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The Smart Set is a weekly feature, compiled and posted by Lauren Cerand, that usually appears Mondays at 12:30 pm and highlights the best of the week to come. Special favor is given to New York’s independent booksellers and venues, and low-cost and free events. Please send details to Ms. Cerand at lauren [at] maudnewton.com by the Thursday prior to publication. Due to the volume of submissions, events cannot be considered unless the date appears in the subject line of your message.

WED, MAR 5: Lydia Millet reads from How The Dead Dream at McNally Robinson. Highly recommended. 7PM, FREE. And, the totally rad Asian Women Giving Circle has a party to celebrate its new class of grantees, at the Asian American Writers’ Workshop. 6:30 - 8:30PM, $20 suggested.

THU, MAR 6: National Small Press Month Poetry Reading Marathon features some standouts, and sounds like the perfect downtown New York evening for artsy types. And, “She’s so Cosmo Girl,” a exhibition of paintings by Amanda Besl, remains on view through Saturday at Lyons Wier Ortt Contemporary Art.

FRI, MAR 7: What Maud Said. Plus, Krautgarden! And, later on in the evening, Alice Smith does Highline Ballroom.

SAT, MAR 8: Join us for Girls Write Now Day, a local celebration of International Women’s Day that promises “an afternoon with young women writers and the women who inspire them, featuring Anne Landsman (The Rowing Lesson) and Lila Zemborain (Mauve Sea-Orchids), plus a chic fashion show inspired by the girls’ own poetry and prose, created in collaboration with designers Erin Darby and Ana Maria Henao of S.I.C. (Smart is Cool), who maintain that ‘the most fashionable thing you wear is your intelligence.’” At the New School [Full disclosure, as always: I am the vice chair of the board of directors of Girls Write Now, and had a hand in putting this event together]. 5-7PM, FREE. Just before that I’ll be speaking (out of the goodness of my <3) at Book Promotion 101; if you have a book coming out in the next two years, I can’t think of a better investment. Also happening on Saturday night: “KS Art announces come across an exhibition of new abstract watercolors by Kim Gordon. Painted on translucent rice paper these ethereal images recall faces of audience members from the perspective of the performer. This exhibition also includes a sound piece that Gordon has created in collaboration with Thurston Moore.” Opening from 6-8PM, FREE (noted via Art Fag City).

SUN, MAR 9: Shall We Kiss? / Un baiser s’il vous plait closes out the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Rendez-Vous with French Cinema 2008: “Gabriel (Michael Cohen) and Emilie (Julie Gayet) meet on the streets of a provincial capital. He offers her a ride, and the ride turns into a pleasant dinner with clearly romantic overtones. But when Gabriel attempts to plant a goodnight kiss, Emile pulls back — even one kiss, she admonishes him, can have unexpected consequences…”

The Smart Set is a weekly feature, compiled and posted by Lauren Cerand, that usually appears Mondays at 12:30 pm and highlights the best of the week to come. Special favor is given to New York’s independent booksellers and venues, and low-cost and free events. Please send details to Ms. Cerand at lauren [at] maudnewton.com by the Thursday prior to publication. Due to the volume of submissions, events cannot be considered unless the date appears in the subject line of your message.

Fresh-faced and just back from a weekend in the country, I must bid you leave once again– to find a dress for a Leap Day party with an invitation so hot, thought I heard a sizzle when it touched my hand (sadly, am not allowed to bring “The Smart Set” as my +1; I asked). Herewith, the Double Trouble Edition:

WED, 2.20: Sip Lit, “a monthly series of readings in a cafe,” presents Edward Mendelson reading W.H. Auden’s prose and Mark Svenvold. At Sip, 998 Amsterdam Avenue between 109th and 110th Streets. Highly recommended. 8PM, FREE. Also on the Upper West Side, Bookculture has some spectacularly intriguing events lined up in coming weeks.

THU, 2.21: “Winkleman Gallery is very pleased to present a solo exhibition of new paintings by New York artist Joy Garnett. In four large canvases Garnett continues her groundbreaking exploration of the malleability of instantly globalized images and how they have begun to replace written language as the markers of mankind’s collective memory or consciousness. Unlike her last three New York exhibitions, which centered on specific themes of conflict or violence, this grouping is united only by the loose suggestion of images possibly taken at precisely the same moment in very different locations around the world. Garnett circles the planet to underscore perhaps the unstoppable imperative of this new lingua franca.” Highly recommended. Opening: 6 - 8PM, FREE. In Brooklyn, “Translator Anne McLean reads from and discusses her recent translation of Julio Cortázar’s Autonauts of the Cosmoroute. Julio Cortázar (1914–1984) was a true giant of twentieth-century Latin American literature. Autonauts of the Cosmoroute is a love story, an irreverent travelogue of elaborate tales and snapshots detailing Cortázar and wife Carol Dunlop’s thirty-three-day voyage on the Paris-Marseilles freeway.” With Yuriy Tarnawsky, “a bilingual American/Ukrainian writer, born in Ukraine but raised in the West,” as part of OFF THE RAIL, curated by Donald Breckenridge and happening at the Brooklyn Central Library (10 Grand Army Plaza). 7PM, FREE.

FRI, 2.22: “Paragraph is thrilled to host a reading in honor of Wales Week with three internationally recognized Welsh Poets and Novelists: Paul Henry, Owen Sheers and Richard Gwyn at Clay, followed by a wine and cheese reception at Paragraph. Free and open to the public.” Highly recommended. 8:30PM, FREE.

SAT, 2.23 & SUN, 2.24: At the Morgan Library, “Close Encounters: Irving Penn, Portraits of Artists and Writers.”

MON, 2.25: Rachel Cline reads from her new novel, My Liar, at Rocky Sullivan’s in Red Hook. “What’s it about? The mutually exploitative friendship between two women who work together in the movie business.” 8PM, FREE. At the Museum of Sex, Stephen Elliott (interviewed previously in The Smart Set), Anthony Swofford and Nick Flynn read from Sex for America. 7PM. Also, “The New York City Chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society has announced the finalists for its 12th annual Books for a Better Life Awards, honoring the best self-improvement books of 2007. The winners will be announced on Monday, February 25, 2008 during an awards ceremony in Manhattan, hosted by NBC Today Show Co-anchor Meredith Vieira, who is also an active member of the Chapter’s Board of Trustees… Proceeds will support national research, as well as vital services and medical programs for those with MS in the metropolitan area.” Details.

TUE, 2.26: At the Center for the Humanities, “Poet C. D. Wright and photographer Deborah Luster discuss their work on One Big Self: Prisoners of Louisiana with Alice Quinn. C. D. Wright is author of numerous poetry collections, including Cooling Time: An American Poetry Vigil, Steal Away: New and Selected Poems, and String Light, which won the Poetry Center Book Award. Deborah Luster’s photography has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions throughout the country. Alice Quinn is Executive Director of the Poetry Society of America.” 7PM, FREE.

WED, 2.27: Jami Attenberg, whose new novel is The Kept Man, and Janice Erlbaum, whose new memoir is Have You Found Her, read from both books, both set in New York right now, at Bookcourt [Full disclosure as always: I am Janice’s publicist]. 7PM, FREE.

