Breakin' It Off

Oh snap! Ever seen someone dance like this?

From We B*Girlz.

Back in Action

Sorry we've been out of touch, but we've had some exciting developments! We can't say much now, but we've got our eye on a gorgeous space that is (you'd think we'd learned our lesson) pretty raw. We haven't decided anything, but we can't help ourselves—it's too exciting. If you're an architect, lighting designer, sound engineer, conceptual artist, Rem Koolhas, or even just a lover of large spaces, let us know. We're looking for some friends and neighbors to get in on the ground floor (ugh, sorry about the pun) of whatever we end up doing. Stay tuned—there'll be more where this came from.

The Tenth Day

Yes yes y'all. We've been officially evicted for ten days now. And it's time for a round of catch-up.

On Valentine's Day we were kicked out of the home we built with our bare hands and some tricky manuevering on the credit cards. The pirates who plundered us are known as VRAHOS: a development corporation headed up by the twin gods of plague and petulance Steve Pappas and Steve Tzolis. Both named Steve, we've heard, because they sprang from the fetid belly of Kali, known for her incredible destructive force but not her aptitude with words. The outposts in their evil empire include Il Cantonri, Periyali, and Tzolis catering. We suspect they have sent several of their dark emissaries to check up on us, but we have outwitted them every time. In response, we have offered nothing but love; organizing a blow-out sale on both books and limited editions.

For more on the history, read down. For more in the future, check back and check back often.

Cityrag Wipes Our Tears Away

We just got a great shoutout from our girl at Cityrag, who makes the excellent point that we are having an in-store sale on our limited editions. Cityrag has always been high on our list of things to do when there's little to do, and now it's doubly so!

Son of VRAHOS

What dark arts have brought this creature to us? VRAHOS, we thinks?

Photo by Ari Marcopolous, from Transitions and Exits.

Onward and Upward

Just received this from a friend at Island Def Jam:

It doesn't matter where you are....
Home is not an infested brick building in Lower Manhattan...
It is the synergy of the creative power of the people who inhabit it!

Thanks, friend! We agree completely.

Like Shouting Fire...

Whoo! We've been on edge ever since The Mystery Photographer came by. This morning, before we'd even had our coffee, a tallish man in a plaid shirt and jeans comes in, and claims he's here to inspect the fire extinguisher. Thinking he is an agent of VRAHOS, we refuse to let him in. But he says "it's a legal requirement, you're required to comply..." Blah, blah, blah. Now we've got our ire up, and our sales guy Wes (a VERY strapping young lad) comes and stands in the doorway and looks menacing while we kindly tell him to get the hell out. But he won't go. Right on the verge of us calling the police, he pulls out a work order and, almost in tears now, says, "But I just want to see the fire extinguisher, I swear!" Turns out it was true; we let him see the damn extinguisher and he promptly left. Sigh. And we thought we were nice people.

Who Gave VRAHOS that Baby!?

Baby looks human enough—you don't think it's multiplying, do you?



Photo by Maripol, from Maripolarama.

Great Moments in Spam vol 3

The subject line on this one was "valium batik." Is that some kind of wall hanging from the 70s? And we're not sure, but we think the last few lines might be from Wiliam Gaddis.

Hello,

As a valued customer, we provide you with occassional information
and updates.

Our records indicate that you may be in need of a refill.

http://XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Yours Truly,
Weston Farrell
Customer Care Specialist

evaluate you confederacy me, accusation . eleazar you linger me, bootleg . blandish you checkmate me, tipperary trade anachronism.
astral you mutineer me, accident. crupper you spacetime me, ascetic adjective dixie.

VRAHOS; The Face of Evil

Something just occurred to us....Who names a company VRAHOS!?* Did they read too much He-Man in the 80s? Do they own a fleet of intergalactic warships? We assume the name was just handed to them by The Dark Prince and no one asked questions.



Photo by Joseph Rodríguez, from the forthcoming Flesh Life.
*If you haven't read down, VRAHOS is the entity who served us an evicition notice.

Bootstrappers Everywhere, Unite!

Some excellent emails from some of our favorite independant organizations, TRACE, ICP, The Starn Studio, and Art in America. More to come as we sort through the hundreds we received.

Good luck in the search for a new space! We’ll follow PH anywhere, and so will the rest of Smart New York....

I am soooooo sorry to hear this. I wish you all the best and all the luck in the world. At the end of every rainbow there is a new lease and I hear it’s raining soon.

This is just insane.

I think it’s great you listed who worked on getting you out of the space. I certainly won’t hesitate to contact them with my dissatisfaction.

Great Moments in Spam vol 2

Anyone speak Russian? We'd like to respond to PUSSYFOOTS B. LOUSIEST!

