Sox Fans Recoil in Yankees' Backyard [nytimes.com] featuring "The Quote"

Nice Times Magazine piece by Kevin Baker yesterday about The Bowery, the ever-regenerating poor man's Broadway of eastern downtown Manhattan, that captures some of our feel for these odd blocks out:

This is where streets go to die. Prince and Spring Streets from the west; Rivington, Stanton and First Streets from the east. All come to dead ends here, creating the impression that the Bowery is somehow cosmically misaligned—an ineluctable border area, permanently detached from any of the neighborhoods surrounding it.

Oh, the exquisite return of Elizabeth. If you don't get it, you won't read it. [see also: rebirth of irony, the]
· The Kicker [thekicker.nymetro.com]

Ah, the exquisite pain of being a Red Sox fan. If you don't live it, you can't grasp it. [see also: religion]

Interesting Guardian article today about publishers using the Internet to promote new books. The article focuses on Screenbase, a British company creating online promos for the likes of Salam Pax and Douglas Copeland. Opines the Generation X author:

" I'm really glad publishers are starting to get involved. In New York they don't spend a penny on web anything. They assume the author will do it all. I don't think they'll be able to do that for much longer."