THU, 2.28: The Film Society of Lincoln Center presents a screening of Walker. “Of all Cox films maudits, this quixotic broadside at the Reagan administration efforts to overthrow Nicaragua’s Sandinista government has to be the most maudit of all. Written by Rudy Wurlitzer, it boldly (and surreally) reconstructs the true story of the 1855 invasion of Nicaragua by deranged American imperialist William Walker, played with manic intensity by Ed Harris. An unruly Peckinpah-meets-Buñuel fantasia, ripe for rediscovery. Universal, who incredibly enough bankrolled the film, buried it after a token theatrical release. Still, per Cox, Walker was the second-biggest box-office hit ever in Nicaragua, after The Sound of Music. The film’s music is by Joe Strummer, and if you watch out you can see him in many scenes as one of Walker’s ragtag soldiers.” [Full disclosure, as always: I am the publicist for Wurlitzer’s novel, The Drop Edge of Yonder, out next month]. 6:30PM, $11.

FRI, 2.29: Friend of The Smart Set, Gabriel Cohen, says: I’d like to invite you to two book parties for my new book Storms Can’t Hurt the Sky: a Buddhist Path Through Divorce, now available from Da Capo Lifelong Books. The book offers some radical advice about how to get through life’s tough stuff (not just divorce); how to improve relationships; and how to be more happy. The official launch party will take place on Friday, February 29 at the Rubin Museum of Art in Chelsea. One of my favorite museums in the world, the Rubin contains a spectacular, intimate collection of Himalayan art, as well as a great café, bookstore, and gift shop. My reading and talk will be part of a lively evening featuring DJs and a full bar, a guest visual artist, and a David Cronenberg film. The talk and gallery admission after 7 p.m. are free.”

SAT, 3.1: publish and be damned, an exhibition of an international archive of artist fanzines, continues at Ludlow 38, a new art space on Ludlow Street (between Grand + Hester) [Full disclosure, as always: I am the publicist for this project].

SUN, 3.2: Disco nap. Highly recommended.

The Smart Set is a weekly feature, compiled and posted by Lauren Cerand, that usually appears Mondays at 12:30 pm and highlights the best of the week to come. Special favor is given to New York’s independent booksellers and venues, and low-cost and free events. Please send details to Ms. Cerand at lauren [at] maudnewton.com by the Thursday prior to publication. Due to the volume of submissions, events cannot be considered unless the date appears in the subject line of your message.

MON 11 FEB: Make a donation to Books Through Bars. “Memoirs and fiction by people of color, and poetry anthologies” are especially appreciated.

TUE 12 FEB: Janice Erlbaum officially launches Have You Found Her at Penny Arcade’s Open Mic Night (Karma Lounge, 51 First Ave btw. 3rd/4th). 9PM, FREE [Full disclosure, as always: I am Janice’s publicist]. And, Richard Wesley, Diana Son, Peter Godwin, Gabriel Cohen and Jami Floyd discuss “Writing and Race” at NYU. 6:30PM, FREE. Additionally, the “Some of the Girls” Women’s Book Club discusses This Common Secret: My Journey as an Abortion Doctor over dinner in NoHo.

WED 13 FEB: Because I am too tired to attempt to rewrite this and expect it come out nearly as coherently: “Camphor, this week’s NPR darlings (buzzworthy debut, Drawn to Dust, out this spring from my personal fave, Friendly Fire Recordings), will be joining us next week for “Upstairs at the Square,” along with 2007 Man Booker Prize-winning author Anne Enright (Per the NYTRB: “Reckless intelligence, savage humor, slow revelation, no consolation: Anne Enright’s fiction is jet dark — but how it glitters…”) Hope you will too. P.S. It’s “Anne Enright Week” at Fernham!” [via my personal blog, Lux Lotus; full disclosure, as always: “Upstairs at the Square” is one of my PR projects]. Also, there’s Amanda Stern’s Happy Ending Series, the one that set the standard (and still does). Plus, good-looking magazine New York Tyrant has a bash while the ‘rents are in Europe (the James Spader cover says you seem awfully sophisticated for a freshman).

THU 14 FEB: “On the way to the club we pass a Dairy Queen/
You stop cause it you know it means so much to me…” Leslie and the LYs do Mercury Lounge.

FRI 15 FEB: Currently on the stage around town: “The New York Premiere of Kurt Vonnegut’s SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE or, The Children’s Crusade, a play based on the classic American anti-war novel;” “Do you think, because I am poor obscure and plain, I am soulless and heartless?” Hey Valentine, it’s Jane Eyre.

SAT 16 FEB: Dexter Sinister, “Just-In-Time Workshop & Occasional Bookstore,” included in the upcoming Whitney Biennial, is open Saturdays from 12 to 6PM.

SUN 17 FEB: I spent the day at the Cloisters this Sunday, transfixed by the Books of Hours in the Treasury and a small hat or gown pin of mysterious origin in a nearby gallery, engraved on the back, “Autre ne veut” (I want no other). And the Unicorn Tapestries, with their astonishing detail and dense, symbolic narrative, are surprisingly captivating, too. Highly recommended.

UPCOMING: “What is your favorite part of literary festivals and why? I love the groupies of course, though please don’t print that if you think my wife is going to read this. Eh, fuck it, go ahead, it’s easier than talking to her. I also like the swag, new MP3 players and cool sunglasses are always nice, and appreciated, and though I had intended not to do any plugging here, thank you Ray Ban.” 101 days to Pilcrow Lit Fest!

The Smart Set is a weekly feature, compiled and posted by Lauren Cerand, that usually appears Mondays at 12:30 pm and highlights the best of the week to come. Special favor is given to New York’s independent booksellers and venues, and low-cost and free events. Please send details to Ms. Cerand at lauren [at] maudnewton.com by the Thursday prior to publication. Due to the volume of submissions, events cannot be considered unless the date appears in the subject line of your message.

MON 4 FEB: Critically lauded poet Tracy K Smith reads at The Poetry Project. Highly recommended. 8PM, $8. Plus, my permacrush on Brooklyn Independent is revived in its usual weekly interval.

TUE 5 FEB: VOTE. Even if you write in “Winehouse in ‘08.”

WED 6 FEB: Don’t dally, darling (don’t dare!), or you’ll miss the superbly of-the-moment Poetry vs Comedy Show.

THU 7 FEB: The Goethe-Institut New York kicks off a year-long program exploring “What is Green Architecture?” with a talk by Berlin-based architect Jürgen Mayer H. followed by a conversation with MoMA’s Andres Lepik. 7PM, FREE [Full disclosure, as always: I am the publicist for this project]. Downtown, Gelf Magazine’s Varsity Letters sports reading series (brilliant idea!) happens at Happy Ending. And, buzz buzz, Samantha Hunt reads from The Invention of Everything Else at McNally Robinson.

FRI 8 FEB: Ludlow 38, a new art space created in collaboration between the Goethe-Institut New York and Kunstverein München, opens on Ludlow Street (between Grand + Hester) with the exhibition, publish and be damned. There is a public opening from 7-9PM, FREE [Full disclosure, as always: I am the publicist for this project]. Also in the Bowery Arts District on Friday night, “Ne Plus Ultra The Hey, Hot Shot! Annual” opens at Jen Bekman Gallery.

SAT 9 FEB: “LIAISONS is a series of dances that are performed in intimate spaces - living rooms, senior centers, hospitals, galleries. Four dancers form liaisons with the audience and each other, stretching the boundary of closeness between strangers and inviting the audience to intimately gaze at the unfolding movement. The work asks questions of how intimacy is perceived in unexpected environments and how public performance is understood within private spaces.”

SUN 10 FEB: Sunday Salon features a stellar line-up, including Tayari Jones– who just told me over IM that she has work out now or forthcoming in McSweeney’s, The Believer, Callaloo, and a special issue of PMS: Poetry, Memoir, Story — and Matthew Cheney, and more. And the venue, Stain Bar, revolves around the literary scene and is dedicated to local booze. Me too. Also, expect an update on Kenya from (and in support of) the organizers of the series’ Nairobi chapter. Highly recommended. 7PM, FREE.

