The pH Blog Moves to Myspace

Just like the title says, the powerHouse Books' 2006 Move Blog has moved itself.... to myspace. You don't have to be a member to read the blog, but we encourage you to sign up and add us a friend to hear about upcoming events, promotions, and other awesome stuff. The archived blog will be kept here indefinitely. See you on myspace!

—pH

A Place for Friends

The powerHouse Arena hits Myspace! Finnnalllllly. Add us as a friend to keep up-to-date with events and goings-on.... like the panel with Patti Astor and FAB 5 Freddy followed by a screening of the classic hip hop movie WIld Style in the beginning of October. When you ask? Add us and find out!!

http://www.myspace.com/powerhousearena.

The Fat Lady Will Not Sing Tonight

We just got a mysterious email from our boy A-ron the Downtown Don.... Seems aNYthing is going through some of what we experienced awhile back. We're a little sketchy on the details, but that doesn't mean bootstrapping cultural entities shouldn't stick together. Plus he said there's a sale. Out with the credit cards! To the store!

A Shower of Gold

Edith Hamilton would be proud: like Orpheus and Euridice, Phaedra and Hippolytus (ewww), or Achilles and Patroclus, so powerHouse and Perseus.

powerHouse and the Plastics

Do you or does someone you know work in plastic? We want your help! We're making an ultra-luxe limited edition book and need a fabricator who knows all about polymers. Piqued your interest? Drop us a line.

pH Arena Online

Well it's about time. Preview our upcoming show! Buy portfolios from pH artists! See cool renderings of our future home! The powerHouse Arena dot com!!

A Mitzvah in Haifa

Janette Beckman: Now 12 Feet Across

Seen on the corner of Prince and Elizabeth, NYC

Drip, drip, drip

Do we hear a leak? Someone call a plumber!

Dragstravaganza

No wonder they call it The Grey Lady.

Crazed Punks Take Over Arty Website

Grab your earplugs and duck for cover!!

Jesse Jane Beckington with music by Matt and Kim on pHytonics.

Great Moments in Spam vol 13

Those yetis are pretty annoying, huh?

Oil soul mio...

The road to happiness lies in two simple principles: find what it is that interests you and that you can do well, and when you find it, put your whole soul into it -- every bit of energy and ambition and natural ability you have.
- John D. Rockefeller III

Lost Blogs

Slava Mogutin explodes on the web.

Fan Mail for the Digital Generation

We bet our bottom dollar you ain't seen nothing like this before. Dude said he's watched Pedal, and we quote, "34504356 times."

JC Reporting Live

Slava Mogutin: political dissent or fashion darling? Slava is on the JC Report this week... a bimonthly email magazine providing an insider's view on fashion trends emerging around the world.



Photo by Slava Mogutin, from the forthcoming Lost Boys.

Chinatown Soccer Club

Petey Sutherland's newest venture is The Chinatown Soccer Club.... It's like sports for the Todd P set or something. And there's T-shirts! Thats's as much as we know. Extra points if you can catch the hot-to-trot Sutherland running by the lens! The Chinatown Soccer Club.

sometimes you get points for longevity

Which is better than a stick in the eye. Look at my doppelganger doing the Funky Chicken, everybody pointin', even cap man can't believe it (and poor l'il mohawk, the crowd pleaser, didn't get this kinda notice): everybody had a ball at the LC Outdoors event for We B* Girlz, even though the damn book and even Martha Cooper were nowhere to be seen. Still, it was fun. Especially when these two girlz really started to "fight" with dancing. Like Capoeira, only with beats instead of annoying high-pitched string plucking. But the State of New York preventing us from getting the fiercely devoted crowd to know about what they were cheering about in the form of a literary educational tool such as a book shows how boneheaded and small minded and closed entities like this are. This will be the very last time we do anyting like this. If the message is not total, it is not one, or is being coopted by somneone else. Which is why we have been around 11 years.

More props to and from Peter Sutherland. And on a sadder note, RIP Darren Lewis. Right-side pass beating truck does not Capoeira make. Longevity. Long live the Funky Chicken. Not pretty, but still here.

Miss Rosen has it happening

The new mag post does nicely crystalize what we think we might hope to be onto...world hegemony! Not that another reason is needed to expand the psychic head space over in the far corner of the office, but the rapid firing of one-finger typing in the form of a constant tick-tick-tick-tick, tick-tick-ticking white noise background has a sort of comforting soothing effect, knowing that all is right in the world....

