The Lowbrow Reader Variety Hour! May 29! Housing Works Bookstore!

We are thrilled to announce the Lowbrow Reader Variety Hour, a celebration of our new book: The Lowbrow Reader Reader. The concert takes place Tuesday, May 29, at the beautiful Housing Works Bookstore in Soho, from 7pm–8:30pm. Admission is free with a suggested donation to Housing Works, a big-hearted charity that fights AIDS and homelessness. The night will feature musical sets from Adam Green and Supercute!, comedy from Wyatt Cenac, and a special appearance by the one and only Professor Irwin Corey, the world’s foremost authority.

Here are some words from Jay Ruttenberg, The Lowbrow Reader Reader’s eminent and worldly editor:

I met Adam Green in 2001 in Tompkins Square Park, when I interviewed him and Kimya Dawson about their band, the Moldy Peaches; I think it was their first interview. They mocked and bullied me throughout, and I came home with gum in my hair. I have been a big fan of Adam’s work ever since. He’s pretty much everything you want in a songwriter: His songs are funny, inscrutable, full of surprises, and ridiculously catchy. He keeps getting better, too. When I’m humming a melody on the subway, odds are high that it’s a song from his most recent album, Minor Love. Recently, he shot a feature film on his iPhone starring Macaulay Culkin. All of which is to say, How Adam has not played a Lowbrow Reader event before is beyond me.

Then there is Supercute!, your new favorite band. It stars three teenage girls: Rachel Trachtenburg, Julia Cumming, and Olivia Ferrer. She will hate me for saying this, but I have known Rachel since she was 8-years-old and playing drums for the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players. (Ever tried to interview an 8-year-old girl? No picnic!) In Supercute!, Julia and Rachel play ukulele and guitar, Olivia keyboards. You have not lived a meaningful life until you have heard their rendition of “Paint it Black,” to say nothing of original songs such as “Not to Write About Boys.” The band recently completed their first album, recorded with Englishwoman Kate Nash.

And that’s just the music! Are we forgetting the evening’s funnymen? I have been laughing at Wyatt Cenac for years, whether I am lurking in the back of a darkened audience or sprawled on a couch in my apartment. Sounds pretty creepy! But surely, you, too,  have laughed at his wit on The Daily Show, a cable television program for which he works as a correspondent. Is it hyperbolic to suggest that, were every human being as funny as he, the earth would have neither war nor religion? (I think not.) And as if that is not enough, we bring you a special appearance by the legendary Professor Irwin Corey! Once described as “one of the most brilliant comedians of all time” by Lenny Bruce, the Professor’s astounding 75-year career has seen him working with Woody Allen and Thomas Pynchon, Steve Allen and Johnny Carson. Before seeing him live May 29 at the Lowbrow Reader Variety Hour, check him out on your computer on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.

Housing Works Bookstore Café is one of downtown New York’s most vital cultural institutions, presenting an eclectic mix of events — from readings and concerts to comedy nights and storytelling competitions – featuring many of today’s most exciting artists. The bookstore is staffed almost entirely by volunteers and 100% of its profits go to Housing Works, Inc., which provides housing, healthcare, job training, and advocacy for New Yorkers living with HIV/AIDS. As an independent cultural center, it offers patrons a unique opportunity to join the fight against AIDS and homelessness simply by buying or donating books; eating at their cafe; attending concerts, readings, and special events; or volunteering on their staff. 

Character Study

Is there anything funnier than an old person letting slip a surprisingly raunchy utterance? No. Life cannot improve on such an occurrence. “Oooh, I’d tap that,” a wrinkly old goat might announce upon glimpsing the enlarged pectorals gracing one of her niece’s suitors as the young man emerges from a swimming pool. “What you kids need is some old-fashioned banging,” a smelly-looking fogey will inform his grandson’s unusually tight circle of friends as they fret over the grandson’s romantic foibles. “Let’s go to the club!”