Upcoming: The debut of Pilcrow Lit Fest. Like your favorite sock monkey, it’s punk rock style (so get involved).

The Smart Set is a weekly feature, compiled and posted by Lauren Cerand, that usually appears Mondays at 12:30pm and highlights the best of the week to come. Special favor is given to New York’s independent booksellers and venues, and low-cost and free events. Please send details to Ms. Cerand at lauren [at] maudnewton.com by the Thursday prior to publication. Due to the volume of submissions, events cannot be considered unless the date appears in the subject line of your message.

MON Jan 28: “Jeffrey Marsh continues to blur gender-identity lines using dignity and patience with the help of his musical partner Rick Sorkin. Their two man show, described as ‘Late night talk show meets Sonny & Cher meets Kurt Weill,’ blends traditional 20th century French and German cabaret, musical theater selections, pop music deconstruction, comedy, and audience interaction.” Tonight’s show features special guest Clay McLeod Chapman, the most mysteriously underrated writer-performer in New York. At La Mama Experimental Theatre Club. 8PM, $15. Also, Brooklyn Writers Space Reading Series presents Paula Bernstein, Elyse Schein, Edmund Lee and Dominic Preziosi, downstairs at Union Hall. 7PM, FREE. Noted, with fascination: Bernstein and Schein recently co-wrote Identical Strangers: A Memoir of Twins Separated and Reunited.

TUE Jan 29: Romania is enjoying a much-deserved cultural moment. Riding the crest of Times’ critic A.O. Scott’s magazine-length feature, “New Wave on the Black Sea,” is Christian Mingiu’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, playing this week at IFC Center.

WED Jan 30: Debut author Toby Barlow reads from Sharp Teeth, which charts the necessarily chaotic events that unfold when “an ancient race of lycanthropes has survived to the present day,” at 192 Books. 7PM, FREE.

THU Jan 31: “Les Figues Press and editors Christine Wertheim & Matias Viegener, to celebrate The noulipian Analects, an alphabetical survey of constrained writing by some of today’s most innovative writers. Hosted by: Robert Fitterman With readings by contributors: Christian Bök, Vanessa Place, Brian Kim Stefans, Rodrigo Toscano, Matias Viegener, and Christine Wertheim.” Says the press, “We do not see ourselves as gatekeeper, but gate, providing a portal for literature that is difficult, demanding or otherwise unacceptable to an increasingly risk-averse publishing industry—literature whose existence is vital for a thriving culture.” Smash your preconceptions at the The Merc. 7PM, FREE.

FRI Feb 1: At Bluestockings, “Join contributors to WSQ: Women’s Studies Quarterly, as they share selections from the new issue, Activisms, exploring ‘how women (and men) struggle individually and collectively for social justice and gender equity, particularly in the global south. This issue includes photo-essays about U.S. and South African performance art, an interview with renowned human rights activist Charlotte Bunch, and a discussion forum on eighteenth-century British feminist and philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft. Articles, fiction, and poetry examine how art, humor, protests, detective novels, and trans­national networks promote progressive agendas.’ This event is also a celebration of the dynamic, vital and innovative publishing of the Feminist Press.” Highly recommended. 7PM, FREE. And, Paragraph hosts an evening with short story writers Matthew Klam and Nam Le, followed by a reception. 8:30PM, FREE.

SAT Feb 2: The sexy-now-that-it’s-sold-out Association of Writers & Writing Program (AWP) Conference will be open to the public on Saturday. Don’t miss your chance to make out with a poet. (Thanks to Richard for the tip!).

SUN Feb 3: Yesterday I stumbled into Bowne & Co. Stationers, a part of the South Street Seaport Museum but also a fully functioning shop, and it’s a bibliophile’s dream. The printer showed me a limited edition letterpress reproduction made for a Dublin artist of a poster advertising the sale of the contents of Oscar Wilde’s home; I also found the perfect Walt Whitman cards, and some others with all manner of literary quotes (Zelda Fitzgerald on love!), Melville poetry, and an exquisite hand-printed book of Emily Dickinson poems that took my breath away.

The Smart Set is a weekly feature, compiled and posted by Lauren Cerand, that usually appears Mondays at 12:30pm and highlights the best of the week to come. Special favor is given to New York’s independent booksellers and venues, and low-cost and free events. Please send details to Ms. Cerand at lauren [at] maudnewton.com by the Thursday prior to publication. Due to the volume of submissions, events cannot be considered unless the date appears in the subject line of your message.

MON Jan 21: Brooklyn Independent presents an evening of short films from the next edition of Wholphin, McSweeney’s DVD magazine. Too bad it doesn’t include the one about Selma Blair’s vagina that I so enjoyed. 7PM, FREE. Downtown on Maiden Lane, the charming cafe known as KLATCH displays Andy Jurinko’s totally genius “Twelve Portraits of Adriana Lima” (which reminds me of an experimental epic poem about an archetypal heroine named Petra Nemcova that I publicized a while back). Through February 8.

TUE Jan 22: Free Food for Millionaires author Min Jin Lee makes an appearance at Shin Choi in SoHo, in an evening presented by the Korean American Community Foundation and the Asian Women’s Giving Circle. 6:30PM; Seating is limited, so RSVP (required) to John Rhee [email protected] or 201-670-1198 [Full disclosure, as always: Lee is one of my publicity clients]. And, Ron Hogan introduces novelist Adam Langer, who reads from his new novel, Ellington Boulevard, at the Strand, with a reception to follow. 7PM, FREE.

WED Jan 23: The author of the much-anticipated novel that hipster publisher Jamie Byng termed “the hottest début novel on the planet,” reads as part of Jami Attenberg’s buzz-centric Class of 2008 Reading Series. In Brooklyn, Tony A. says, “the next Littoral, which will happen on 1/23, at 8pm, at the OA Can Factory, per usual. It will feature the poets Hal Sirowitz, Mike Topp, and a solo musical performance from ubiquitous polymath Cory McAbee, of Billy Nayer Show and American Astronaut fame.”

THU Jan 24: Rush Arts Gallery presents an opening reception for “A Day in the Life: a Collection of Photographs Taken by the Young Women of GEMS.” “GEMS provides preventive and transitional services to young women, ages 12-21 years, who are at risk for or involved in sexual exploitation and violence… GEMS was founded in January 1999 in response to the overwhelming need for services for young women at-risk for, or involved in, sexual exploitation who were slipping through the cracks of traditional agencies.” Highly recommended. 6-8PM, FREE. At Film Forum, the highly influential Last Night in Marienbad shows through the end of the month.

FRI Jan 25: If you haven’t seen “Lucian Freud: The Painter’s Etchings,” easily my favorite exhibition in a while, at MoMA, shake a leg already! And, the week-long Isadora Duncan dance intensive that I am taking at the 92nd Street Y evidently culminates in a “Fridays at Noon” performance.

SAT Jan 26: The restaurant of which I’ve said, “I like to eat Australian food like a piglet, and so I go to Tuck Shop quite a lot,” hosts Australian Day! Not to be missed.

SUN Jan 27: KGB Sunday Night Fiction presents an evening with Hard Case Crime authors. Highly recommended. 7PM, FREE.

HOTLANTA READERS, take note: I love the sound of the Baby Got Books Reading Series Volume I, happening this Wednesday in Decatur. Check it out.

The Smart Set is a weekly feature, compiled and posted by Lauren Cerand, that usually appears Mondays at 12:30pm and highlights the best of the week to come. Special favor is given to New York’s independent booksellers and venues, and low-cost and free events. Please send details to Ms. Cerand at lauren [at] maudnewton.com by the Thursday prior to publication. Due to the volume of submissions, events cannot be considered unless the date appears in the subject line of your message.

