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Bookstore Café Events

  • Bookstore Cafe
  • 126 Crosby Street, New York, NY 10012 :: 212-334-3324

The Manhattan comedy journal The Lowbrow Reader is thrilled to announce the Lowbrow Reader Variety Hour, a celebration of its new issue. The night will feature short acoustic sets from The Fiery Furnaces, Peter Stampfel and the Ether Frolic Mob, and Larkin Grimm. There will also be comedy by John Mulaney and a reading by Gilbert Rogin. And the cost to you? A mere $10 —or $5 for those unemployed or on worker’s strike— donation at the door.

The Fiery Furnaces: Has this decade seen a stronger New York rock band than the Fiery Furnaces? (No.) The endlessly creative group is represented tonight by Eleanor and Matthew Friedberger playing the day after their fantastic new album, I’m Going Away, comes out on Thrill Jockey.

Peter Stampfel and the Ether Frolic Mob: The awesome new band from Holy Modal Rounder and Fugs veteran Peter Stampfel is eight or nine members strong, depending on the night. “Next to Bob Dylan, [Stampfel] was…the nearest thing to a genius folkiedom had thrown up,” Robert Christgau has written. Indeed!

Larkin Grimm: A remarkable young New York singer whose album Parplar (Young God) was among last year’s best LPs. Live, she will blow your socks straight off—there’s no one else quite like her.

John Mulaney: A fast-rising young writer at Saturday Night Live and a cast member of VH1’s Best Week Ever. Also: the funniest stand-up currently working New York City, hands down.

Gilbert Rogin: In the ‘60s and ‘70s, Rogin published fiction regularly in the New Yorker. He has been hailed by John Updike, Joyce Carol Oates and Larry McMurtry as one of the best writers of his generation. At the same time, Rogin pursued a ridiculously successful journalism career. He was the managing editor of Sports Illustrated and, later, helped Quincy Jones found Vibe. Now 79, Rogin lives downtown. The Lowbrow Reader just published his first story in three decades. We are hoping to see his books back in print soon.

The Lowbrow Reader is a small, lushly illustrated comedy magazine edited by Jay Ruttenberg. Its new issue, #7, includes work by Shelley Berman (Curb Your Enthusiasm), David Berman (Silver Jews; no relation) and Sam Henderson (Magic Whistle). Much of the issue is devoted to the novelist Gilbert Rogin, including an assessment of his work by Jay Jennings and the first piece of fiction by Rogin to be published since 1980. It is available online at lowbrowreader.com, and in smart stores everywhere.

Categorized in: Bookstore Café Events

Housing Works Bookstore Cafe

Since opening its doors in 1998, Housing Works’ Bookstore Café has been an unparalleled hotspot for New York’s literary community, hosting countless readings, panels, and parties for every major publisher, as well as magazines from Lucky to The New Yorker. Every dollar from every customer goes to support Housing Works’ mission to end homelessness and AIDS.