Art Pants Company publishes Richard Grayson's BOY MEETS BROOKLYN

Art Pants Company has published Richard Grayson's Boy Meets Brooklyn as an e-book available at the Amazon Kindle store for 99 cents. It is also available in a 288-page trade paperback edition for $14.99 at Lulu.

The promo stuff says in part:

Richard Grayson has been keeping a daily diary compulsively since the summer of 1969, when he was an 18-year-old agoraphobic about to venture out into the world -- or at least the world around him in Brooklyn. His diary, approximately 600 words a day without missing a day since August 1, 1969, now totals over 9 million words, rivaling the longest diaries ever written.

But Grayson is not merely an eccentric with graphomania. His nonfiction has appeared in PEOPLE, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE ORLANDO SENTINEL, THE SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS, THE ARIZONA REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK POST and numerous other periodicals.

ROLLING STONE called Grayson’s first short story collection, WITH HITLER IN NEW YORK, published in 1979, “where avant-garde fiction goes when it becomes stand-up comedy,” and NEWSDAY said, “The reader is dazzled by the swift, witty goings-on.”

Grayson’s other short story collections have also received acclaim. LIBRARY JOURNAL called LINCOLN’S DOCTOR’S DOG (1982) “excellent” and said of I BRAKE FOR DELMORE SCHWARTZ (1983) that “Grayson is a born storyteller and standup talker.”   THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW said Grayson’s I SURVIVED CARACAS TRAFFIC (1996) was “entertaining and bizarre” and “consistently, even ingeniously funny.”

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY called Grayson’s THE SILICON VALLEY DIET (2000) “compulsively talky and engagingly disjunctive”; KIRKUS DISCOVERIES termed Grayson “an audacious and wickedly smart comedic writer” in its review of HIGHLY IRREGULAR STORIES (2005); and THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER, reviewing AND TO THINK THAT HE KISSED HIM ON LORIMER STREET (2006), said, “Grayson has a fresh, funny voice.”

Boy Meets Brooklyn begins in August 1969 and ends on New Year's Day 1971.

Grayson has already published the next six volumes of the diaries of his late teens and twenties as THE BROOKLYN DIARIES, featuring SUMMER IN BROOKLYN: 1969-1975; WINTER IN BROOKLYN: 1972-73; SPRING IN BROOKLYN, 1975; AUTUMN IN BROOKLYN, 1978; MORE SUMMERS IN BROOKLYN: 1976-1979; and A YEAR IN ROCKAWAY, 1980.

The second set of six volumes of his diaries have been published as THE EIGHTIES DIARIES, which include SOUTH FLORIDA WINTERS, 1981-1984; LATE SPRING IN SUNRISE, 1982; WEST SIDE SUMMERS, 1984-1987; INDIAN SUMMER: PARK SLOPE, 1985; SPRINGTIME IN LAUDERHILL, 1986; and EIGHTIES’ END: AUTUMN, 1987-1989.

Five volumes of THE NINETIES DIARIES published include SUMMER IN NEW YORK: 1990, LAST SUMMER IN ROCKAWAY: 1991, FIRST FALL IN GAINESVILLE: 1991, SPRING IN GAINESVILLE: 1992-1994, and AUTUMN IN GAINESVILLE:1994-1996.

Tuesday Afternoon in Apache Junction: Richard Grayson interviewed by ABC15 about his Green Party presidential campaign

Back in Apache Junction, we were interviewed this afternoon by Eric English of ABC15 of Phoenix about our candidacy for the Green Party presidential nomination. We are running in the February 28 Arizona Green Party presidential preference primary.

Saturday Afternoon at the Brooklyn Museum: "HIDE/SEEK: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture"

We spent several wonderful hours this Christmas Eve afternoon in an uncrowded Brooklyn Museum, taking in HIDE/SEEK: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture, nearly intact a year after its controversial mounting at the National Portrait Gallery that got right-wing nuts -- in other words, Republicans in Congress -- all agitated.

The New York Times called HIDE/SEEK "the first major museum exhibition to focus on homosexuality and to trace some of the ways that same-sex desire — and unconventional notions of masculinity and femininity in general — have been manifested in early Modern, Modern and postmodern American art, as evinced primarily in portraiture."

We found it utterly fascinating, even it did focus on the big names, both as artists and subjects, and are grateful to the Brooklyn Museum for bringing it to New York and to the exhibition's organizers, Jonathan D. Katz, an art historian at the University at Buffalo, part of the State University of New York, and David C. Ward, a historian at the National Portrait Gallery.

After spending a long time at HIDE/SEEK, we wandered around the Brooklyn Museum, which we used to go to starting when we were about four years old in 1955. Our pediatrician until we turned 18, Dr. Jacob L. Stein, had his office on the ground floor of Turner Towers directly across Eastern Parkway, and we often combined a checkup and polio shot with a visit to the museum, which has changed considerably over more than half a century.

On our last day in Brooklyn before we go back to Arizona tomorrow, it was great to visit the Brooklyn Museum, a place we've gone back to many, many times over the decades of our life. We hope to be back when we can.

Early Tuesday Evening in Williamsburg: Chabad's Menorah on the First Night of Chanukah at N. 7th Street and Bedford Avenue

Tonight is the first night of Chanukah (our old-school preferred spelling) and we caught the Chabad menorah at North 7th Street and Bedford Avenue lit for the holiday. We're heading west in a couple of days. Happy Chanukah!

Richard Grayson's "BROOKLYN, KENT STATE, MAY 1970" Is #1 Best Seller for Children's 20th-Century American History eBooks at Amazon Kindle Store

Richard Grayson's BROOKLYN, KENT STATE, MAY 1970: Diary of an 18-Year-Old College Freshman is currently the #1 bestseller at the Amazon Kindle Store in the category of Children's Nonfiction Twentieth Century American History eBooks.

BROOKLYN, KENT STATE, MAY 1970 is also currently #3 Kindle ebook bestseller in the category of Childen's eBooks in U.S. History and Historical Fiction and #11 in the category of Biographies and Memoirs of Educators.

Here is the promo material for the ebook, published by Art Pants Company:

In the spring of 1970, college students across the country protested the widening of the Vietnam War after President Nixon announced the invasion of Cambodia. On May 4, National Guardsmen, sent to Ohio's Kent State University to quell a student demonstration, opened fire and killed four students and wounded others. In the nationwide firestorm of campus protest that followed, colleges and universities were shut down as angry students brought a halt to the spring semester with strikes and takeovers of buildings.

Brooklyn College in New York City was no exception, and his account of the day-by-day events at the school, acclaimed author and diarist Richard Grayson (The Brooklyn Diaries, With Hitler in New York, Lincoln's Doctor's Dog), then an 18-year-old freshman, gives a young student's perspective to this scary, exhilarating time in American history.

Sunday Afternoon in Chelsea: US Veg Corp presents First Annual Green Holiday Festival at the Altman Building

On this cold, sunny afternoon we attended the first annual Green Holiday Festival presented by the good folks at US Veg Corp.

We were lucky enough to win a free ticket from our friends at The Skint, the wonderful website and email listing free and cheap events in New York, so we didn't have to pay admission to get into the Altman Building on West 18th Street.

We spent a long time amid a cornucopia of green products, services, food and organizations, with an emphasis on stuff for the holiday season.

































We're grateful to The Skint and US Veg Corp for allowing us to spend a couple of hours at the Green Holiday Festival and see various green-minded gift vendors, non-profit information tables, live entertainment, and activities, all in celebration of green living.