MONDAY Jan 14: The Poetry Project presents Jeni Olin and James Hoff. 8PM, $8. At Galapagos, Monday Night Burlesque presents Darlinda Just Darlinda. And, “‘Glimpses of the Moon’ is the first original musical created specifically for the intimate wood-paneled Oak Room of the Algonquin Hotel…It is one of Edith Wharton’s few comedies, though not without its share of heartaches.”

TUESDAY Jan 15: “Let’s start by getting clear on what weakness of the will is…” Agnes Callard discusses “Two Ways to be Moved” at NYU. Presented by the Philosophy Department. 4PM.

WEDNESDAY Jan 16: Rick Whitaker’s SIP LIT, “a monthly series of readings in a café,” presents Dorothy Gallagher and Karl Roloff. At Sip, 998 Amsterdam Avenue between 109th and 110th Streets on the Upper West Side. Highly recommended. 8PM, FREE. In Brooklyn, Bookcourt hosts an appearance by debut novelist Evan Fallenberg for Light Fell, “A story about fathers and sons, faith and sexuality.” 7PM, FREE.

THURSDAY Jan 17: The Metropolitan Museum of Art says of its new exhibition, blog.mode: “Inspired by both the immediacy and the democracy of the blog format, this exhibition is intended to provide a platform for the opinions of our visitors—both in the galleries and online.” Downtown, Anthology Film Archives screens Reha Erdem’s “Times and Winds/Bes Vakit” — “The director’s fourth feature recounts the dreams and desires of villagers whose simple lives are regulated by the calls to prayer that divide the day (and the film) into five sections (the Turkish title literally translates as ‘five times’).”

FRIDAY Jan 18: Girls Write Now’s 10th Anniversary Winter Reading promises an evening with young writers and the women who inspire them, at downtown landmark John Street Church [Full disclosure, as always: I helped put together this event]. 7PM, $10 suggested.

SATURDAY Jan 19: As good as it gets for me on a Saturday night… “Balanchine’s World” at the New York City Ballet.

SUNDAY Jan 20: The first Sunday Salon of the year features Ellis Avery, Carole Novack, Nicole Fix and Ann Vogle. I am a big fan of reading series in neighborhoods otherwise underserved by them (in this case, East Williamsburg), so this one’s highly recommended, too. At author-owned Stain Bar. 7PM, FREE.

The Smart Set is a weekly feature, compiled and posted by Lauren Cerand, that usually appears Mondays at 12:30pm and highlights the best of the week to come. Special favor is given to New York’s independent booksellers and venues, and low-cost and free events. Please send details to Ms. Cerand at lauren [at] maudnewton.com by the Thursday prior to publication. Due to the volume of submissions, events cannot be considered unless the date appears in the subject line of your message.

TUESDAY Jan 8: Gabriel Cohen says: ” I’d like to invite you to a reading/happy hour event I’m doing in Central Park on Tuesday, January 8. It’s free, and there will be refreshments, and the location sounds pretty cool—in a building right next to the Harlem Meer, the little lake at the northeast end of Central Park. I’ll be reading from my new books The Graving Dock and Boombox, and there will be time to mingle and schmooze after. It will be presented by the Central Park Conservancy as part of their Harlem Meer Social Hour series, and also by Reading New York, an ongoing series from La Lutta NMC. The event will run from 6:30-8 p.m. at the Charles A. Dana Discovery Center, just inside the park at 110th Street between Fifth Avenue and Malcolm X Boulevard/Lenox Ave.”

WEDNESDAY Jan 9: Jami Attenberg reads from her new novel, The Kept Man, at Barnes & Noble Chelsea. 7PM, FREE. Also, there’s a Bonjour Tristesse/Saint Joan double-bill at Film Forum. Yes yes.

THURSDAY Jan 10: “Upstairs at the Square” returns, with Eoin Colfer (Artemis Fowl) and Nicole Atkins & The Sea [Full disclosure, as always: I am very involved with this series]. 7PM, FREE. Plus, in the “Glaringly apparent questions I wish I’d asked every guy I had a crush on between the ages of about 19 - 23″ category, “Anarchists and Marxists believe it possible to do away with the state, but what then would take its place?” Ruminate moodily on our dystopian future (and make me love you forever, oh boys of the Black bloc) at Bluestockings. 7PM, FREE.

FRIDAY Jan 11: Ayres & Tittsworth, the DJ duo behind “Old Bay Seasoning,” “Balmer Loosies” and other instant classics (The Jeffersons theme, remixed!), bring the beats from Baltimore and beyond to Brooklyn’s Studio B. 10PM, $10.

SATURDAY Jan 12:

SUNDAY Jan 13: Sundays at Sunny’s features Joshua Furst (The Sabotage Cafe , Short People), Francis Morrone (An Architectural Guidebook to Brooklyn) and Rebecca Pawel (Death of a Nationalist, The Summer Snow). The curating philosophy as I understand it is to make the readers so different that attendees are guaranteed to enjoy some aspect of the event. I often enjoy that there is booze and food and I can stuff my silly little face while listening quietly. Highly recommended (obviously). 3PM, “Suggested donation: $4. The bar (cash) will be open. Free coffee and Italian pastries and cookies will be provided.”

Note to Washington, DC, area readers: I’ll be discussing my work as part of the WNBA’s “Promotion and Publicity for New Authors” on Monday, January 14.

The Smart Set is a weekly feature, compiled by Lauren Cerand, that usually appears Mondays at 12:30pm and highlights the best of the week to come. Special favor is given to New York’s independent booksellers and venues, and low-cost and free events. Please send details to lauren [at] maudnewton.com by the Thursday prior to publication, with the date in the subject line.

MONDAY, 12.10: Acclaimed poet Alice Fulton reads at the 11th Street Bar. 7:30PM, FREE. And, Silvana Paternostro reads from My Colombian War at the Half King. 7PM, FREE.

TUESDAY, 12.11: “Please join Francine du Plessix Gray, Edith Grossman, Shirley Hazzard, Richard Howard, J. D. McClatchy, Charles McGrath, Gregory Rabassa, David Remnick, and C. K. Williams in this celebration of poet and translator Robert Fagles’s repeated success in illuminating the ground between ‘the features of an ancient author and the expectations of a contemporary reader.’” 7PM, $15. See also: Wednesday’s tribute to Grace Paley.

WEDNESDAY, 12.12: Highlights include PAGE, Mixer, Happy Ending.
 

Plus, next week:

WEDNESDAY, 12.19: Tony Antoniadis of Littoral says, “It’s one of our strongest bills, stripped down to one writer and one musician, to keep the signal to noise ratio optimally high: Kenneth Goldsmith and C. Spencer Yeh.” At Issue Project Room at the (OA) Can Factory in “Beautiful Gowanus, Brooklyn.” 8PM, $10. And, on the Upper West Side, “SIP LIT, a monthly series of readings in a café (Sip, 998 Amsterdam Avenue between 109th and 110th Streets), presents poet Sarah Arvio and novelist Peter Cameron.” 8PM, FREE.

“Maxx Klaxon is one of 50 musicians recently invited to re-dub a segment of ‘Mago,’ a spectacular, bizarre, and nudity-laden Korean art movie that tells a mythological story of the creation and fall of the human race. New Yorkers can catch exclusive screenings of the the film (with its new soundtrack) next week at Monkeytown, Brooklyn’s unique cinema/restaurant/bar/performance space. ‘Mago’ will be shown on Wednesday, December 19, at 7:30 pm and 10 pm; the screening is free (but Monkeytown has a $10 minimum). It will also run on Friday, December 21, at 7:30 pm, with a $5 cover in addition to the minimum.”
 

