NY _____.

Meet NY_____. (pronounced "NY Underscore"), Laura's latest. In her words, it's a magazine "about the things that make New York New York." She had been thinking about starting a new magazine (this is her third) for a while, and we tossed ideas around at my apartment one afternoon in September. We then brainstormed a miles-long list of themes for each issue (everything from nightlife to bodegas, transit, and sex) over ice cream, and the first issue launched last month with a fantastic party and reading. The theme of issue 1 is apartments.



The magazine features photography, art, creative nonfiction, short fiction, and poetry. I am so delighted and impressed by the design and layout of NY_____. and with all of the work within it. I stayed up well into the night reading it when I first got my hands on one.





One of my favorite parts is Laura's intro, which was printed in 5pt font, circling the back cover.

Everybody in New York has an apartment story. People who live in other places also have apartment stories, but like most other things, they aren't as good as the ones from New York. The great density of population that makes New York a place we want to live also makes our apartments, by necessity, bizarre. They are expensive little boxes of endearing idiosyncrasy, if we are lucky, and sorrow, if we are not. Our buildings are old; they have history and vermin. Our neighbors are weird and play the bass. We climb five flights of stairs without complaint. Our heaters scream like tea kettles; we lack a closet. People who are too fat can't fit in our bathrooms. We live next door to the ice cream truck dispatchery, or down the block from the sewage treatment plant. We live on parade routes. Our walls aren't real walls. Our walls have seventeen coats of paint of varying color and lead content. As we lay awake in our lofted beds, we hear rats running in the tin ceiling two feet overhead. It's awful but not nearly as awful as not living here. This is why I thought "apartments" would be a good first theme for NY_____. Sincerely, Laura.

You can buy a copy of NY_____. here. I urge you to do so! Something else you can do is submit for Issue 2; the theme is Jobs. As is the case with apartments, it's hard to find anyone in this fair little city without a strange or amusing story about making a living here.

Many excited congratulations to Laura for starting this. I love how it's turned out so far, and I can't wait for the next issue.

Summerzine

My friend Christine did something amazing recently. I remember seeing her at a party toward the beginning of the summer, and she said that she was feeling a bit of creative unrest; that she needed to make something. Well, she did. She and her friend Dwight made a magazine, and it launched last week.



It's called Seasonzine, which, as the name suggests, is all about seasons. Each quarter, the published issue celebrates the season that is coming to an end. The inaugural issue, Summerzine, launched on the last day of summer with a fantastic party in Williamsburg.







There is a ton of eye candy and wonderful writing in Summerzine. Oh and hey, I have a piece in it too! It's called 154-61, and here it is, on the right --



You can buy your very own copy here; the hard copy is $9.80 (which comes with a free digital version), and the PDF is only $0.99. I would love to see Fallzine become a reality, so I already bought a few.

So, here's the thing. I don't write about super emotional things very much anymore, because it's hard to put my thoughts into words (I have mentioned this recently). But I tried, and I submitted my best attempt at what summers in New York do to me. Reading the rest of the issue at home made me feel like someone had hit a gong right next to my ear – the ways that the other contributors wrote about their summer experiences mirrored exactly what I've been feeling all along. It was so moving to read others' tales of the unbearable heat pushing them to their limits that I didn't know what to do with myself.



Seriously, buy a copy. You won't regret it. Buy one while you can still grab on to the edges of the heat: it'll be that much more __________.

DOCUMENT Magazine

My friend Kevin (from the One City Left project) just released his next exciting project: a magazine called DOCUMENT. In his words:


Kevin asked me if I might write something for the debut issue, and the phrase "cultural journal" made my ears perk all the way up. At the time I was thinking a lot about how the economy was manifesting itself in culture – especially here in New York – and I had just written a thing about it. I decided to adapt and tweak the thoughts for the magazine, including newer stuff that had surfaced since I had originally written it.

When Kevin pitched the idea to me, he mentioned that the written and artistic pieces would be packaged in a slightly nontraditional way: unbound and in a box, available at different locations around Toronto. I was very excited to finally receive a copy in the mail last week.




The whole project turned out pretty great! I loved Kevin's piece about an architect who takes her inspiration from animal behavior. There are some quotes and photography sprinkled throughout as well that are 100% inspiring.


My favorite quote (and something I think a lot about):


Give DOCUMENT a visit – you can even download a PDF version. Stay tuned for Issue 2 :]

Brutus writes about Naked

Back in April, there was a team of very nice and gracious Japanese photographers on Naked's 2nd floor. I knew it had something to do with a "cool offices" piece they were working on for a magazine, but I didn't have much other information. Well, today we were sent a copy of Brutus Magazine:

You can click on the images to blow up, but unless you can read Japanese characters (help me out with this at least: is this Hiragana or Katakana? Or KANJI?), all you'll be able to understand is that they called us a World Hip Office.

If you do choose to click, you can see me on one of the couches in photo #3. Hooray, this is the second time I have been in a Japanese magazine (barely any American ones, though)!

We e-mailed our friends at Naked Tokyo for help in translating the article. Until then, enjoy the photography (^_^)//

x-posted to House of Naked.

幸せ

I have been a little scarce as of late; my final week in New York before the holidays was a crazy one... lots of stuff happened not limited to work (which was stressful in itself). I hope everybody had a lovely holiday. When I'm visiting my family, I tend to lay low and get into everything analogue; I play my upright piano from childhood, type on my father's old typewriter and listen to vinyl on my mother's record player. I'm taking a slight break now to share this though:


Last month, a man stopped me on the street asking if he could take my photo for "a magazine." Little did I know at the time that it was for Elle Girl Tokyo! Each month they feature a different city, and December's is New York. exciting. It pretty much looks to me like a twee version of The Sartorialist.


They update with one girl a day. I wonder if this is only on the web site, or if they put it in the paper version? Babelfish turned up with quite the hilarious translation, which I'm hoping to have corrected by some of my Japanese friends.

Inserting favorite music in ipod, her who is in the midst of shopping. Under P coat of grey original T shirt of local radio bureau. Collecting the bottoms with the black denim and the sneaker, the pop street style completes! You observe, to also small article errand such as hand made muffler and tear drop sunglasses.

I think I'm more excited about this than I should be. _