Atomic Books Blog

I'm gonna do it . Are you? I remember when I first heard of writing a novel in 30 days, I pretty much agreed with Joseph Epstein's take : Why should so many people think they can write a book, especially at a time when so many people who actually do write books turn out not really to have a book in them — or at least not one that many other people can be made to care about? Something on the order of 80,000 books get published in America every year, most of them not needed, not wanted, not in any way remotely necessary. It's similar to the feeling I have whenever I hear someone say that they've picked up a digital camera. Oh god, another Photographer. Or whenever I see those YOU + HP commercials about how You're An Artist Now. Please. But of course it's this snobby attitude (my BFA, my paralyzing perfectionism, self-loathing and fear of failure) that keeps my cameras in the closet. Ok, who am I kidding? They're just sitting here on the floor, col...

Are you tense? It's the scariest weekend ever. Halloween's nothing compared to Tuesday. Don't forget to turn your clock back an hour. Maggie.

Baby Doll's been caught with some interesting dudes lately. And Blug's got some made up talk about said dudes. And of course, you can always get a little dose of REAL Baltimore drug trade news at Rebuilding Madison . Click on the Journal link. But will the fake O'Malley become Mayor??

So this is what we've come up with for Election Day. The Plan: Vote EARLY! THEN meet for BREAKFAST at Holy Frijoles. Does Frijoles have breakfast? No. But they WILL on Nov 2nd. They will open at 8AM and have Breakfast Burritos for the voting folk. AND, Happy Hour ALL DAY. Check out the Shank for the list of specials. Thank you Evan for getting into our Election Day spirit! THEN, after the polls are closed we'll check the Election Day Coverage on the teevee over at the Hon Bar. They said we'd be welcome to watch their Comedy Central and they'll be concocting some drink specials as well. And for Wednesday, the momentous day after, the Golden West will have 25% off EVERYTHING all day, if a certain person wins. And some drink specials as well. Whew! So get out and VOTE!

Several people in the hood had wanted to get together at Frazier's on the Avenue to watch the Election coverage...but it's Karaoke Night. Fuck that. People have to sing their ironic Depeche Mode this night of nights? Where else can we all go? You don't want to be alone that night. Normally, the lack of tvs in bars and restaurants in Hampden is a GOOD THING. But we need cable, too. Also, there may be a group voting party going on. For all you people voting at Robert Poole or Hampden Elementary, meet us for a drink if you're voting in the morning! AND, if you get your "I Voted" sticker from the poll people (you have to ask) and wear it to the store Nov 2nd, you'll get a 10% discount on your purchases that day.

Back in August, I mentioned the upcoming BMA exhibit called Dark Matter . Did you send your zine in for their library? It opens on Nov 3rd. Also, they're going to have a booth/kiosk for distributing free zines and other info. If you'd like to send something in for that or to get more information about what they're doing, contact Todd Rennie, at trennieATmica.edu.

So, for a while now, we've been seeing stationery, cards, etc, for some characters called The Incredibles, a family of superheroes, in our book catalogs, wondering what that was about. Then we realized a few months ago that it was an upcoming movie from Pixar (infact it comes out next week). Ok, but check this out, Sarah Vowell, one of our favorite essayists and radio personalities , is in the movie! She has the best IMDB profile.

For the past 10 days, Maggie has been on tour with Double Dagger . Here's some pics on her Flickr account . More coming soon!

It's Dave Eggers new collection of stories . Is this for real? It smells like strawberries!

When you open a small independent store, in a lot of ways it's a form of personal expression. We just like stocking the store with stuff we like, topics that interest us. A lot of us tend to think that we're somewhat singular. Somewhat freakish. Our tastes are all over the place. Who else is going to be into Jeffrey Brown , sideshow performers , Mark Ryden , The Believer , Anthony Bourdain , zines , both Haruki AND Takashi Murakami , serial killers , Tom Waits , exploitation films , knitting , bondage , hacking , outsider art , Buffy the Vampire Slayer , David AND Amy Sedaris , Ben Snakepit , Howard Zinn , AS WELL as the Dark Knight ? Who else? Our customers. We are SO not alone.

Write your novel in 30 days on your blog ! Man, we really need to change our blog template. Everyone uses it.

Ok. I seriously have a problem with those goddamn cookies. I'm sitting here wondering why I'm feeling so weird and jittery. The Avenue just isn't a good place for people with addiction issues. Those damn margaritas, and now it's these cookies...well, first it was the heroin and THEN...no wait, the smoking...no...books. Books are the worst. Luckily, I don't have a thing for beer. Speaking of which...Natty Boh gets lit up . And a fine Boh collection . And some pics of the protest at Sinclair this week. And speaking of crimes (god, these lame segways I come up!)...don't forget the True Crime & Warped Minds Tour at Charm City Artspace on the 28th!

A call out for zines, from Miriam the Librarian: Hey y'all- A few of us librarians at Baltimore County Public Library are looking to start a pilot zine library at the Reisterstown library branch. At this point we have approval to start making a collection geared towards teen-agers. What I'm looking for is suggestions of zines, magazines, and review sources that are of interest to teens. High school per-zines, stuff for non-schoolers or zines about a subject of general interest (like Sugarneedle or various how-to zines)might work.It doesn't have to be squeaky clean, but it does have to have an identifiable reason it was included as part of the collection. There's some possibility we might do a broader collection later if this works out. We're already in touch with some other zine libraries and the yahoo zine librarian group and there's going to be a query in the next Xerography Debt. Later on we might have zine/comics-making workshops at the ...

That's only a slight exaggeration. For a while we got a lot of calls asking for Long & Foster Realtors. We only have a one number difference for one of their offices. Understandable. The rest? Freaks. I mean, do they not even listen to the message on the machine? You're calling Atomic Books! Do people in Baltimore not know how to dial a goddamn number? Is it the proliferation of those disposeable cell phones or just that cell phones are getting so small people can't dial those teeny keypads? On the machine this week: "You're not my brother." And "Better have you ass up in the mornin' when I call ya! Git you ass up! I'm gonna call you again! This is Theromin. Talk with ya. 4 o'clock!"

David Rees will be here this Friday, the 22nd, at 7pm, to read from and sign copies of Get Your War On II! So, get your ass here!

Hey, our friend, Nora, was crowned Pig Queen at the Pigtown Festival! She wore her tiara to Honcraft this Sunday, at Evergreen Cafe. You can't really tell in the photo but she has little pig ears on the pink part of that tiara. And yes, she's knitting. You know how we do.

And yet I did. Luckily, there are pictures of the Running of the Pigs from the Pigtown Festival today.

For a few minutes today we had some sudden weather. I hope the Marathon is over! Go Jules and Lisa!

On Air America right now, they're replaying a part of Stewart's appearance on CNN's Crossfire. He was in DC this afternoon! Signing at Politics & Prose for America the Book . UPDATE: Streaming audio ! Thanks, Lori! UPDATE 2: Video! Thanks, Jason!

Hey, MobyLives is back! And their publishing arm Melville House has just come out with a new book by local writer, Stephen Dixon, called Old Friends . We should be getting those in shortly.