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So, you’ve probably heard by now: the G train isn’t going to be running AT ALL for the next four weekends. From 10:30pm Friday to 5am Monday, starting this weekend, no G going anywhere. Which, if you’re a Greenpointer, effectively strands you here, unless you feel like walking to the L (blegh), taking the brand-new B62 (double blegh) or taking the sure-to-be-on-time shuttle buses that will replace the G.

We know. We were depressed too. But then we just decided to make our little corner of Greenpoint more awesome than usual to compensate! For the next four weekends, we’re going to do something special every Saturday and give you some more good reasons to love spending the weekend in Greenpoint.

This weekend, here’s what we’re featuring:

—Bananagrams tournament Saturday afternoon! Bananagrams in the basement this Saturday, 1/16, starting at 3pm. One of the most loved games in Greenpoint, tournament-style! Come if you’re an expert or if you’ve never played, because it’s easy to learn and there’s enough luck involved that anybody can compete. Or just come for the banana-themed baked goods.

—Bananagrams discount! Saturday 1/16 and Sunday 1/17 only, 10% off your very own Bananagrams. You will not regret it, we promise.

—Stay-at-home book discount! All weekend, we’ll have a table of books worth staying home with: a few great novels, a few DIY and craft books, and so on. All books on the table will be 10% off.

—MetroCard raffle! All weekend, buy raffle tickets for $1 each to win a $20 MetroCard, which you’ll be able to use from your favorite neighborhood again someday, we’re sure. All proceeds from the raffle will go to the Greenpoint Food Pantry.

We’ve got more tricks up our collective sleeve for the next three weekends, but let us know if you have any ideas—we’d love to hear what else you’d like us to do.

Are you starting to feel it? The sun sets before 5pm. You have to wear a hat everywhere, even indoors a lot of the time. You are finding yourself wondering if August was really as bad as everybody said. It is that sad time of the year when ice cream loses its appeal. There is only one thing that can save us from the pits of despondency and vitamin D deficiency.

SOUP!

Photo by flickr user Pabo76.

That’s right! Soup, soup of all kinds. Veggie, egg drop, chili, lentil, three bean, Italian meatball, tomato, borscht, chicken noodle, miso…obviously, I could go on for awhile. But I won’t, because even better than soup is when other people make it for you. And that’s why WORD is hosting:

THE GREENPOINT SOUP SWAP!

Next Saturday, January 23 is the fourth National Soup Swap Day, and we’re going to get Greenpoint in on the action. The concept of a soup swap is simple: you bring six one-quart containers of the same homemade soup, preferably one that freezes well. You leave with six different kinds of homemade soup made by other attendees. Easy as pie…er, soup!

The fun starts at 2pm on 1/23 in the WORD basement, and there’s only one requirement (aside from the bringing 6 quarts of soup part): you must, MUST RSVP to [email protected] by 1/22 in order to attend. So crack open your How to Cook Everything and RSVP today!

Thanks so much to everyone who came out last night! Pictures to come on our Flickr shortly. For now, just imagine our basement full of beautiful people laughing and smiling.

Without further ado, our four winning six-word writing memoir entries:

“Landlady still refuses prose for rent.” — Mikki Halpin

“Erotica: What’s another word for ‘penis?’” — Grace Bello

“Procrastinating on novel? Start a blog!” — Jake Roren

“Write without inhibition, edit rigorously, repeat.” — Erin McInnis

Is one of those entries yours? If so, email [email protected] toot sweet to claim your prize. Thanks to everyone who entered!

A funny thing happened when we put this book on the counter.

“Hahaha,” a customer would say, looking at the cover. “Hahahaha, it’s true! Hitchhikers are obsolete. Oh yeah, same thing with lickable stamps. Ha! Yeah, I haven’t gotten lost since I got my iPhone. And also…”

And then, always the same fateful pause.

“Wait!” the same customer would say, voice turning from amused to saddened. “Cursive writing is nor obsolete! I still write in cursive everyday! None of my friends do, but…”

This happened so many times that we lost count. Except insert writing letters, film, smoking, bald spots, books, arcades, and hyphenated last names for cursive writing in that last bit. The book is hilarious! And then, suddenly, not so funny. People feel compelled to defend their favorite obsolete things!

(In particular, we’ve noticed an astonishing number of customers who, under their breath, notify us that phone sex is most certainly NOT obsolete, thank you very much, and in fact it was alive and well in their apartment just two weeks previous. Which, wow, alrighty!)

Anyway, this has been so much fun for us that we decided to make an event out of it. A debating event! You’ll have the chance to defend your rapidly-obsolescing item in front of a crowd, and maybe even save it from extinction.

You can speak out in defense of:

–keeping plans (and making dates)

–niche publications

–photobooths

–thesauruses

–privacy

–dying of old age

–body hair

Or any of the other items in the encyclopedia! Just drop by the store to look through, RSVP on Facebook, or email [email protected] to save your spot (and your item). You can also get inspiration from the tumblr page for the book. See you there…unless maybe really fun book events are already obsolete?

