When you're making your list of Jonathans, seriously consider Jonathan Ames, who's reading all over the place this month after his recent musicalish appearance at the Bowery Ballroom:

Tuesday, July 19, 7 PM: Booksmith, 1644 Haight Street, San Francisco, CA

Friday, July 22, 7:30 PM: Skylight Books, 1818 North Vermont Ave, Los Angeles, CA (Los Feliz)

Friday, July 29, 7 PM: Barnes & Noble, Astor Place, New York City, NY

And there's a Jonathan Lethem interview about Brooklyn writers, emotional ghosts, and a "stab at chick-lit" set in L.A. in the début issue of The Brooklynite, an unusually nicely designed local magazine:

The aim of The Brooklynite...is to trace the contours of this amorphous idea. Certainly, this is an exciting moment in the borough's history, a time of great cultural ferment and tremendous demographic change. But it is also a critical moment: How will new development affect Brooklyn's unique character? Will the borough's most vulnerable share in the benefits of Brooklyn's renaissance?

The magazine's money is where its mouth is so far; there are interviews with and photos of four former Domino Sugar factory workers displaced by the continuing overhaul of the waterfront. And it's free. Edited by Daniel Treiman, whom I met tonight at the Bowery Poetry Club at the last Karaoke + Poetry = Fun hosted by Daniel Nester for a while, since he's moving upstate. As they say in His Girl Friday, "Nice little town, Albany. They've got a state capital there, you know." Actually, I'm jealous—conceptually, it's halfway to Scotland, and that's something I can endorse.

Speaking of men and cartoons, I'm listening to a recording of Mayor Fiorella LaGuardia reading aloud Dick Tracy on the radio during a newspaper strike. I think Bloomberg should think about reviving this practice; it would do a lot for his numbers, I bet.

Categories: Jonathans, Books, Magazines, Cartoons