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Lonely Planet Encounter New York

Happy to announce Encounter New York. Lonely Planet's new pocket urban travel guides. Local NYC author Ginger Adams Otis dishes on the best galleries, happy hours and street eats in the city. Fun book!

Download NewYork.pdf

Rolf Potts Vagabonding: Books

Books for the road, courtesy Rolf Potts. Books.

Lonely Planet New York City 5

Hot off the presses, Lonely Planet's New York City 5. Featuring interviews with New Yorkers on their tips and tricks for navigating NYC.

therefore_I_travel
Originally uploaded by droccadnoh.

Travelers Tales: the World is a Kitchen

Kimchi 김치
Originally uploaded by Nagyman.

kimchi
Living in Korea, kimchi was the staple. Back stateside, the cravings panged. First I bought it, then I made it, to make Mr. Cho proud.

Food and travel are deliciously intertwined, and cooking is a great way to get immersed into a culture. I learned it making kimchi in my Fort Mason backyard, and love to reconnect with true tales of food cultural immersion.

The World is a Kitchen, the new Travelers Tales anthology, bridges cuisine and culture in 37 stories from writers around the world. With an extensive directory and fab accompanying website, the book speaks to its growing community.

San Francisco Zine Festival 2006

Fine Print Revisited: Way back in 1994-95 I worked at a small- & independent-press distributorship down in Austin, TX; Fine Print Distributors, long R.I.P.

I still pine for the days we'd pull down a new pallet with the latest Temp Slave, Hate, or Punk Planet aboard. Many hours spent soaking up information from far-flung outposts, valuable stuff in those final months before Mosaic upended the forklift.

King of all? Factsheet Five, the Sears Catalog guide to the small & alternative publishing world, reviewing hundreds of titles on all subjects, many available for price of postage or fair trade.

Back in the days of DIY innocence before the web leveled economies of scale and relandscaped publishing, the 'zine scene was the way for indie media voices to get word out. It was the punk rock parallel to big journalism, niche creators of content unbeholdened to corporate interests, typed at temp jobs and stapled by fellow travelers with Kinkos gigs.

Nostalgic? Shit yeah, for zines had little if any monetary prospects, so the scene was pure.

But the problem with nostalgia is it implies something is over, when in fact, 2006, its becoming the year that 'zines came back.

No surprise, really: the publishing platform that usurped zinemaking has evolved into the mainstream itself, so a natural reaction would be for indie print publishing to return, price inefficiencies and all.

Two great indicators. First, the return of the San Francisco Zine Fest, held this weekend, Sept 9-10 2006, at CELLspace. A two-day conference of indie & underground publishers, the show offers workshops, film screenings and opportunities to connect with nearly 1,000 like-minded creatives and creators. Bonus: costs our favorite price - free!

And in news that warms our media dork hearts, 2006 also sees after an 8-year hiatus the return of Factsheet 5. Plans are for FS5 to continue covering the small & alternative/independent zine and media world, branching into other publishing platforms including radio, blogs and DVDs. Currently they're ramping up their editorial staff, and are wide-open to contributors, so if you've got an itch for this, start scratching.

What's next? The Meat Puppets reuniting to tour?

36 Hours - New York Times Google Map

Weekend travelers take note - Google Maps and the New York Times have partnered to create the 36 Hours - City by City guide.

 

A compilation of the Times' popular Friday Escapes pieces, the guide offers a map of America with rolliver tags indicating its archive of destinations. Articles cover offerings in less-heralded cities for travelers and smaller getaways towns, framed from Friday happy hour Friday to a late Sunday brunch.

Whether Houston hip hop or Minneapolis theater, Carolina bluegrass or Lake Tahoe trekking, the guide contains surprises worth investigating before you depart.