Last night, we hosted author Rebecca Stead and her editor, Wendy Lamb for the latest installment in our YA NOT? series (a literary salon for not-so-young adults). They have the sort of editor-author relationship that makes us feel good about being in the book industry. This business is all about relationships, in many ways—our relationship with our customers, an author’s relationship with hir readers, and so on—but it all starts with the author and the editor. As they discussed quite a bit last night, every editor approaches each author a bit differently. And the approach that Wendy and Rebecca have taken together is, much like Rebecca’s books, magical and impressive.

Some highlights from their conversation last night:

—Rebecca talked about this TED talk with author Elizabeth Gilbert about inspiration, and mentioned an ancient idea that inspiration is a matter of “catching the serpent.” You have to reach up to grab it, and if you get its tail, you can reel it back in and make something with it, but if you miss it, it’s gone forever.

—Wendy, on how authors are like dogs: “Some authors are work dogs. They just keep working and working and working on a book until you just want to take it away from them before they mess it up. And other authors are like companion dogs. They need you to sit next to them and call them to see how they’re doing.” And Rebecca? Well, Wendy said she’s a lovely combination of the two.

—Rebecca, on why she writes for kids: “I love that children are still at a point where they are thinking about the big questions of life and trying to figure things out. They’re not jaded yet. I don’t think it would be possible for me to write for a jaded reader. I guess I can write for kids and adults having a mid-life crisis: people who are open to thinking about big ideas and wondering about life.”

—The best mail Rebecca has gotten in response to her latest book, When You Reach Me, is regarding a small idea in the book that she didn’t think most people would notice. She discusses the idea of a veil, that we all walk around with this invisible veil in front of our faces and go about our day, but every once in awhile it lifts up, and suddenly we can see the bigger picture, see the connections, and feel some peace about the way things are.  ”A surprising number of kids are writing to me to tell me how much they identify with that idea. Which I think is very encouraging!”

Those are just a few snippets from last night’s conversation, which we loved almost (almost!) as much as we adore When You Reach Me and First Light. What about other folks who came out in the blustery rain? What was your favorite part?

Yes, folks, we’re unusual EVEN by Brooklyn’s standards. That quote comes from this lovely write-up in The Brooklyn Paper about our basketball league.

Another thing that’s unusual about us is our matchmaking board, about which Stacked Blog wrote a great post. So if being unusual means that we encourage athleticism and seek to spark romances, well, we’ll take it!

Feel free to use the comments to talk about other things that are unusual even by Brooklyn’s standards.

We know you love our staff picks in the store (how else can we explain Cloud Atlas’s two-year streak on the WORD bestseller list?), but did you know that sometimes our staff picks go beyond our doors?

Kelly’s, above, is for Hothouse Flower and the Nine Flowers of Desire by Margot Berwin, a book she loved so much that the author is coming to read and sign at our Hot and Wicked Botanical Book Night this Tuesday! You can find this review in July’s Indie Next List in any independent bookstore in the country.

And Stephanie’s blurb for When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead is featured on a cardboard display made by the publisher to go next to the book. Good thing, too, since it’s her choice for the best middle grade novel of the year!

Convinced? Drop by the store to get your copies today! Actually, for Hothouse Flower, wait until Tuesday, that way you can meet the author. We’re so proud of these blurbs that the books will be in stock for quite some time, though in the case of When You Reach Me, the sooner, the better—we have a limited number of signed bookplates for copies purchased here. And as always, if you’re too far away to make it in, just email [email protected] and we’ll be happy to ship either or both out to you!

That’s right, ladies and gents. Get your literary dealbreakers all sorted out and head down to WORD to finally meet your literary soulmate!

May we offer ourselves up as a good place to meet up before your first date? Nice, well-lit place to make sure your future beloved is just as cool as his or her taste in books would suggest.

Finish out your week with a smile—read this delightful missive from Katherine Arathoon, member of The Elements of Style!

“When I first agreed to join a dodgeball team (don’t worry, it’s just a quick tangent), I thought I was signing up for kickball. ‘Sure, that sounds like fun,’ I said, forking over a hefty enrollment fee, and forgot about it. It was only 2 days before our first game that I remembered that dodgeball is actually two teams actively trying to pelt each other in the face with hard rubber balls. In an instant I was transported back to those terror-filled sessions in my elementary school days, and I called my roommate, Sanam, in a panic, shrieking, “I’ve just remembered what dodgeball is! I don’t want to play any more!” Accustomed to my histrionics, Sanam calmly informed me it was too late to get my fee back and I was damned well going to play. So play I did, and it turned out it was actually pretty fun. Teams were more evenly matched, now that everyone’s pituitary glands have for the most part leveled off, and there was beer after every game. Can’t argue with that!