Anytime:

• Cafe Katja, “a quiet little place to have a drink or two,” aka, the bar equivalent of my favorite song;

• The Unicorn Tapestries;

• Pioneering photojournalist “Gerda Taro” at ICP

• Books at the movies: Atonement, The Golden Compass, No Country for Old Men, et al.

The Smart Set will return in the New Year. Happy Holidays!

Soundtrack to this post: South African indie rockers Dirty Skirts, “Is This It.”

The Smart Set is a weekly feature, compiled by Lauren Cerand, that usually appears Mondays at 12:30pm and highlights the best of the week to come. Special favor is given to New York’s independent booksellers and venues, and low-cost and free events. Please send details to lauren [at] maudnewton.com by the Thursday prior to publication, with the date in the subject line.

MONDAY, 12:3: Brooklyn Independent film series presents a screening of the short film, “Henry Miller: Asleep & Awake,” with the documentary feature, “The Outsider of New Orleans: Loujon Press,” which tells the story of “Louise “Gypsy Lou” Webb, now well into her nineties, tells the story of how she and her husband Jon Webb published the avant-garde literary magazine The Outsider from a small apartment in the French Quarter in the early 1960’s.” Highly, highly recommended. 7PM, FREE.

TUESDAY, 12.4: At NYU’s La Maison Francaise, a roundtable discussion of “Publishing French Fiction and Nonfiction in the U.S., featuring Olivier Nora (Editions Grasset), Eric Vigne (Editions Gallimard), Lucinda Carter (French Publishers’ Agency) and Jennifer Crewe (Columbia University Press).” 2:30PM, FREE. At the Bowery Poetry Club’s Book-In-Hand Reading Group, which meets on Tuesdays in the Workshop Room, “The group is currently reading poetry by Pablo Neruda. After that we will continue reading poems by Shakespeare and perhaps move on to The Odyssey of Homer as translated by Rodney Merrill. Everyone welcome.” 5:30 - 7PM, FREE.

WEDNESDAY, 12.5: At the PAGE series, which is practically an enchantment machine, Alexander Chee (Edinburgh), Scott Snyder (Voodoo Heart) and Joshua Clark (Heart Like Water) read from their new work at the National Arts Club. Free, with drinks and snacks, jacket required.

THURSDAY, 12.6: Dance Theater Workshop presents The Barnard Project, “a culmination of choreographic residencies.” 7:30PM, $20. And, Carnegie Hall presents a “Neighborhood Concert” with Hüsnü Senlendirici and the Gypsy All-Stars. 8PM, FREE.

FRIDAY, 12.7: As part of “The Writers World, a new series of international writing, editor Edward Hirsch introduces editors Eavan Boland, Margaret Sayers Peden, and Adam Zagajewski, who will read from the first three books from the Trinity University Press series, featuring Irish, Mexican and Polish writers on writing.” 7PM, FREE. Also on Friday evening, a closing party for “Rude Boys,” a show of watercolors by my fave new artist, Dan Sabau, who I am buying a painting from this week! Noted for literary types, “There will be absinth, so people will be tripping! I don’t think it’s the real kind of absinth, so I think people will be faking tripping.” At Fox & Fawn from 5 - 8PM, FREE.

SATURDAY, 12.8: Forget logos, expand the definition of locavore and make a pledge to buy handmade. One good place to start: “La Superette is an annual event, an art sale held around the holiday season in December. We organize a temporary store where artists sell functional art in multiples at affordable prices. In addition to the sale there are performances and video screenings that run throughout the day.” Another: 20×200. Downtown, local temple of cerebral consumption, Project No. 8 is currently having a holiday sale with most items 20% off. Surely the someone on your list who has everything lusts after 16 Months Worth of Drawing Exercises in Microsoft Excel.

SUNDAY, 12.9: As part of KGB’s now-classic Sunday Night Fiction Series, Deb Olin Unferth and Anne Landsman read from new work [Full disclosure, as always: I’m publicizing Anne’s new novel, The Rowing Lesson]. 7PM, FREE.

The Smart Set is a weekly feature, compiled by Lauren Cerand, that usually appears Mondays at 12:30pm and highlights the best of the week to come. Special favor is given to New York’s independent booksellers and venues, and low-cost and free events. Please send details to lauren [at] maudnewton.com by the Thursday prior to publication, with the date in the subject line.

MONDAY, 11:26: Monday afternoon, Herve This, who “lives in France but will be in New York City for two days… [and] is a kind of celebrity chef in France known for his inventive mix of science and cooking,” appears at the Experimental Cuisine Collective to discuss his Kitchen Mysteries: Revealing the Science of Cooking. 4PM, FREE. Monday evening, Brooklyn Writers Space Reading Series presents Jennifer Cody Epstein, Rachael Stark, Martha Schwendener and Rachel Urquhart, at Park Slope’s Union Hall, (Downstairs) 702 Union Street @ 5th Ave. 7PM, FREE.

TUESDAY, 11.27: The afore-mentioned Herve This discusses his work at the James Beard House. 1PM, $20 (”but free for students”). On Tuesday evening, Gabriel Cohen, author of the newly published Red Hook-based mystery, The Graving Dock, is feted “by PortSide NewYork, the waterfront-themed nonprofit organization that recently had a smash hit with sold-out productions of a Puccini opera staged aboard their tanker the Mary Whalen in Red Hook. This second event in PortSide’s new H2O Arts Series will take place in GMD Shipyard in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and will feature a reading by yours truly, a multimedia sound and light show about the harbor, food and beverages, and a rare chance to talk to shipyard workers and to peer into an actual graving dock. Cosponsors include New York Magazine and BookCourt bookstore. Admission is $10.” 6:30 - 8:30PM, full details here.

WEDNESDAY, 11.28: Amanda Stern’s Happy Ending Reading Series, which could be subtitled “Never a Dud,” presents an evening with Matt Marinovich, Jessy Randall and Sarah Schulman, with music from Dave Doobinin. Doors open at 7, event starts promptly at 8; FREE.

THURSDAY, 11.29: Edwidge Danticat reads from her latest, Brother, I’m Dying, at the Barnes & Noble Union Square location. 7PM, FREE.

FRIDAY, 11.30: At The Strand, “Dave Eggers will share a slideshow presentation of his last trip to the Sudan, answer audience questions and then sign copies of his books [including What is the What] for the audience.” 7PM, FREE.

SATURDAY, 12.1: The New York Center for Independent Publishing (formerly the Small Press Center) kicks off the 20th Annual Independent and Small Press Book Fair, a weekend-long program of topical discussions, workshops and events. I’ll be speaking on a panel about PR on Saturday. Also that afternoon: Ian McKaye of Fugazi fame on independent culture.

SUNDAY, 12.2: From November 30 - December 13, Film Forum celebrates the essential work of Ousmane Sembene: “Africa’s foremost filmmaker, Ousmane Sembène (1923-2007) directed not only the first African feature film, but also the continent’s first color movie and the first shot in an indigenous language. Booted out of school in Senegal in his early teens, Sembène joined the Senegalese sharpshooters of the Free French for a four-year stint of fighting across Africa, France, and Germany. Demobilized, he joined a mammoth West African railroad strike, became a shipyard union activist in Marseilles, began to write and, by the early 60s, was recognized as a major African novelist. But pushing forty, and realizing that literature had a limited audience in Africa, he went back to (film) school, with his efforts winning awards at festivals around the world and bringing international attention to sub-Saharan African cinema. In his nine features he was not only a sharp critic of the internal problems of modern Africa, but also a passionate advocate of African pride and autonomy.” Sunday’s screening is Moolaade, set “In a remote Burkina Faso village, [as] the impending mass ceremony of female circumcision goes wrong…” Highly recommended.