Hey, the Post says Bklyn is "hip"

Because some breeders couldn't hack Samuri Power Vibe style in LA. Not that we could either, but the SM farmer's market on Staurdays makes Union Square look like...an exercise in liberal eeanestness, as oopposed to....um, skeezer outlaws? With killer citrus specimans?....Hey, you can put the top down....hey, look: the homeless that used to be in NYC! How's it going? Um, sort of played out on change....Where was I...oh yea, Brooklyn. What up! Yo Windsor Terrace!...(anybody out there...) Watch for the Brooklynites next year! Present a compelling case why you should be, and you might! Esp. if you can wrangle some tangelos....

nice beautiful poster that does not look like anyone we know

pH title entreatingly sought to quell Mideast strife

In late breaking news of a just-too-crazy-to-believe sort, mild mannered lawyer Arthur Frank's riveting distillation of the Wyoming cowboy, published by yours truly last year, was seized upon in a last ditch effort to line up Western support for the U.S. administration's position on Hezbollah's entrenched efforts to destabilize Israel's sovereignty: rope 'em up and tie 'em down.

Reaction from U.S. allies were non-plussed; "Encore?", an exasperated French President Jacques Chirac is quoted to have exclaimed with his extremely large hands thrust heaven-ward. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice deployed stealth diplomacy in explaining the Administration's trademarked "hide-branding" strategies.

photographer Ron Agam presents Chriac with an inscribed copy of Cowboy Up!

wet looking

best solution we've seen for displaying your "erotica" photo books and whimsical investigations into bodily functions; if you're interested, we'll sell you a 2 for 1 pH shower set: one set for keeps and one for play. A book's not happy until he's loved. And caressed. With loving suds. Bubbles away!

now *this* is a book review! three lines about a forthcoming book amidst death, delerium, and a mobby cross dressing pipe cleaner!

Chris is an affable nutter who makes Sebastian Junger look like a twinkie in a tutu at a tea party. That may be a little alliteratively excessive, but what's not in today's journo crack den of entertainment trafficking! Here, have some more pipeline stuffer!

bloggy dummy, Peter Sutherland's Deer

You can type whatever. Or so Nick thinks, in creating a template "blog posting for (a) dummy." (He is out of town this week, or has emigrated to Canada, one of the two). I am attempting to edit in html, so it's like...man, who the heck thought of this... but if I hit this compose button....ahh, that is more like email. For us dummies.

Well now, what shall I talk about? I don't have anything to say. I guess that is the purpose of blogs. Sometimes there is something funny or interesting to read; I know more about Sara Rosen now since her blog began than I knew in five years running. But what do I know; dummy.

My mom turned 70. We couldn't think of anything really good to get her in time for a birthday (there are vague plans afoot for travel in Italy—a prepackaged deal, you know, 'cause she's from the midwest), so we got her a blog. Sounds dumb, but we put up silly pictures and some bday texts; she was really touched. Maybe not so dumb; ironically we keep more in touch now with these dumb things than we did before.

Something so deceptively....simple, and yes, dumb, can sometimes...show you something new. And I don't mean passive entertainment, though that is what it is precisely for most of you dear readers now; but rather a means to see a side of something you never anticpated. Or a means of doing so. Not really too dummy.

So....ummm....wait! I have a new great idea: under the guise of seeing if I can get this linking thing down, tell us through posts or whatever it is you do if we should publish this book: Peter Sutherland, one of our favorite all around guys and one of our better selling artists (Autograf, Pedal), is also, evidently, a deer killer, and wants to make a book about it. I thought his Chinatown Soccer Club gear was coolish (he sent some e-agitprop about it a few days ago), and even thought about seeing if they needed any middle-aged publishers to wreak havoc at their games, but today he asked us if we would do this, in large format, like 14" tall, and in paperback. I'm not a big deer lover, so I really don't care about ethical treatment of these large bambi rats—they look like "whoa, there's nature in like our front yard!" for about two seconds before you realize they are the reason nothing is growing in your yard anymore, and they are slowly becoming like cows: Peter Sutherland's Deer.

The powerHouse Arena: No Sleep 'Til Brooklyn

We're Famous!