Straight Pimpin'

And cold chillin'. It's a beautiful day and the top brass are out looking at spaces.

Photo by Bob Adelman, from the forthcoming Gentleman of Leisure.

Bargain Shmargin,this is Totally Mishegas!

We received this message of support a while back from someone we work with:

"At the moment of commitment, the universe conspires to assist you."

Goethe really knew his stuff, huh? It's only day two of our moving sale, and we've already cleaned out somewhere around an eighth of our inventory! If we can't slow the madness, before too long we'll have nothing left to sell. Guess that's a few less boxes for the movers....You should check it out before all the books are gone.

Great Moments in Spam vol 1

We get a lot of spam. A lot. And some of it is so good we forward it around like it were an e-vite or something. Without further ado, powerHouse is pleased to present the first in what will be a series of exellent spam....

From: "Chris Jones"
Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2006 13:53:41 +0000 (GMT)
To: info@powerhousebooks.com
Subject: First in History Marine Phytoplankton Available to Public

For the first time in history marine Phytoplankton is available to man!

Did you miss the Xango or Noni Explosion? This product will create Millionaires and the timing is perfect. Take a L@@K at a 2 year old solid company who's sales have grown nearly 700% since 2004.

Chris Jones
Success Coach

Become the difference you seek in the world. -Gandhi

*We did miss the Xango Explosion, but the Noni Explosion was a blast! Thanks Chris! —pH

Oh My Gawd: Best Sale Evah!

We couldn't decide how to discount the limiteds, so we decided to quit the kvetching and discount everything else. Have you evah seen such a thing?! Who'd believe it!

Inaugural Sale Day

It's President's Day, and if you're like us you're in your office, work work working away. Right now, we're banging out a system for offering drastic discounts on all of our limited editions. Got to get them out the door one way or another, right? We'll let you know as soon as we decide on something. In the meantime, we're still offering 40 percent off Helen Levitt's Slide Show and Thomas Roma's Enduring Justice. If you'd like to buy one, just email.

Service with a Smile

Well—you asked for it, and here it is.

Technically this wasn't taken in our building. But we wish it had been. Photo by Boogie.

Publisher's Weepy

Got some love today from that encyclopedia of industry info and antics, Publisher's Weekly. We are also proud to announce a winner to The Mystery Photographer Contest. Joe from Williamsburg will be receiving a set of Strip Flips for his guess about the enigmatic photog. He writes, "Once a mystery photographer showed up at the restaurant I work in, asking to take pictures, and days later we were cited by the Board of Health." Thanks Joe! That restaraunt wasn't Il Cantinori, was it?

Spreading like Wildfire, Herpes

Day four of our blog venture, and in addition to ZOOZOOM, we've also gotten shoutouts from Thrillist and, less thrillingly, Curbed. Nick Denton's favorite poolboy and Curbed EIC (or something) Lockhart Steele really loves his rat-infested, schlocky Greek joints, huh?

News Travels Quick on the Internets

Our favorite e-magazine and opening buddies ZOOZOOM, the original online glossy, are spreading the love with this post, complete with a picture from our opening last night. Thanks guys! Check out their other features on pH titles Maripolarama and Casa Susanna while you're there. Fortunately for them, ZOOZOOM is online-only, and will never be kicked out of their own bookstore. Lucky, lucky, lucky.

Aphorisms to Live By

A well-wisher sends the following advice: "The bright light of better lawyers always scatters evildoers." Our lawyer Neil has had little luck scattering the twin Stevils, but we have faith that he'll do right by us. In case he can't, though, we're started to look at some spaces. As soon as we have pictures, we'll post them for you to see.

We've just about finished cleaning up our gallery; the opening for Introductions by John Szarkowski was a huge success. To celebrate, we're offering a 40 percent discount on limited edition copies of Slide Show by Helen Levitt and Enduring Justice by Thomas Roma. Both include a signed print and come in a specially designed slipcase. Inquiries should be sent to our gallery director.

Thanking Steve

Just under 36 hours, and already more than 200 of you have come to visit our little blog. We're happy to report that messages of support and shock and outrage from the media and from friends of the powerHouse family have come pouring into our inboxes. And the response last night from guests at the opening of Helen Levitt and Thomas Roma: Introductions by John Szarkowski was heartening to say the least. During the party, friends were encouraged to help us thank Steve (now, we suppose, it's more like The Steves, see below) for evicting us, with as much cleverly orchestrated animosity as their devious little minds could devise. Now you too can help us thank Steve! Just download this card, print a couple out, and distribute it as widely as possible. Here's lookin' at you Steve!