UPCOMING: C’est Duckie!

The Smart Set is a weekly feature, compiled by Lauren Cerand, that usually appears Mondays at 12:30pm and highlights the best of the week to come. Special favor is given to New York’s independent booksellers and venues, and low-cost and free events. Please send details to lauren [at] maudnewton.com by the Thursday prior to publication, with the date in the subject line.

MONDAY, 11.19: “In Lost Paradise: A Novel, eminent Dutch novelist Cees Nooteboom weaves an imaginative tale of two unrelated travelers—a beautiful stranger aboard a Berlin-bound flight and a haggard-looking man on a Holland train platform…” Monday evening he discusses his work with Paul Holdengräber as part of the LIVE from the NYPL series. 7PM, $15. Downtown, David Kitt continues his residency at R Bar.

As for the rest of the week, Mara’s Homemade is serving TurDuckEn. The Smart Set returns next Monday.

The Smart Set is a weekly feature, compiled by Lauren Cerand, that usually appears Mondays at 12:30pm and highlights the best of the week to come. Special favor is given to New York’s independent booksellers and venues, and low-cost and free events. Please send details to lauren [at] maudnewton.com by the Thursday prior to publication, with the date in the subject line.

My access to the internet is out at home so I’m at a cafe for the moment, and The Smart Set will have to wait until I can once again work in the surroundings to which I’ve become accustomed. Until Tuesday evening or Wednesday morning, you might console yourself as I have by working through the stack in your film queue– the latest in mine being Tennessee Williams/Elia Kazan’s Baby Doll, featuring “some people of Benoit, Mississippi.” On being offered a pecan: “I’d… never eat a nut that had been cracked in a man’s mouth.” “You have many… refinements.”

The Smart Set is a weekly feature, compiled by Lauren Cerand, that usually appears Mondays at 12:30pm and highlights the best of the week to come. Special favor is given to New York’s independent booksellers and venues, and low-cost and free events. Please send details to lauren [at] maudnewton.com by the Thursday prior to publication, with the date in the subject line.

MONDAY, 11.5: Downtown, the Sierra Club presents a talk by author Daniel Lerch on “Post Carbon Cities,” at John Street Church. 6:30PM, FREE. Uptown, at the 92nd Street Y, readings by David Markson and Will Self are introduced by Anne Beattie and Rick Moody (who will not be reading). 8PM, ticket prices vary.

TUESDAY, 11.6: Talents II, the second in a series of exhibitions showcasing new photography and art criticism from Berlin, opens at the Goethe-Institut, with an opening from 6:30 - 8:30PM, following an artist talk at 5PM. Both events are free and open to the public [Full disclosure, as always: I am the publicist for this exhibition, as well as the Goethe-Institut’s new media documentary project, 1000stories.com].

WEDNESDAY, 11.7: Barnes & Noble presents the last show in its “Upstairs at the Square” series until 2008, featuring Nellie McKay, whose new album is Obligatory Villagers , and Antonio Monda, whose new book is Do You Believe? (although the New York Times Book Review may have described him as “the most well-connected New York cultural figure you’ve never heard of,” you may recognize Monda from Wes Anderson’s The Life Aquatic, in which he played himself), performing and discussing their work with host Katherine Lanpher [Full disclosure, as always: I am very involved with this series]. 7PM, FREE.

THURSDAY, 11.8: Author Ed Hamilton reads from his new book, Legends of the Chelsea Hotel, at 192 Books. Highly recommended. 7PM, FREE.

FRIDAY, 11.9: Paragraph presents an evening with authors Peter Godwin, whose new book is When A Crocodile Eats the Sun: A Memoir of Africa, and Anne Landsman, whose new novel The Rowing Lesson, is set in her native South Africa [Full disclosure, as always: I am delighted to be working with Anne to publicize her new novel, and I helped put together this event]. Reception with the authors to follow the reading. 8PM, FREE.

SATURDAY, 11.10: At the Museum of Modern Art, “50 Years of Helvetica” is currently on view.

SUNDAY, 11.11: Hey hippies, make a wish. As for actual plans, I’m been known to be partial to impromptu six o’clock martinis at the St. Regis. An even better reason to go to midtown: FIAF’s weekend festival “Beur is Beautiful: Maghrebi-French Filmmaking.”

The Smart Set is a weekly feature, compiled by Lauren Cerand, that usually appears Mondays at 12:30pm and highlights the best of the week to come. Special favor is given to New York’s independent booksellers and venues, and low-cost and free events. Please send details to lauren [at] maudnewton.com by the Thursday prior to publication, with the date in the subject line.

I look at the week this week and I think: blah, so I am dedicating this week’s edition instead to genteel misbehavior… the Surrealist in me wants one of these… “One sent a funeral wreath when she told him she didn’t love him.” That’s clever.… Let’s all “dwell in our own enchantment,” to paraphrase Ben Okri, and have another go next Monday… In the meantime, I’m instituting the first Smart Set poll: do you agree with Cocteau that “poetry is a machine for the manufacture of love”? (via)

The Smart Set is a weekly feature, compiled by Lauren Cerand, that usually appears Mondays at 12:30pm and highlights the best of the week to come. Special favor is given to New York’s independent booksellers and venues, and low-cost and free events. Please send details to lauren [at] maudnewton.com by the Thursday prior to publication, with the date in the subject line.

MONDAY, 10.15: In possibly the most promisingly smashing event I’ve ever planned, out-of-towners and delinquency specialists Dallas Hudgens (Drive Like Hell, Season of Gene) and Patrick Hughes (Diary of Indignities) take the stage at The Reader’s Room at Mo Pitkin’s, allegedly closing next week. I suppose it’ll be just as well when we get done with the place [Full disclosure, as always: Dallas is one of my PR clients]. Join us! 7PM, one-drink minimum.

TUESDAY, 10.16: Bestselling British author Nick Hornby, whose new novel is geared towards a Young Adult audience for the first time, and musical guest, singer-songwriter Josh Rouse, appear Upstairs at the Square to perform and discuss their work with host Katherine Lanpher [Full disclosure, as always: I am very involved with this project]. 7PM, FREE. And Dallas Hudgens finishes up his tour of New York by guest-hosting The Jeffrey Leonard Invitational, aka NYC Sports Trivia Night. As for “Name this mustache,” I’m gonna go with Terry Richardson. 8PM, FREE.

WEDNESDAY, 10.17: Having just spent nearly two weeks in Tokyo, I have to admit the following lecture, “Multilateralism in Asia: Measuring Risk & Rewards for the U.S. & Japan,” sounds pretty rad. I’d go if I weren’t such a jetlagged vampire this week. 5:30PM, $15. See also: “Butoh rebels” Senmichinae Blue Sky Dance Club at P.S. 122 this weekend.

THURSDAY, 10.18: Girls Write Now, “a nonprofit volunteer mentoring organization that has been matching bright, creative teenage girls from New York City’s public high schools with professional women writers in the community since 1998,” kicks off a celebration of ten years of innovative programming with a party at the Slipper Room featuring Janice Erlbaum, Tayari Jones and Royal Pink [Full disclosure, as always: I am the vice chair of the board of directors, and put this event together] 7PM, FREE.

FRIDAY, 10.19: The Kara Walker show at the Whitney is essential.