Or so says PW.... Check out pH publisher Daniel Power and PR machine Miss Rosen this week!

R Powellford: A NY Thing

See Ricky Powell up close and personal at aNYthing, 51 Hester, on Thursday. He'll be signing books and (if we know our Ricky) getting his game on with 1: the camera, 2: the ladies, or 3: both. Mostly likely 3. Oh ssit!

PDN Visits Africa

By way of The African Game.

Rencontre des Photos

Susanne Konig is all up in Rencontre d'Arles right now. As, apparently, is Pop Photo. Click "Photo Gallery." Go team!

Blognetics

Another Power makes his way on to the old internet. Enjoy!

PS Returns to Heartland!

Peter Sutherland, best-selling auteur behind Pedal and Autograf, is finding his roots this week with a screening in Minneapolis MN at the Bicycle Film Festival there. And if the frozen north is your bag, Sutherland's photographs from his hometown in Michigan are forthcoming on pHytonics!

Lisa Kereszi on pHytonics.net

Lisa is hotter than the Sahara right now... and we got our hands on photograhps that have never been published! Check out all the goods at pHytonics.

Ad Age Asserts Awesomeness Assiduously

A little alliteration never hurt, right? Groan. Well apparently pHytonics is Simon Dumenco’s Pop Pick of the week! Dumenco has a column called Media Guy on Ad Age's site, generally considered to be the best catalogue of a thinking man's pleasures on the web. It's running online and in print, so check out one at least; lazybones. And keep your eyes peeled for more info about Dumenco on this very blog because, heh, we’ll be publishing him in Look by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders.

PDN Thinks We'll Make You Famous Too

Our summer workshop series will be in the new issue of PDN! And no wonder: we've got classes by Publisher Daniel Power, Senior Designer Kiki Bauer, Publicity Director and Publisher of Miss Rosen Miss Sara (you guessed it) Rosen, and Managing Editor Nicholas Weist. Peep the details.

Meetings Monday

So many meetings! We're busy finishing the upcoming season, for which we'll have more delicious titles than ever before...but until then you'll just have to snack on this. Or this. Or this. You know, whatever strikes your fancy.

Paul Mpagi Sepuya on pHytonics

Paul Mpagi Sepuya opens today on pHytonics: his intimate protraits were a hit recently at Art Basel, and he's currently in a group show at Stefan Stux. See the work or see an interview.

Bloggiousity

The pets of the rich and famous on PopPhoto and and a tantalizing piece of pH gossip at PDN. Blogtastic!

New pH Office Opens in LA

No one informed us of course....but what the hell. Never hurts to be bi-coastal, right?



Courtesy of our crack pH reporter Richard McNeace.

American Photo Gives Mad Props

Our fave photo mage sends us some digital love today, at popphoto. Oh yeah, did we tell you pHytonics had launched for reals? Well it has, and so far it's friggin' exploding.

Bombin' In Brooklyn

Commies, West Coast style mavens Upper Playground, Tolstoy, graf legend Mear One, and Arabic hip hop crew Euphrates all under one roof? In fucking Williamsburg?! Strange but true... and the kind folks at People's Weekly World even give US a shoutout in their article about the whole ordeal. Was anyone NOT there?

Peer Gallery Loves Salt

...so much so that they are hosting an exhibition and book signing for Jimmy and Dena Katz's Salt Dreams. It opens tomorrow, with free signatures and hopefully a little booze from 6 to 9, at 526 W 26th Street.

Bloggity Blog Blog

What ho! How now, blogosphere?

Dtourist.
Curbed.

Africa Comes to US

In the form of The African Game, a brand new book from PUMA, distributed by powerHouse Books. See it. Love it. Buy it.

pHytonics.net!

powerHouse is thrilled to announce that we have loaded a sneak preview of our new online venture, pHytonics.net, for all y'all in blogland. pHytonics is an online gallery that will feature weekly updates of shows by contemporary artists. First up is William Lamson, a young photographer we've had our eye on for quite some time. Visit pHytonics.net.

O'Brien A-Bloggin'

OH MAH GOD OH MAH GOD! Glenn O'Brien has a blog! Glenn is pretty much the founder of cool in NYC: he's been at the top of his game as a tastemaker for more than twenty years now and has made more and more interesting things than almost anybody. We could go on and on and on and on, but it's probably best to let him speak for himself. Glenn O'Brien's Blog.



