W. Picks His Nose.

In solidarity with Crust, by Lawrence Shainberg, here's a video of the soon-to-be former prez picking his nose at a Rangers ballgame.

Swim Party - Pixie Dust on the Blood Range.

Swim Party is a great band. And they have a great new album out, called Pixie Dust on the Blood Range.

I know you're probably saying, 'what the flip does this have to do with Two Dollar Radio?'

Swim Party played at the first literacy benefit concert that we helped sponsor in San Diego way back in '05.

Not to mention, bassist/vocalist Alex Devereaux crafted killer designs for our titles, The Drummer and Vagabond Blues.

You can get the album at iTunes, and some other places. Visit their website. Check 'er out.

New Viral Catalog.

We're very happy to have our new Fall / Winter 2008 catalog available online.

It's a clean way to peruse what's on our plate for the Fall through next Spring / Summer.

Be excited. Be, be excited.

Beneath the Pines / Erotomania Reading @ McNally Jackson.

Janet Beard, author of Beneath the Pines, and Francis Levy, author of Erotomania: A Romance, read last week to a packed house at McNally Jackson, an amazingly cool indie bookstore on Prince Street in Manhattan.

Afterwards, we celebrated the release of Beneath the Pines with a great group of friends at Vig Bar.

Janet is presently on tour throughout much of Virginia and Tennessee. If you're in the area, check out her reading schedule on the Two Dollar Radio events page.

Barney Rosset Wins Lifetime Achievement Award + Obscene.

Barney Rosset, icon of the publishing world and a personal hero, is the subject of a new documentary called "Obscene."

Barney will also receive the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Book Foundation.

I love this series of quotes from the article in today's New York Times:

Mr. Rosset went on: “All my life I followed the things that I liked — people, things, books — and when things were offered to me, I published them. I never did anything I really didn’t like. I had no set plan, but on the other hand we sometimes found ourselves on a trail. For example, out of Beckett came Pinter, and Pinter was responsible for Mamet. It was like a baseball team — Mamet to Pinter to Beckett.”

Mr. Rosset sipped from his drink and smiled. “Should we have had more of a business plan?” he added. “Probably. But then the publishers that did have business plans didn’t do any better.”

Barney is insanely rad.

The Sexiest Book Party Ever.

We had a blast at the book release party for Erotomania: A Romance, by author Francis Levy, this past week in NYC.

The party was at the Museum of Sex and was dubbed by publishing blog GalleyCat in a post the following day, "The Sexiest Book Party Ever."

The current installation in the museum was The Sex Lives of Animals, and featured sculptures of certain animals copulating (pandas, deer, etc).

Follow the link to GalleyCat to watch a carefully cropped video and an amusing interview with Francis about the party and book.

Pictured here are the author's wife, Hallie Cohen; Francis Levy; Eliza; Eric.

I Smile Back - Publishers Weekly review.

Check out this stellar review for Amy Koppelman's forthcoming novel, I Smile Back (Dec. 2008), which appeared in this week's issue of Publishers Weekly:

"This crushing novel by the author of A Mouthful of Air is a shocking portrait of suburban ennui gone horribly awry. Laney Brooks, approaching middle age in Short Hills, N.J., appears to have it all: doting husband, two beautiful children, the big house with a kidney-shaped pool. But beneath the facade of upper-middle-class perfection, Laney’s life descends into a chasm of indiscriminate sex and drug and alcohol abuse. Koppelman’s prose style is understated and crackling; each sentence is laden with a foreboding sense of menace, whether she’s describing a sunny Florida resort or the back alley of a seedy strip mall. Laney’s self-debasement can be a bit over-the-top at times, but like a crime scene or a flaming car wreck, it becomes impossible not to stare."

Sarah Palin, Book-Banner

Sarah Palin, Governor of Alaska,
originally uploaded by J Medkeff.

I try to stay clear from discussing politics on here, but in today's New York Times, there's an "interesting" profile of VP nominee, Sarah Palin.

She scares me in a bad way. Here's (one of the many reasons) why, and how it is relevant to include here:

"Shortly after becoming mayor, former city officials and Wasilla residents said, Ms. Palin approached the town librarian about the possibility of banning some books, though she never followed through and it was unclear which books or passages were in question.

"Ann Kilkenny, a Democrat who said she attended every City Council meeting in Ms. Palin’s first year in office, said Ms. Palin brought up the idea of banning some books at one meeting. “They were somehow morally or socially objectionable to her,” Ms. Kilkenny said.

"The librarian, Mary Ellen Emmons, pledged to “resist all efforts at censorship,” Ms. Kilkenny recalled. Ms. Palin fired Ms. Emmons shortly after taking office but changed course after residents made a strong show of support. Ms. Emmons, who left her job and Wasilla a couple of years later, declined to comment for this article.

"In 1996, Ms. Palin suggested to the local paper, The Frontiersman, that the conversations about banning books were “rhetorical.”"

Just when you start to think that it'd be impossible to digress any farther after the last 8 years...