Two Steves, No Lease

Hold the phone! The Post says the face of evil, VRAHOS, bought the building. Not news to us; that's the company that signed our eviction notice in chicken blood and nailed it to our door with an iron cross. But, the Post says, Steve Pappas is the principal of VRAHOS. So where does the priorly mentioned Steve Tzolis come in? Tzolis was the man we met face to face (chills up our spines) and who left his business card, so we know we've got the name right. Did Pappas adopt the name of his catering business in some sick culinary ritual, baptized by the dark priests of VRAHOS? Is there a Dr. Tzolis and Mr. Pappas, the former gladhanding with tenants and the latter terrorizing small businesses and cultural institutions city-wide? Send your guesses here.

Post Post

We learned today, from item buried on page 34 of yesterday's New York Post, that we are being evicted to be replaced by "a state-of-the-art catering facility" that will service a number of "temp suites geared toward the local film industry." Because the city loves the film industry. And they love us back. Thanks Steve.

Hard-Hitting Commentary from the Paper of Record

Holy crap! We've been promoting this blog for less a single workday (8 hours for most, more like 12 for us), and we've already had over 100 visitors. Our favorite response so far comes from a friend at, no lie, The New York Times, who writes, "...would love to see pictures of those rats!" We'll try our best to rustle some up, Grey Lady Friend—as you might guess, we don't really keep stuff like that on file.

We're signing off now, our party in the gallery is heating up, but we hope to see you tomorrow. Until then!

Hypothesis or Fact?

Aha! An interesting suggestion about The Mystery Photographer just came from right here in the powerHouse office: we've begun to suspect the new building owners are worried we will take the walls with us when we go! A note of explanation may be in order...

When powerHouse began renting our space at 68 Charlton, it was completely raw. Think of the emptiest, dirtiest, and generally least pleasant Bushwick loft you've ever been to. Now double the nasty. That'll give you an idea of what we had to work with. Now, for those of you that haven't visited us yet, we work and play in 2,500 square feet of parquet floors, with big white walls separating a full office, conference room, and gallery flooded with sunlight. We even built bathrooms that, we've heard, are envied by at least three other SoHo galleries.

Because we built it when we came, we literally own everything: even the ceiling, which we replaced when we moved in. That stuff could be useful where ever we end up....Thanks for the idea, Steve! Steve is the maniacal developer who gave us the worst Valentine's Day present EVER yesterday.

If you have a better guess than this, send it to us. The entrant with the most accurate or entertaining guess, or one that for whatever reason could be judged "best in show" will be awarded with a set of each of our four Strip Flips. Appropriate for VD, no?

Day 2, The Fun Begins

It's day two of powerHouse Books' big 2006 move. Already today, it's around 11 as we write, a sketchy dude who claimed he was from "an insurance company" came by insisting to be shown the space and be allowed to take pictures. After he refused to answer questions about the why and wherefore, we promptly turned him out. Who was this mysterious man? A real insurer? A photographer looking for a book deal? Someone who loves our gallery so much he can't bear to see it go? Hazard a guess: we'd love to hear from you. We'll pick the best answer in a few days, publish it, and maybe send a prize.

Meanwhile, we are preparing for one of our biggest openings ever. Tonight, from 6 to 8, we are debuting a landmark show, the color work of Helen Levitt and new prints by Thomas Roma. Both of these artists have been supported in their long careers by John Szarkowski, legendary curator and arbitor of taste, who will attend the opening this evening. If you'd like to meet him, swing by tonight! It may be the last party we ever have here. Sigh.

powerHouse Books Booted Out By Marauding NYC Restaurateurs

Dear powerHouse Friends,

After more than two years in residence as the most innovative and lively photography gallery, event space, and bookstore in downtown Manhattan, we are being evicted from our lovingly built home at 68 Charlton Street by catering/restaurant evildoers* on March 31, 2006. We are a bit down, but we are very far from out. Seizing the worn lemon aphorism as a metaphorical lifeline, we are busy planning lemonade—onward, upward, better, more diverse, varied, and intense—and our new location will be even more spectacular than our quaint space on this wretched and blighted street (which, you should know, should there be a new restaurant or food prep place here, is infested with rats that can never be conquered—as we have learned in the past two years).

If you would like to drop us a line, please contact us at pHmoves@powerHouseBooks.com. We invite you to join us—or send us notes, ideas, encouragement, or farewells—as we continue, in our adventures, to make compelling and culturally relevant illustrated books apply to real life in the form of exhibitions, parties, readings, review sessions, and, in general, more interesting and urgently-needed. Check back tomorrow, the next day, and the day after that to see how our relocation is progressing.

With love,
The powerHouse Family

*(Tzolis Catering, Periyali, and Il Cantinori, among others—Steve Tzolis, 32 East 10th, NYC 10003, tel 212.673.6044, fax 212.353.0534 should you wish to thank them for doing their best to destroy NYC cultural spaces and entities with greed, avarice, and abject philistine behavior)