Capital New York

Patti Smith offers words (not song) under the Brooklyn Bridge

The next question—about her clothing and style—elicited a more sporting response. That baggy black jacket? Made especially for her by the Belgian fashion designer Ann Demeulemeester. Smith did a little catwalk, twirled and revealed the matching vest’s backless design to cheers from the onlookers. Those rather masculine boots? Brushed, gold-flecked leather pull-on boots by Jimmy Choo. “Fashion-wise, I’m in a Hunger Games mood,” she said. “Sort of Katniss in the woods.” More

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By Aparna Narayanan

Introducing the 'slow art' movement; it's like the 'slow food' movement, with art (and food)

Host Alison Pierz explained that Slow Art Day was inspired by the Slow Food movement. “I like to think of art as sustenance,” she said. “It sounds hokey, but it’s good for the soul. These things take time to make, so let’s take time to appreciate them.” Slow Art Day intends to draw “regular folks,” she added, but—as the members of her group made clear—it sometimes attracts more “art world people” the bigger it gets. “It’s become a thing,” said Pierz, a former gallery director. “This is like preaching to the choir to a certain extent.” More

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By Aparna Narayanan

Promoting his new book 'How to Sharpen Pencils,' David Rees gives his audience a clinic in the lost art

Rees, the man behind the Get Your War On anti-Bush political cartoon strip, parlayed his skills with the humble pencil into a mail-order manual-pencil-sharpening business, complete with a spiffy, new-fangled web portal. For $15 a pop, Rees sharpens your pencil and mails it back “with a signed and dated certificate authenticating that it is now a dangerous object.” Also in the mail package: bagged, sealed, and labeled shavings. More

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By Aparna Narayanan

The Story Prize awards Steven Millhauser, honors Don DeLillo and Edith Pearlman

For those who gathered at the New School's Tishman auditorium Wednesday night, it was a chance to see three much-admired writers of short stories—Don DeLillo, Steven Millhauser, and Edith Pearlman—read from their new work and answer questions about their process. More

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By Aparna Narayanan

You can't party inside a laptop: mini lit-mags convene to network and celebrate the season

Celia Johnson, the publisher of Slice, explained between greeting guests that she had come up with the idea for the event because of the limits of her own magazine’s “office.” Launched in 2007, the nonprofit magazine publishes twice a year and is almost entirely staffed by volunteers. “Basically, [the office] is my apartment in Bensonhurst,” said Johnson, 29. “Some days it’s a café; if I’m traveling, it’s a plane. It’s really my laptop.” Together with Bullock, she conceived of the Lit Mag Office Party as a way to “develop synergy” among niche and start-up literary magazines that exist physically only in laptops or similarly cramped spaces and who seek to “converse and enjoy one another’s company.”

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By Aparna Narayanan