And the next thing you know, as the grandson and his pals exchange looks like what?! and can you believe it?, the old fart has ushered them inside the hottest spot in town, exchanging some kind of hip-hop handshake with the bouncer and, as if that wasn’t enough, being pointed at in an approving manner by the DJ as the DJ uses his other hand to hold his headphones to his ear, since he takes his job so seriously. It all just goes to show, You never know. (more…)

S*#% a Chicken Says

Recently, Lowbrow Reader Little Rock correspondent Jay Jennings checked in about the state of chickens in Arkansas….

Consider the chicken, the Rodney Dangerfield of fauna. It gets no respect.

Its simple attempts to cross a road are a bad joke. The famous chicken of childhood fable, Chicken Little, is demeaned as the very embodiment of a liar. The word itself is a schoolyard taunt for a fearful child, and the underpaid worker earns only “chicken feed.” The list goes on. On the whole, the chicken resides at the bottom of the pecking order.

The recent passing of Don Tyson got me thinking about Arkansas and chicken. Lesser wits have called him a “chick magnate,” but I’ll not stoop so low. (Especially since I found that I was the 5036th lesser wit who thought of that term when I Googled it, though my ranking may be higher because Google doesn’t account for those who actually meant ”chick magnet” and spelled it wrong.) But what is the state of chicken in the place that Tyson arguably made the State of Chicken? (more…)

One-Liners

Women and men are the same. If they’re different, then why did God give them identical genitalia?

Nobody’s really named Jessica.

Have you ever looked at the sun, I mean really stared at it?

You can yell, “Land, ho!” just about anywhere.

My money’s no good at McDonald’s.

I bet when you first brush your teeth, the bristles tickle you, and then, “Ow, ow, ow.”

I write right-side up; what, you thought I had a space pen?

This artist thrives on busy work. (more…)

Newly Published

The year of doing something crazy to learn a lesson or prove a point is by now less a gimmick than a full-fledged publishing genre.

Cracker A Day: One Man’s Battle
By Scott Raubineck

The graham cracker, the story goes, was created in 1829 by Reverend Sylvester Graham as a deterrent against masturbation. One-hundred and eighty years later, first-time author Scott Raubineck, drawing from his popular blog crackeraday.com, put the long-discarded theory to test. For 12 months, each time Raubineck felt the urge to masturbate, he ate graham crackers instead. What begins as a meditation on outdated sexual mores and the history of American junk food gradually descends into madness, as the precocious author (a college senior at the outset of the experiment) increasingly finds Reverend Graham’s logic to be “extremely, extremely, extremely faulty.” Readers will be startled by the dramatic passage in which Raubineck — shivering from excessive sugar intake, his mouth smeared with graham crumbs — is arrested for humping a grocery store’s Honey Maid display while cursing the “demonic cracker.” Thus begins his second month of the experiment. (more…)

A Letter from Makepeace Money Management

When the news broke late last month, it read almost like satire. The Securities and Exchange Commission had charged a mutual fund company that specialized in socially responsible investments with taking stakes in companies involved with alcohol, gambling and military contracting.

–The New York Times

Dear Investors,

Several years ago, when I, Bart Makepeace, began Makepeace Money Management, a group of socially responsible mutual funds, some people thought you had to suffer financially if you put your money where your conscience is. With an average return last year of 296.65% over our whole family of funds, we’ve put that worry to rest. “How do you do it, Bart?” both you and federal regulators have asked. The answer is savvy investment choices and a clear conscience. Let me share with you a few of the moves we’ve made recently. (more…)

Lowbrow Reader “Web Exclusive” Archives (2004–2008)

Since beginning publication in 2001, The Lowbrow Reader has always focused on our print products: initially our eight issues; now (June, 2012, despite the date of this post) our book, The Lowbrow Reader Reader. But starting in 2004, we have published a smattering of online-only material, as well. These pieces currently appear in the “Updates” section of our website; on our old site, they were called “Web Exclusives.” After the jump, behold an archive of our older web-only articles. Note our prediction, in 2004, of the Barack Obama presidency! And revel in topical jokes of the mid-00s that no longer make any sense! Really, just who was this George W. Bush idiot, and why did we keep making fun of him?

(more…)