SATURDAY, 10.20: Looker, a band that makes even life after shambolic relationships sound great– “I used to live in Paris, now I live in New York, sippin’ on Pernod, after my divorce…” – plays a “CMJ Loft Party in Gowanus.” Go meet someone to break up with! 10PM, FREE.

SUNDAY, 10.21: Sunday Salon, a writers’ writers series if there ever was one, presents an evening with Anne Landsman, Dexter Jeffries, Nora Maynard and Brett Berk [Full disclosure, as always: I’m delighted to be working with Anne to publicize her forthcoming novel, The Rowing Lesson]. 7PM, FREE.

If I were in London this Friday & Saturday: “Sublime: A Symposium to mark the 250th Anniversary of the Publication of Burke’s ‘Philosophical Inquiry’,” like, for sure.

The Smart Set is a weekly feature, compiled by Lauren Cerand, that usually appears Mondays at 12:30pm and highlights the best of the week to come. Special favor is given to New York’s independent booksellers and venues, and low-cost and free events. Please send details to lauren [at] maudnewton.com by the Thursday prior to publication, with the date in the subject line.

MONDAY, 9.24: Uptown, Don DeLillo reads at the 92nd Street Y. 8PM, $10-18. Downtown, at McNally Robinson: “Semiotext(e) is an independent publisher founded in 1974 in an effort to bridge the worlds of French radical theory and intellectual and cultural world of New York; today it publishes American and European fiction and nonfiction with an outsider bent. Two of Semiotext(e)’s debut authors read from radical new novels this evening. Mexico City native Veronica Gonzalez’s debut novel Twin Time spans the dusty hills of Los Angeles and the glittering nightlife of Mexico City in a sensuous tale of an orphaned woman’s quest to discover her long-lost twin brother. New Yorker Masha Tupitsyn’s Beauty Talk & Monsters is a debut series of stories as told through the movies; her narrator, a female loner and traveler, confronts a lineage of familiar icons, myths, and on and off-screen cinematic excess in order to challenge the silver screen’s century of power over our dreams and ideals.” 7PM, FREE.

TUESDAY, 9.25: “Columbia University Press is pleased to co-sponsor a free poetry reading celebrating the publication of I Speak of the City: Poems of New York. The event is also being sponsored by The Poetry Society of America and the Times Square Alliance. The event will take place at the Times Square Visitors Information Center, located at 1560 Broadway.” With Gerald Stern, Kevin Coval, Samuel Menashe, Andrea Carter Brown, Tom Sleigh, Harvey Shapiro, and Grace Schulman. 7PM, FREE.

WEDNESDAY, 9.26: Gotham Chamber Opera presents Maria de Buenos Aires: “Labeled a tango operita by its composer, María de Buenos Aires is a unique amalgam of music, dance, and spoken word. In it, Maria’s life, motherhood, and violent death are expressed through singing, dancing, and poetry intoned over orchestral tangos.” 7:30PM, $30-70.

THURSDAY, 9.27: The Goethe-Institut New York hosts “New Yorkers Wanted: the 1000Stories Launch Party,” featuring filmmaker Florian Thalhofer, DJ Maxx Klaxon (SPLICE, Popular Front Records), projections by video artist Katja Loher, and more. Admission is FREE, and all are invited (RSVP to [email protected]). 6:30-9PM [Full disclosure, as always: 1000stories.com is my newest publicity project, and I planned this party; or, free booze, tell your friends].

FRIDAY, 9.28: Besides anything coconut-flavored and unadulterated luxury, opera is pretty much my favorite thing in the world. “With their authentic depictions of everyday life, Pietro Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana (Rustic Chivalry) and Ruggero Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci (The Clowns) exemplify the Verismo movement in opera. Today this famed double bill remains one of opera’s most electrifying hits. City Opera’s exciting new production by imaginative director Stephen Lawless stars Anna Maria Chiuri, Brandon Jovanovich, Carl Tanner, and Maria Kanyova, and is inspired by masterworks of 20th-century Italian cinema like Visconti’s Ossessione and Rossellini’s Rome, Open City. Where love ignites, jealousy will burn. Two tales of two-timers, Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci tell stories of passion, rejection, betrayal, and the fatal consequences of vengeance unleashed. ” 8PM, tickets as cheap as $30.

SATURDAY, 9.29: At avant-garde creative space Chez Bushwick, “FORCE MAJEURE: New Dance From Paris. Alexandre Roccoli. ‘The Unbecoming Solo’”. Presented in conjunction with Crossing the Line: FIAF Fall Festival, a multidisciplinary program of theater, dance, music, visual arts and film celebrating cross cultural artistic exchange between France and New York City.

SUNDAY, 9.30: The best explanation for a brilliant career– ‘It started 40 years ago in Venice, after lunch with a bottle of wine I had to myself.’ Provoking Magic: Lighting of Ingo Maurer is currently on view at the Cooper-Hewitt.

Please note: The Smart Set returns the week of October 15th with a bang, as Dallas Hudgens and Patrick “Bad News” Hughes take over The Reader’s Room [full disclosure, as always: Dallas is one of my PR clients; also, if the drink specials are good, the night could end with Maud and me breaking out some heartfelt country like we’re always fixin’ to… then again, that could happen this Thursday].

The Smart Set is a weekly feature, compiled by Lauren Cerand, that usually appears Mondays at 12:30pm and highlights the best of the week to come. Special favor is given to New York’s independent booksellers and venues, and low-cost and free events. Please send details to lauren [at] maudnewton.com by the Thursday prior to publication, with the date in the subject line.

MONDAY, 9.17: Even if I weren’t going to Japan at the end of the month, Monday evening’s reading of Tokyo Year Zero by David Peace at 192 Books would still be a must-do… “In 2003 he was named one of Granta’s Best Young British Novelists. He moved to Japan in his early 20s to teach English and never went back to the UK. He tried for several years to to make a go of being a hard core punk musician and then turned to writing.” The novel, his first published in the U.S., and praised for its “complex style” by Publisher’s Weekly, sounds all kinds of brilliant. Highly recommended. 7PM, FREE.

The rest of the ‘Set will be posted Tuesday at 12:30PM.

The Smart Set is a weekly feature, compiled by Lauren Cerand, that usually appears Mondays at 12:30pm and highlights the best of the week to come. Special favor is given to New York’s independent booksellers and venues, and low-cost and free events. Please send details to lauren [at] maudnewton.com by the Thursday prior to publication, with the date in the subject line.

MONDAY, 9.10: Definitely spend today figuring out how to get on the list for this: “First up on the fall calendar is a completely new event — an art performance by bad-boy bohemian Aaron Young, who plans to cover the floor of the drill hall with 288 panels of plywood, forming a 128 x 72 foot “canvas” of fluorescent red, pink, orange and yellow paint, all covered with an opaque coat of black. In an invite-only performance scheduled for Sept. 17, 2007, ten motorcycle riders are going to make patterns of “burnouts” on the wood. The massive artwork is inspired by the 1943 Jackson Pollock action painting Greeting Card, and remains on view Sept. 18-23, 2007. The event is co-presented by the Art Production Fund” (quoted via Artnet).

TUESDAY, 9.11: Paul Auster’s The Inner Life of Martin Frost is showing at IFC. I haven’t seen it so I can’t vouch for it per se, but it looks good. I have, however, seen This is England twice.

WEDNESDAY, 9.12: “At King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center at NYU, a reading and discussion of Mexico: A Traveler’s Literary Companion, an anthology of Mexican fiction and literary prose with works by some of Mexico’s best-known authors. With editor C.M. Mayo, writers Monica Lavin and Pedro Angel Palou, and translators Harry Morales and Daniel Shapiro.” Recommended. 6PM, FREE.