Photo by Maripol, from Maripolarama.

Pedal Part-ay

Pirate Pete Sutherland is sailing toward Most Toasted pH Author this month, with parties across the damn country and abroad. Below is from his show in Seattle. It's like the mail room at 4 Times Square up in this piece!



Woo ha!

Great Moments in Spam, vol 13

Here's a new one:

"This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification.
Unable to deliver message to the following recipients, due to being unable to connect successfully to the destination mail server.

adam@SeymourButts.com"



Sucks our message didn't get through to SEYMOURBUTTS.COM!!

Drug-Addled Maniac Hates powerHouse, No One Is Surprised

Rush Limbaugh calls out Pees on Earth in a quarter-page article in his newsletter, calling us the "arts-and-croissants crowd," and little Ellen Jong a "lib photographer," as if there were any other kind.

Maybe he could organize a book burning and give us a sales bump too! We're hungry: anyone have a croissant?

Alle Lieben Pedal

Beer halls and bike messengers: we can't think of a better combination. Pedal screens in Berlin on June 21, and we got our hands on the poster getting wheatpasted all over Germany.

Publisher's Publishers

Oooh yeeeeah. Even the industry is throwing some love to our Summer Workshop Series. Our boys at Anthem some it up nicely: we'll make you famous.

Great Moments in Extreme Irony vol 1

Whenever someone wants to comment on one of our posts, we get an email notification with the message and a "yes or no." Few might know this, but spam has grown past email, and has moved into the blogosphere. Spammers attempt to add comments like "Hey I found this cool site about Hoodia" or "C1AL1$$ Soft Tabs Melt Fat Away!!!!" Well today we received notice for this comment. In translation, it reads (excuse our poor French):

"We're often familiar with the domain of health. Nonisant is made without pesticides... Nonisant gives you the strength and vigor of savage fruits... For the cleanest and healthiest consumption, it's effective cold."

It's a comment on the first post about Great Moments in Spam. Metaspam has arrived.

Scene and Herd at BEA 2006

Introducing M. Suavé De Bonnair: the alter ego of our sales guy, Wes. For more of these photos trés enchanté, visit the online album we made.

Arkitip Floats Our Boat

Petey "The Pirate" Sutherland (so called because of his eye patch and scurvy: hi Peter!) sends word that the new issue of Arkitip has a section about his soccer crew Chinatown Soccer Club, and comes complete with a jersey! That could be useful on the open seas, we thinks. Arr ye limeys, avast! Petey's been Shanghai'ed!

Arkitip Floats Our Boat

Petey "The Pirate" Sutherland (so called because of his eye patch and scurvy: hi Peter!) sends word that the new issue of Arkitip has a section about his soccer crew Chinatown Soccer Club, and comes complete with a jersey! That could be useful on the open seas, we thinks. Arr! Avast! Petey's been Shanghaied!

BEAwesome

Just got some snaps back from Book Expo America, the annual industry conference. This year we partnered with Saatchi & Saatchi for a Lovemarks-themed booth. More to come...

Pedal Pushers

Well no one's really pushing, but we can hardly keep them things on the shelves. Maybe it's this guy?:



Photo by Peter Sutherland, from Pedal.

DUMBO Hearts pH Already

From an email this morning to our general box:

We are so thrilled at the thought of having your bookstore in DUMBO. We've been living at One Main for years and longing to be able to walk out the door and get a book, without Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc. Thank you so much and we'll be there for the opening!


Man, we can't wait to see what they say when we actually open in September!

Great Moments in Spam vol 12

Bonnie, Caro, your sweet, sweet songs are welcome in these trying times. Trim the sails! Avast ye hearties, to the siren's rock!

Get Yer Smart On With powerHouse

Lookout! The powerHouse summer workshop series is just around the corner! We've got a killer lineup this year, with classes taught by Daniel Power (Publisher, powerHouse Books), Kiki Bauer (Senior Deisgner, powerHouse Books), Sara Rosen (Publisher, Miss Rosen Editions, PR DIrector, powerHouse Books), and Nicholas Weist (Managing Editor, powerHouse Books). And you don't even have to buy a textbook...

