Newspaper Article

Flaubert's Parrots

NYO Staff

2005

Overview

On a warm June evening, the novelist Rick Moody sat on the floor of the placid backroom of the Ludlow Street bar Pianos, peeking out from beneath the brim of a porkpie hat at a shag-haired musician named Hannah Marcus. She was crooning about \"dragon fruit\" and stealing lap blankets from United Airlines. They were both there for a sold-out party celebrating the second annual music issue of The Believer, the self-consciously earnest literary magazine published by McSweeney Publishing. When Christian indie-folk star Daniel Smith took the stage, the hushed mood became a bit reverent. Mr. Smith, who performs as Br. Danielson, usually dresses as a tree when he sings, but tonight he was wearing a pink polo shirt and pale-blue argyle sweater vest. He tapped the microphone and responded to a few quiet questions from Mr. Moody, his biggest fan. At the peak of the evening, while Wolf Parade windmilled their guitars below, McSweeney's managing editor Eli Horowitz stayed upstairs with Mr. [Andrew Leland] and arranged a pile of Michel Houellebecq books into a makeshift pillow, upon which he took a snooze.

• Publisher: New York Observer, LP
• Subject: Leland, Andrew / Marcus, Hannah / Moody, Rick