THURSDAY, 9.13: “Upstairs at the Square” returns from its summer hiatus with Craig Finn of The Hold Steady and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, author of Half of a Yellow Sun [Full disclosure as always: I am very involved in this project] 7PM, FREE.

FRIDAY, 9.14: Alison Lurie and Kate Blackwell read as part of the excellent Paragraph Reading Series, with wine and cheese reception with the authors to follow. Highly recommended. 8PM, FREE.

WEEKEND: In New York: Brooklyn Book Festival, Sunday Salon, THE2NDHAND Mixtape NYC: Stories About Songs. Me, I’m going to Omaha!

The Smart Set is a weekly feature, compiled by Lauren Cerand, that usually appears Mondays at 12:30pm and highlights the best of the week to come. Special favor is given to New York’s independent booksellers and venues, and low-cost and free events. Please send details to lauren [at] maudnewton.com by the Thursday prior to publication, with the date in the subject line.

As you can tell, we’re easing into this whole fall thing. The only thing I can fit on the calendar this week is Maxx Klaxon’s show at the Knitting Factory on Saturday night, which is a must-do. Maud and I have been texting each other prospective t-shirt slogans all week: “I go down easy,” “Maxx say Relaxx”… I’m also contemplating my look for the season — “louche beatnik mermaid meets Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, per usual” would be nicely enhanced with the scent of “Love in the Time of Cholera, with Geek Love base notes.” If only such a fragrance existed! Sigh.

The Smart Set is a weekly feature, compiled by Lauren Cerand, that usually appears Mondays at 12:30pm and highlights the best of the week to come. Special favor is given to New York’s independent booksellers and venues, and low-cost and free events. Please send details to lauren [at] maudnewton.com by the Thursday prior to publication, with the date in the subject line.

As of this writing on Sunday evening, I’m still in the country where I’ve been helping out jen bekman at Scope Hamptons, and so Le Smart Set will be postponed until later…ish (It’s been really fascinating. Naturally there were the teeming hordes of the scary tanned and cheesy-rich for the most part and everything is so exey I wanna die, but I also got to discuss the fascination with nature that emerged following the Industrial Revolution as one possible explanation for the mythic animal imagery that’s so hot right now in contemporary art, e.g. “She-Wolf #9,” and I’ve been swimming in the evenings under a starry sky). Until then, check out this artist whose work I saw in another booth on Saturday– Harland Miller does these dead clever paintings of book covers. My favorite: Incurable Romantic Seeks Dirty Filth Whore. Of course.

The Smart Set is a weekly feature, compiled by Lauren Cerand, that usually appears Mondays at 12:30pm and highlights the best of the week to come. Special favor is given to New York’s independent booksellers and venues, and low-cost and free events. Please send details to lauren [at] maudnewton.com by the Thursday prior to publication, with the date in the subject line.

MONDAY, 7.23: Break out your umbrella and hop, skip and otherwise puddle-dodge your way over to Mo Pitkin’s for The Reader’s Room for, “Stacy Grenrock Woods, who will be reading from her just published memoir I, CALIFORNIA (Scribner). Our series convenes each Monday night at 7:00 pm. It’s called “The Reader’s Room: Where Writers Take Center Stage” for very specific reasons: the actual stage and intimate, classy, yet unassuming performance space where our writers can read with the respect and attention they deserve. Stacey Grenrock Woods was born in a hospital on Ventura Boulevard. After a brief child-acting. career (during which she met both Ricky Schroder and Jason Bateman), she worked in record stores, posed for a Playboy centerfold that was never published, was an usherette at Universal Studios Theme Park, and dropped out of college. She has been a Daily Show correspondent and played a recurring character on Arrested Development. Stacey is now a contributing editor for Esquire, where she writes a monthly sex column, and she has published articles in Allure; O, The Oprah Magazine; and the Utne Reader, among many other magazines.” 7PM, one drink minimum (how much do I love an event where drinking is required? LOTS).

You know the drill: the rest of the ‘Set will be up at half midnight or half noon tomorrow. In the meantime, I’m going back to reading interviews with inspiring artists (”Create, don’t imitate. And go for it!”) and wishing that I had more disposable income for keeping this calligrapher on retainer and every park I might possibly wander by and into fully stocked with these.

The Smart Set is a weekly feature, compiled by Lauren Cerand, that usually appears Mondays at 12:30pm and highlights the best of the week to come. Special favor is given to New York’s independent booksellers and venues, and low-cost and free events. Please send details to lauren [at] maudnewton.com by the Thursday prior to publication, with the date in the subject line.

THE ‘I HAVE A HEART, BUT IT’S BAD’ EDITION

There will be no Smart Set this week because Maud and I are working on our version of the single most brilliant song in the history of sound (you think I’m kidding but you probably haven’t heard it yet): “Down Low” by Teddy Thompson (feat. vocals by Jenni Muldaur, aka “the Tammy to his George”). I could easily write an essay about the exquisite moral ambivalence, frustrated Romantic anguish and perfect cultural relevance of this one; instead I’ll say: But I’m only a man, and my pride makes me mad…

The Smart Set is a weekly feature, compiled by Lauren Cerand, that usually appears Mondays at 12:30pm and highlights the best of the week to come. Special favor is given to New York’s independent booksellers and venues, and low-cost and free events. Please send details to lauren [at] maudnewton.com by the Thursday prior to publication, with the date in the subject line.

MONDAY, JULY 9: What are you doing tonight? Anything fun?

TUESDAY, JULY 10: Via New York Brain Terrain, “going through July 29th, BAM will be hosting Signore & Signore, a showcase featuring the great actresses of Italian film… This survey covers a remarkable range of styles, encompassing the verbal fireworks of Anna Magnani, the innocence of Giulietta Masina, and the beauty of Claudia Cardinale and Sophia Loren.” Films include but are not limited to The Bishop’s Bedroom, The Seduction of Mimi, Bellissima, The Girl With the Suitcase, and A Drama of Jealousy.”

WEDNESDAY, JULY 11: Min Jin Lee, author of the debut novel, Free Food for Millionaires, reads from and discusses the book with David Henry Hwang, the Tony-award winning playwright of M. BUTTERFLY and the OBIE-award winner for GOLDEN CHILD. At Barnes & Noble, Lincoln Center [Full disclosure, as always: I’ve been delighted to work with Min Jin to publicize her book]. 7:30PM, FREE.

THURSDAY, JULY 12: Barnes & Noble’s “Upstairs at the Square” final edition until the fall features featuring Permanent Midnight author Jerry Stahl, whose new book is Love Without (Open City Books, July 12), and Teddy Thompson, a young British singer-songwriter (and Rufus Wainwright BFF) raised in a Sufi commune whose raw-boned, big-hearted country covers mine classics with fresh depth [Full disclosure, as always: I am the PR consultant for this project] 7PM, FREE.

FRIDAY, JULY 13: Manuela Paz says, “It gives me great pleasure to announce my inclusion in Glamour, Glory, and the Good Old Days, a group show curated by Kari Morris at Paul Morris Gallery. The exhibit features six artists focusing on ideas of beauty, glamor and self reflection through drawing, photography, and painting. Please join me for the opening!” Artists: Alika Cooper, Manuela Paz, Lindsey Muscato, R. Crumb, Philippe Weisbecker, Rachel Kaye. 6 - 8PM, FREE.

SATURDAY, JULY 14: New York is boring me.

SUNDAY, JULY 15: But only for the moment. The #1 cure for the ho-hums today: dressing like your favorite book cover.