Mermelly We Row Along

Far and away the artist most heavily featured on The powerHouse Books' 2006 Move blog, Jeff Mermelstein is a top pick because of his intense, witty, and sometimes ridiculous imagery. His book No Title Here is an insane trip down Jeff's personal rabbit hole, to a place where monkeys are addicted to porn, armadillos are racing animals, and this kind of satuff happens. He has a show opening tonight at Steven Kasher gallery. See you there.



Click for larger view.

Start Picking Out Clothes Now

This weekend will be crazy—two parties, Brooklyn Design Fair, and a ton of other crazy stuff. First at bat is Tokion sponsoring a screening of Pedal at the Anthology Film Archives.



Then Lili Almog's show of work from Perfect Intimacy opens at Andrea Meislin Gallery. On top of all that, as previously mentioned, powerHouse is hosting Brooklyn Designs: a weekendful of homegrown, A-list genius. Whew. Dust off those party pants, 'cause you're gonna need 'em..

Business Wiretap

We had know idea there was so much philanthropy going on right under our noses! Or over our noses as the case may be. Not only is the big kahuna pretty civic-minded, but our vice principal is as well. Turns out he was on a scholarship panel for Datacolor and Parsons, as reported by Businesswire.

Great Moments in Spam vol 11

And in the body of the email?:

"Nice to see you!

I am ready to kill myself and eat my dog, if medicine prices here (http://XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX) are bad.
Look, the site and call me 1-800 if its wrong..

My dog and I are still alive :)"

Phew. Good thing the prices are okay. —pH

Exhuming the Ridiculous

It's like a special on the Discovery Channel in here!

VRAHOS needled and needled even after they evicted us from our home. We thought it would end when we left, but ooh noo. We were wrong. VRAHOS dug up some old, angry bones this morning with a letter to our lawyer Neil. They're insisting that we pay two months of rent, for a period when we weren't even their tenant! Is there no end to their pillaging?



Photo by Jonathon Moller, from Our Culture Is Our Resistance.

Vanity Press to the Max

In case you haven't noticed, we loooove to congratualte ourselves. Not to be smug, but sometimes it's entirely warranted. In an effort to document the why and wherefor, we've created a page that catalogues our awards and accolades. Doesn't it feel great to win?

Speak of the Devil

Did you know that back in the days the phrase above indicated that someone had used "the speak of the devil," meaning they spoke a person's name to conjure them into their midst? Like when pH writes Joe Rodriguez's name on their blog and he suddenly appears in the office?! Joe just got back from Estonia, where he was teaching a seminar on photography. Maybe we should go there and teach a seminar on BLACK MAGIC!



Photo by Joe Rodriguez, from Flesh Life.

Art Fag Shag Rag

"MORE PORN IN ART!" is the cry echoing across the hallowed halls of the ivory tower today, as reported on by our fave sceney journo Art Fag City. She knows that pH reps for the porn set, though, and threw in a mention of Flesh Life: Sex in Mexico City by Joe Rodriguez. Here's lookin' at you AFC:



Photo by Joe Rodriguez, from Flesh Life.

Form Follows Function: pH Hosts Design Fair

After very little deliberation, the Brooklyn Design Fair's higher-ups have decided that powerHouse will host their event in our new space at 37 Main Street. "It's everything AND the kitchen sink," says Gawker of last year's fair, and it's only gotten bigger, ahem, we mean better, since then. Check back for future updates, or visit them directly right here.

Thoughtlab 102

Photo by Helen Levitt, from Slide Show.

Not Just Another Trackstar

Remember when "Pedal Pushers" described pants, and not a group of crazed bike messengers, relentlessly promoting a form of cycling that includes NO BRAKES? Well these Pedal Pushers are supporting the premier of the documentary Pedal, which comes packaged with our epynomous book, so they're okay by us.

BlogLife

If there's one thing you could say about all bloggers everywhere, it's probably that there's nothing they love more than a giant clusterfuck. That's right, we said it. One blog links to another, who links back to the first, who comments on the link, and so on ad naseum. You get the picture. We'll to cut to the chase:

MISS ROSEN HAS A BLOG!

On the Town with Miss Rosen will take you on a behind-the-scenes, whirlwind tour of the life and times of the mad genius behind powerHouse publicity and the publisher of Miss Rosen Editions...hopefully in sentences shorter than that one.

A Fair Grows In Brooklyn

Yech. Who's writing these headlines, anyway? Anyway...

