DEBATE AT LOLITA BAR: "Is Dating Tougher for Men or Women?"

In one week, on Wednesday, Dec. 7, hear about dates that will live in infamy. That’s when the Jinx Athenaeum presents a debate, moderated by Michel “The Brain” Evanchik, between the lovelorn man known as The Anonymous Blogger and literary agent Hillery Borton (soon to be one of the women immortalized on the VH1 dating show tentatively titled Crushed Out, premiering around February 2006) on the question:

Is Dating Tougher for Men or Women?

That’s Dec. 7 at 8pm, downstairs at Lolita bar (free admission, cash bar), northeast corner of Broome and Allen on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, one block south and three west of the Delancey St. subway stop.

As for me, your debate host, Jinx Rational Agent Todd Seavey, my dating trials and errors have led to a mention in this recent New York magazine article by Amy Sohn about people who don’t want kids:

http://newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/nightlife/sex/columns/mating/14917/

I think being in this magazine officially makes me a New York resident after fourteen years of living here, so I’ll plan to remain here at least another fourteen (NOTE: my apologies to the rest of the world, but I’m staying put).

One advantage of New York is being surrounded by interesting writers, so let me conclude by suggesting some recent or impending works by friends of mine whose stuff might just make perfect gifts this holiday season, or maybe next holiday season for the ones that aren’t published yet (I hope this will make up for my own long-planned political tractatus still being, at least for now, unwritten):

Evolution (chapbook version) by Selene Castrovilla

The Thrill of the Chaste by Dawn Eden (if she includes a section on having dated an atheist, that’s me)

Girlbomb: A Halfway Homeless Memoir by Janice Erlbaum

The Other War: Israelis, Palestinians, and the Struggle for Media Supremacy by Stephanie Gutmann

Scenes from a Holiday by Caren Lissner et al

Overheard in New York (based on their popular website) by Morgan Friedman and Jinx’s Libertine Director of Outreach, blogger Michael Malice (who in addition to this January publication will also have his biography Ego & Hubris: The Michael Malice Story, written by Harvey Pekar, released in March and who cast the aforementioned VH1 dating show — busy man)

Batman: Year 100 by Paul Pope

Festivus by Allen Salkin

The Nine Lives of Chloe King by Celia Thomson, a.k.a. Liz Braswell, who writes cool young-adult fantasies under pseudonyms and reports that this one may become a TV-movie

And next year or so should see books in the works by:

David Kamp (on film snobbery, to accompany his existing book on rock snobbery)

Gersh Kuntzman (on Chrismukkah) — whose funny and tuneful play SUV: The Musical you should see in spite of its environmentalist premises

John Stossel

Virginia Vitzthum (on online dating)

and Christine Whelan (on dating among high-powered women)

So buy all of those as well. And Ron Bailey isn’t part of the New York-area nexus above, but you should read his Liberation Biology anyway. I confess that to save time I’ve decided that from now on I’m only going to read books written by people I know personally. (Being myopic may be frowned upon, but they can’t put you in jail for it or anything.)

You can also score some cheap gifts by coming to the Dec. 7 debate, where I’ll oversee the second Jinx Book Giveaway, my one big stab at being unGrinchlike this year (NOTE: God does not exist). I’ll keep future e-mails much more succinct.

(NOTE: The above was sent as a mass e-mail in the days prior to the debate and was posted on this blog retroactively in April 2007. Click here for other Debates at Lolita Bar.)