Or is that multiple reasons? Sometimes it’s hilariously obvious; other times, it’s so ineffable and multilayered you could write a dissertation on it. Someone probably is, and I hope that chlorophyll-deprived Ph.D. student will send it to me as soon as he or she has handed it in and fainted away from lack of sleep and sustenance. Anyway, there were Gawker folks at last night’s extremely fun, if nonswimming, pool party for The Rejection Collection Vol. 2: The Cream of the Crap (“More cartoons you’ve never seen, and never will see, in The New Yorker”), and they have nice digital cameras, so I don’t know how much point there is in boldface names. But it was warm (and not just in temperature terms, though it was that, too) and crowded and high-energy and, dare I say it, kind of hip. Nobody there looked a bit rejected.

I recommend both Rejection Collection books, which have—alongside those ineffably or effably rejected cartoons—photos of and highly whimsical, illustrated interviews with the cartoonists you know only from their cryptic signatures, and there’s also a chance to have your copy/ies signed this Wednesday, 7 p.m. at Barnes & Noble on 6th Avenue. Whiz kid and pigeon enthusiast Matt Diffee will be there with cartoonist and moonlighting impresario David Sipress; they’re both funny and friendly guys. Swimsuits encouraged. Transgressions are the order of the day!