What happens when Howard Zinn and Nicole Krause get together to make babies? Or Jonathan Safran Foer and Russell Simmons? The answer to both of the above is "a Brooklyn book fair" of course. The four parents-to-be are members of the honorary committee of a new fair, projected to open on September 16 in Borough Hall Plaza. The organizers will focus the event on the indigenous peoples of our fair Kings county, everyone from Walt Whitman to Paul Auster. We hope it'll be great, not least because from now on we can always say we were there first.

Thoughtlab 101

In case you haven't been to DUMBO to see it yourself, here's how we're advertising our new space. With over 175 running feet of glass frontage, there's plenty of room for signs like this:



Photo by Helen Levitt, from Slide Show.

Overheard in New York

Sent from a friend at Publishers Weekly, who was in DUMBO recently and had this conversation in an elevator:

Guy: Did you see there's a bookstore going in around the corner?
Me: Where?
Guy: On Main. By Bubby's.
Me: Oh, no, that's not a...
Guy: Yeah, art books.
Me: Actually, they...
Guy: I can't wait. it should be awesome. it's such a greeeeaaaat space.
Me: No, see...
Guy: What a cute dog you have!
Me: Yeah, she's pretty awesome.

Guess people like them art books. And have no idea they'll be blown away by our laboratory of thought!

The Circle of Life

We just had quintuplets! To celebrate the birth of our five new babies, we're having a little discount party. If you order Gentleman of Leisure, Pedal, Perfect Intimacy, Pees on Earth, or Salt Dreams before the end of the month, you can get 20% off! Just enter the coupon code "SPRINGFLING" at checkout.

Goodnight Sweet Princess

It is with great sadness that we inform you Chimay is dead. Long live Chimay.

Answers to Questions You Didn't Know Existed

Did you know that Our Benevolent Leader, the Power of powerHouse, is a philanthropist as well as a publisher? Apparently he's spent the past year mentoring an SVA student, whatever that means. After having her brain massaged for these past 12 months, our little Eliza is ready for her close-up. Jesse Jane, as she's known around the office, has a sick portfolio of bi-coastal punks. Who knew there were punks in LA? To see the rest of SVA's graduating class, click here.



Photo by tiger victim Jesse Jane.

PD Hyman

We once knew a girl named Tara Hymen. Say it out loud and you'll get it. Tear-a... Never mind. PD, though, this guy is no joke. Not like his brother Buster. Whoa!

Grime Finds Roots, Coop

Martha Cooper and her ever-lovin band of fiesty hip hop ladies are in London today: eating crumpets, kissing the queen, screening the film Redder than Red, and signing copies of Marty's book We B*Girlz. The film is about Bubbles, legendary breaker and all-around style queen. Picture Missy with a Cockney accent and better hair and you'll get the idea. To London!

Rickford Z. Powell: Canadian Superstar

Our boy wonder Ricknacious L. Powellot has a show up in the hinterlands opening tonight. For all you Canucks that know what's what in the big apple, swing by Brave Art in BC for booze, bitches, and good times. Can you say bitches on the Internet?

Vapors Villifies, Or Maybe Validates

Uh, thanks go to Vapors for this post. We think. Anyone know what Bruknam is?

...And we thought we were so cool.

Great Moments in Spam vol 11

So does Dork Warriors 911 protect or protect against the dorks?

Boogie Fever

pH is playing Stanley to Boogie's Livingston effective immediately: you can now preorder It's All Good on the pH website. It won't be in stores 'til October, but it's already makin' waves. Peep the pictures here, or pony up for a book and get $15 off the next time you order here.

Bunnies and Bricks

Whether Easter or Passover, it's all over and done with now...so get back to work you ninnies! Oh, except you Greeks. You all can continue to rape and pillage for a full week before taking your hard-earned break.

2 Months, At More Than 2,000 Per

It's been a slow news week around the old office, so we thought we'd take some time and reflect on this, the two-month anniversary of the pH blog. Almost 4,500 of you have visited us: at first a tremendous outpouring of support for an embattled cultural institution, and now a testiment to the vitality of our work. You've stayed through rats, spies, near-death experiences, potential lawsuits, angry machinations from the principality of Dubai, and some great moments in spam. Thanks for stickin' with, and we promise to keep delivering what you want to read and see. Like, you know, pictures of ugly drag queens.



Photo from Casa Susanna. Click for larger view.

