Last night I went to Housing Works Bookstore Cafe in SoHo for a reading of Cassette From My Ex, a new anthology of writing about mixtapes. Truth be told, my friend and I missed the reading. We lost track of time (we were busy at another book party eating free pierogies. Yes, it’s good to be me). But we toasted the editor, Jason Bitner, at a bar across the street afterwards and didn’t let on that we weren’t at the reading. Sorry to break that to you, Jason. But, like I always say: truth comes first…except in situations that involve pierogies.

I interviewed Jason in the section about mixtapes in OBSOLETE. He’s written two other books: one about old photos and one specifically about Polaroids. In short, he is my soul mate. Hey, I’m on a truth kick. Alas, this piece of grade A man-meat is taken, ladies. And his wife recently purchased my book, so I can’t hate her. Actually, maybe I love her, too. It’s Big Love, Brooklyn style. Sort of.

Jason signed my book with a drawing of a car that has dollar signs coming out of its exhaust pipe. The exhaust pipe is at the front of the car. I think it references the lifestyle of your average NYC writer. If you don’t get it, then you just don’t understand me, okay? This morning I had it tattooed on my hipbone.

Cassette, which started out as a website, cassettefrommyex.com, is a very sweet book. It’s beautifully designed and has a great cover by Hope Gangloff, who, coincidentally, is a friend of an ex who gave me some mixtapes a decade or so ago.  Flipping through the book, lots of parts have gotten me all teary, if only because it’s reminded me that I’ve lost all the aforementioned mixtapes, and of the fact that the majority of mixtapes I ever made were by me, and for me (again, this whole truth thing…),

I haven’t delved too far into it yet, but I’ve enjoyed what I’ve read of the book. I’ve never met her but I have a girl crush on public radio darling Starlee Kine (she could be Nicki to Jason’s wife’s Barb and my Margene). Starlee has a sweet essay that braids together stoies of French movies, bone marrow, Italy, the movie Manhattan, clarinet lessons and the songs of Chet Baker. There’s also a pieces by two extremely talented colleagues of mine, Larry Smith of Smith Mag and Mary Huhn of The New York Post.

Because I haven’t read much of the book yet, I’m going to just “review” it by turning to random pages and typing the first sentence I see. Then you can judge it for yourself.

“If I try to burn it, an unlit matchstick would blow the lit one out…One mutual friend, however, saw ‘I’m Your Puppet’ on the tape and was appalled that anyone would wear his heart on his sleeve to that degree…With this, I’m now able to cry for him. Rest in peace, little ghost…It was ‘Once,’ the first song on  Jam’s grunge-era-defining album Ten…By the time the swelling subsided and I found the courage to open the bathroom door, the party was in full swing…It was a significant song because it represents the amount of time we spent going to rap shows, taping Mr. Magic’s radio broadcasts and dissecting songs to identify the samples.”

I think that speaks for itself.