We had a great time last night in the Village at Art Bar--lots of new faces, lots of familiar faces, and no sign of George Bush and his SOTU.
More pictures and special guests after the jump....
The crowd:
Before we go any farther, let me just throw a big shoutout to casperr, who took the lead in organizing this gathering. I helped, but she did the heavy lifting of emails, communications, and diary writing. Thanks, casperr!
We were thrilled to have Tom Schaller join us last night. As you know, Tom's book Whistling Past Dixie came out in October. He's been touring it around the country and two nights ago he was on Colbert, so we were lucky to have him in the city for our get-together. He brought a bunch of books with him and sold & signed them all, I believe.
Tom signing:
Buy your copy of Whistling Past Dixie here.
So, who else was there? Well, I'm terrible with names, so please forgive me if I've gotten your screenname wrong here--correct me in the comments. (Also, I believe everyone pictured here was cool with images being posted--if you want your anonymity back please email me--vancookie-at-gmail--and I'll remove the image pronto):
nyceve, DrSteveB, bluejerseymom:
lipris:
marlborolite, the maven:
am, jeffrey, larry:
Group of heavy hitters:
Some newcomers/lurkers joined us. Welcome:
Tom & me:
TiaRachel + ? (sorry, I forgot your screenname!!)
mark, larry in nyc, nybri, tom schaller:
am, jeffrey feldman, larry in nyc:
silverleaf, tom:
jonah in nyc, mark, sidnora:
casperr and me:
All pictures taken by me or casperr. Of course, there were others there who somehow evaded the cameras. (Anyone get a picture of clammyc?)...
After our meetup, a bunch of folks headed up to midtown for the Drinking Liberally SOTU party. I took my bourboned brain home to bed instead. How was the party, y'all?
Please post more pix in the comments. And please take the poll.
UPDATE: I forgot to mention The Albany Project, which I learned more about last night and which is brought to us by those wonderful people we all came to know better through the Keeler campaign: lipris, NYBri, am, and wycats. Some important and exciting things are happening in New York y'all--check out the site.
ANOTHER UPDATE: I also forgot to say, if you want to be on the email list to be notified about upcoming meetups send an email to me (vancookie at gmail dot com) and/or to casperr (casperr67 at earthlink dot net), and we'll add you to the list. I stupidly got casperr's email address wrong in the comments below, so be sure to use the address listed here. (Sorry casperr!).