Midnight: Man, Myth, Szichophrenic

Arlene Gottfried dropped by the office today...her book Midnight is one of the craziest we've ever published. This guy Midnight, see, was a dancer in some nightclubs...handsome, charming...and just a few years later was rescued by police when they found him at the top of the Williamsburg Bridge (not the apex: the top). Learn more about Midnight's, cough, ups and downs here.

TO TKO

Time Out New York hit one out of the park today.

Shhh! It's a Secret!

We get inquiries about books that haven't yet reached the shelves every day. It makes us feel great when people are so excited about our work that they take time out to actually get in touch. By way of expressing our gratitude, we're starting to offer preorders on select titles, with 15 bucks gratis when you seal the deal. Technically this is something we just let the artists' friends in on, but as far as we're concerned, you're a friend of ours, so...

First at bat is Lost Boys by Slava Mogutin. Slava escaped from the KGB under threats of death before the USSR fell apart, and now he's making pictures, of, well...let's just say we're not entirely surprised they threw him out. See more of the work here, or get out that wallet and preorder here.

Great Moments in Spam vol 10

Wonder the P stands for...

We Failed to Observe...

...that the Observer threw us a shout a few days ago. Sweet!

Publishers Weekly Frequently Rules

But especially yesterday.

Spoonful of Sugar

Thanks for the kind words, everyone! Below are some from our friends and neighbors at The New York Post, CNN, British Vogue, Le Book, Rolling Stone Italia, Elemental, and Morphizm...

whoa! kick ass! big congrats, that is huge!

CONGRATS! Welcome to Brooklyn. Even though we're way up in Greenpoint, it's all fam. Our landlords own tons in DUMBO, and thank goodness you are NOT with them! You guys are gonna be so happy. It's a change for the better I think.

congratulations! that's really exciting, good news.

Sounds fresh as hell! Wish I could head out to NYC and check it out.

YAYA! Congrats on your new home!!

Congratulations on your new Power Station! A lab for creative thought is just what the city needs! I wish we had had one when I was growing up. Glad to see something good come from adversity. . . once again.

Congratulations, powerHouse! Manhattan's loss is Brooklyn's gain. Looking forward to seeing the new space one of these days soon.

wow! exciting!

It is better on this side.

VRAHOS Writes Poorly, Thinks Our Gallery Was Beautiful

Hey! Who knew you had to approve comments to these crazy things called weblogs? Not us, certainly, not until today. We just approved a bunch from the past two months, and two in particular caught our eye, the first of which is below:

Honestly, you are acting as if you and your beautiful gallery were part of a historical landmark. This is NYC. Working here and living here is strictly business. The sooner you realize that the better chances your cultural entity will flourish. Honestly, if you didn't sound so childish, maybe your complaints would have sounded more justified and legit. This is not a Sci-fi movie of evil-doers and the poor little victims with dreams getting crushed.
Like I said, this is New York City.
Get with the flow of things which is business, Not personal, and you will be able to have more personal happiness and freedom.
Best of luck to you, and maybe this was a blessing in disguise... if you do your research, those evil-doers are actually some of the most charitable men in the city. For every one of your wah wah cries, there are 20 people thanking them on their knees for saving them from poverty and hunger. We are talking about charity that is NOT tax deductable. That's personal... This isn't. Stop making it as it is. If you are gonna cry at this, you will have to move to Philly or something. We are a the most generous city, but in order to be the greatest city in the world we don't have time to sprinkle sugar on our conduct. Get a grip.

...so the, cough cough, anonymous poster berates us (in any number of tenses) for not digging deep enough to find out The Steves donate to charity (For which the recipients apparently, how did they put it? Get "on their knees"? Real charitable, Steves. Glad you know where the poor belong...), think we should stop "making it as it is" (Is that anything like telling it as it is?), and (wait what?) wish us "best of luck." The only thing worse than the grammar above (apart from the rampant mis-capitalization, grossly improper articles, and intensely bad agreement), is the logic!

Great Moments in Spam vol 9

Jackpot!



Rosa Parks: back from the dead, with a whole new set of friends.

We Live in Brooklyn Baby!

A little more info on the new space, located at 37 Main Street in DUMBO, so all y'all know why we crossed the river...