“So, when the Mediabistro blurb popped up recommending Literary Basketball, I was intrigued. Sure, I’d hated basketball in high school gym, but if a girl like me can learn to tolerate dodgeball, she can do anything. Plus, the challenge of answering ‘literary questions’ in order to qualify was irresistible. I answered the questions, a handful of friends joined in as well, and one short introduction meeting later I was on the white team.

“The name picking began. We were team White, so early options included The Eebees, The Mocha Dicks, Charlotte’s Web of Domination, Great White Taupe, The Invisible Jam, and Midnight’s Children But With Basketball. However, several clear winners emerged from the fray, and after pushing Comma Sutra out of the way with deft aplomb, The Elements Of Style reigned supreme as our name of choice. The Strunks became unofficial team nickname, and ‘Sucks to your ass-mar!’ is our (as yet still unused in battle) team slogan.

“It was during this discussion that our noble team captain, Mark, came up with the brilliant plan of creating team t-shirts and using punctuation symbols instead of numbers on the back. There was a furious scramble to claim interrobang, and a question arose that remains unanswered to this day: does a dollar sign count as a punctuation mark? (In the end, cool factor won out over questionable verisimilitude on that particular issue.)

“So now we were named and marked, and ready for action. By this point I’d had enough fun and nerdiness that I scarcely cared about the looming first game. Sanam–now $anam–explained the basic rules to me on subway ride over, and I figured I was prepared enough.

“Two things I hadn’t anticipated:

“1) Basketball requires a lot of running. Like, a LOT of running. Fortunately we had a good showing of teammates that first game, because there was a steady rotation of subbing-out-before-my-heart-explodes. Some of us were a little hung over from the previous night’s adventures; some of us were just woefully out of shape. Safe to say, by game’s end most of us looked like teammate Mike in this picture.

Wow, if you didn’t make it to Sarah Magid’s event for her cookbook Organic and Chic, you missed out in a big way! The basement was packed and for the first time in WORD history, we sold every copy of the book in the store. We suspect the delicious mini-cupcakes and other goodies had something to do with it, but the main attraction was the incredible book, which you just have to see to believe. We’re out of stock for the next couple days, but you can bet we’ll have it here again soon for you to check out.

Here’s a few photos of the treats Sarah brought:

Thanks, Sarah! And thanks to everyone who made it out to make this event such an incredible success!

Hey there, we just wanted to thank the cool folks on Yelp who are saying nice things about us. Look what two lovely ladies had to say about WORD today:

From Christina:

“I want to work here just so I can get paid to read every single book they sell. I’m not even kidding - it’s that great of a selection and a sweet atmosphere to boot!”

From Briana:

“I love to shop local. I love the independent bookstore. I love WORD. I did about 90% of my Christmas shopping here this past holiday season - from my sister and her foodie boyfriend to my hippie, teacher mom to my wordy dad, I found something for each and every one of them. They also have a great and changing selection of letter-press cards and stationary and a really nice (small, like the rest of the store), well-edited children’s section. A girlfriend of mine attends book club here and seems to really like it. I haven’t gotten around to it - but love that it has the offering, and the books always seem really interesting.”

A big Cinco de Mayo “gracias” to you both! We’ve added your comments to our Kudos page, along with all the others who’ve shared nice words! Ya know, we’re only three 5-star reviews shy of an even twenty. Maybe consider showing your love for WORD too?

It’s a little crazy here today because it’s Buy Indie Day!  We’ve been selling our favorite books to Greenpoint customers and Twitter customers alike.  Want to join in the fun? Drop by any time today, email [email protected], or call 718 383 0096!  You can also find an independent bookstore near you by using IndieBound’s great search function.

And don’t forget, it’s not just independent bookstores that deserve love. Celebrate your favorite indie video rental place, restaurant, hardware store, bike shop, tattoo parlor, florist, grocery store, chocolatier, thrift store, or clothing boutique by paying them a visit today! Feel free to let us know in comments about your favorite indie businesses, we’d love to hear about them.

WORD got a lovely mention from Michael Tyrell in the NYT’s City Room blog today in a column he wrote about poetry in Brooklyn. In response to a question about venues for poetry readings in Brooklyn, among other things, he wrote:

“Finally, it would be worth your while to check out local bookstores in particular Brooklyn neighborhoods; some, like WORD in Greenpoint, have interesting and enriching programs.”

We think that’s the best part of the post, but if you’re looking for more information on poetry in Brooklyn and some fantastic answers about Brooklyn and writing in general, do read the whole thing.  And if you’re interested in the book Tyrell co-edited, Broken Land: Poems of Brooklyn, stop by WORD and check it out.  We love it enough that it’s on display on top of the NYC section (and it was before today’s nod!)

Here’s a small bookish sample from Broken Land, from the end of “Dead Morning in Brooklyn Heights,” written by Maurice Kenny in 1979.

“Every morning Norman Mailer tramps down Clark St.

To the subway at the St. George Hotel to office.

His secretaries do not write his novels.

Even pimps ply their trade on the street below;

Pigeons bloom on crumbs in the gutters,

And the dead have labored at dying.”