"I've always dreamed that powerHouse would inhabit inspirational space, a space where classical architecture mixes with vaulted ceilings and height to emphasize the nobility of man's loftier pursuits of knowledge and pleasure. Nothing in any borough comes close to the feeling that comes from what will be our new home, save for Grand Central Station," said Daniel Power, publisher of powerHouse Books. "The general vibe of DUMBO is what certain places in Manhattan felt like decades ago; the East Village and SoHo in the late 80s, Hudson Square in the 90s. In DUMBO, questions and possibilities abound; this will be a perfect place to situate a laboratory of thought, which is what powerHouse intends to do."

powerHouse Books was selected for the 37 Main Street space by Two Trees Management Co., which owns most of the Brooklyn neighborhood of DUMBO ("Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass"). The company's holdings include 13 buildings and the second largest portfolio of commercial space on the Brooklyn waterfront, which is 3 million square feet in size.

"We're excited to welcome powerHouse to our DUMBO community," said Jed Walentas, a partner in Two Trees Management. "The addition of this bookstore/creative laboratory brings us closer to the vision we have for DUMBO: an intoxicating lifestyle and environment where people can live, work, shop, and play."

Power says this is only the start. "We've only just gotten the place, and it has already paid numerous dividends in the form of future cultural collaborations with the city's leading arts entities and our corporate partners, including the most dynamic and innovative agency out there doing anything. The future is white hot, and the possibilities seem to be growing themselves."

R.I.P. 68 Charlton

Sorry to have been out of touch, but the last few days have been sheer madness. Where to begin?...

Wednesday, 3 workdays left:
As previously posted, Wednesday was largely a packing day for us back at 68 Charlton. Scarily enough, it was also a day of consultation with lawyers and leasing agents—because we did not yet have a signed lease for a new office. Just a scant 72 hours before we would be forcibly removed from 68 Charlton, and we had nowhere to go! Well actually we had picked a place but it just wasn't ours yet. More on that later. As we were frantically moving files into bankers' boxes and books into whatever would hold them, we welcomed a new friend to 68 Charlton: King. King is great guy to have around if you installed a beautiful hardwood floor into a place you subsequently get evicted from, and you're loathe to part with it. Yup; King and his team of guys were literally taking up the floorboards as we packed. We wanted to tell you then, we really did, but fear of reprisal from VRAHOS and it's dark army silenced us. At least as long as it took to get away with it!

Thursday, 2 workdays left:
With the floor mostly gone (well the parquet, anyway—plywood in it's place) and everything packed, we were finally ready to go. Our movers came to get the essentials and most of the office was ready to fly by the early afternoon. But where were we to go? In a masterful eleventh-hour move, Daniel Power, founder, publisher, and commander-in-chief of powerHouse Books, had signed a lease for a 10,000–square foot blue chip ground floor space in DUMBO! Yes—powerHouse kissed Manhattan goodbye and fell into the welcoming embrace of Brooklyn. Only one catch, though, the space is raw, and won't be ready until fall 2006. Until then, we will be housed in a temp office upstairs. The remainder of Thursday was spent moving everything into our new suite.

Friday, the last day:
Friday was consumed by shifting furniture and unpacking computers in DUMBO. And taking everything that wasn't nailed down at 68 Charlton. Wait, scratch that. We took quite a few things that were nailed, screwed, glued, or otherwise fastened. A partial list includes: ceiling fans, sinks, toilets, some drywall, the wires we tore out of the walls, and (our personal favorite) the windows and bay door on the street side of the building. We also smashed all the tiles and put holes in the ceiling and the walls we couldn't kick in. It hurt to hurt our baby, but we built it and weren't about to let it fall into the hands of evil.

The first week out:
Things had largely been sorted out by yesterday, and we're adjusting to the new commute and the feel of our new neighborhood. Wish we could've posted something on Monday, but we had no Internet. Everything's solid now though. Even though the banner above says we were scheduled to stop this blog last Friday, we like it too much to discontinue. So check back soon: we're sure to have plenty to talk about with our new life in Brooklyn!

Great Moments in Spam vol 8

Business must be brisk in the Ultimate Online Parmaceutical game, if both PEDAGOGUES H. OBLIVIOUS and NERUDA G. ALIEN are doin it!!

Boxing Day

Well punch our noses and call us Canadian, it's Boxing Day at pH!







Photos by the mover, shaker, Nicholas Weist