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The @MayorEmanuel coffee shirts have arrived.

2011-12-15T00:00:00-06:00

The @MayorEmanuel coffee shirts have arrived.

Back at the end of September I asked for you to vote on the coffee-themed shirt for @MayorEmanuel. You did--nearly 300 of you, actually--and the winning shirt was clear from almost the start. Unfortunately, real-life got in the way and it took a little longer to produce the shirts than anticipated, but they're here and they're beautiful!

Just $20, with two of your dollars going to Young Chicago Authors

For geeks, here's the final vote breakdown:

Friends with books

2011-12-13T00:00:00-06:00

Friends with books

Two readers from the MayorEmanuel book release party have come out with books in recent months. Megan Stilestra's Everyone Remain Calm is an eBook collection of her incredible short stories and Dmitry Samarov's Hack: Stories From a Chicago Cab is an awesome first-person account of being a cabbie in the city. With the holidays rapidly approaching, it's worth pointing out that both would make amazing gifts--two of the best books I've read this year.

Videos below from their readings at the Hideout release party.

Megan Stielstra reads from her eBook Everyone Remain Calm:

Dmitry Samarov, author of Hack: Stories from a Chicago Cab, reads:

Help pick the @MayorEmanuel coffee shirt!

2011-09-26T00:00:00-05:00

Help pick the @MayorEmanuel coffee shirt!

So we want to make another @MayorEmanuel T-shirt, this one dedicated to his love of coffee. But there's a problem: There are 70 tweets that deal with that glorious motherfucking bean, so we need your help choosing one. We've already done some of the narrowing, but if you could pick your favorite among these, that'd be hugely helpful. We promise we'll share the final vote data back because we are fucking nerds. Please fill out the form below or, if it doesn't load, click here to fill it out. Thank you!

Voting is now closed. Coffee shirts coming soon!

Dan Sinker talks @MayorEmanuel on Too Much Information

2011-09-22T00:00:00-05:00

Dan Sinker talks @MayorEmanuel on Too Much Information

Benjamin Walker makes one of my favorite radio shows on the planet, Too Much Information. Their episode on Pseudonyms just aired and in addition to conversations about Google's "Real Name" policy, an interview with the author of "Nom de Plume: A (Secret) History of Pseudonyms," and more is a great conversation with me about @MayorEmanuel, writing under an assumed name, and more. Listen to the whole thing (though my interview is at the 24 minute mark).

Dan Sinker at the Chicago Humanities Festival, Nov 13

2011-09-22T00:00:00-05:00

Dan Sinker at the Chicago Humanities Festival, Nov 13

The Chicago Humanities festival is an amazing, city-wide event that brings authors, thinkers, artists, and more from around the world into the city for the first few weeks of November. I've been a number of times and am stunned each time.

I am truly honored to have been asked to give a talk about @MayorEmanuel and real-time storytelling as part of this year's theme of “tech•knowledgē.” I'll be talking on Sunday November 13 at the Harold Washington Library, 3:30pm. Tickets are $5, teachers and students are free. Click here for the full listing and ticket info.

Also, if I can give you some picks of my own from the Festival:

Dan Sinker talks the Chicago Bears at the Paper Machete!

2011-09-13T00:00:00-05:00

Dan Sinker talks the Chicago Bears at the Paper Machete!

I was invited to be a guest at the awesome reading series/live weekly news magazine The Paper Machete on Saturday September 17. It's a smart, weekly show that asks people to write stories and essays about topics from the week's news. Seeing as how it's the start of the Bear's season, I decided to write about football. It is a topic that I know hardly anything about (though clearly @MayorEmanuel was a superfan). I ended up writing about the Bears, about being a parent, and about coming to appreciate the sport. Enjoy:

@MayorEmanuel Shirts and Buttons are GO!

2011-09-13T00:00:00-05:00

@MayorEmanuel Shirts and Buttons are GO!

Originally for sale exclusively at the Hideout book release event, we have now made all our @MayorEmanuel merch available to all-comers.

You can hit the storefront directly at buystuff.quaxelrod.com (integration into our site menus is still to come), or just click on each image below to go directly to the product page.

Shirts are $20, with $2 of each sale going to Young Chicago Authors.

Buttons are a buck.

Also: We like you.

The Book Comes Alive--Drinking the Carol Marin

2011-09-13T00:00:00-05:00

The Book Comes Alive--Drinking the Carol Marin

One of my favorite moments in the @MayorEmanuel feed is when, after a particularly harsh debate moderated by Chicago news legend Carol Marin, he concocts a drink he bequeaths with her name:

"Drinking the Carol Marin: bourbon, lemon syrup, bitters, sparkling wine. Delicious, and it'll kick your fucking ass."

So tonight, at the book event at the Museum of Contemporary Art and thanks to the efforts of my wife, who went to a liquor store and consulted with their experts (seriously, THREE PEOPLE helped), we were able to present Carol Marin with a gift basket with the ingredients of her drink.

And for you, we present the official recipe for "The Carol Marin":

regular bar glass with ice
3 shakes of bitters
.5 - 1 oz limoncello
1-1.5 oz bourbon
top off with Prosecco
Add a lemon twist

Added bonus: at the exact same time as the live Q&A happened, an interview Carol and I taped for Chicago Tonight aired:

Dan Sinker tweeting a short story for Huffington Post Books on Sept 13.

2011-09-12T00:00:00-05:00

Dan Sinker tweeting a short story for Huffington Post Books on Sept 13.

The Huffington Post Books section asked me if I'd be interested in writing a real-time short story on their Twitter feed on September 13, the official release date of the @MayorEmanuel book. After a little bit of back-and-forth, that mostly involved me saying, "Uh, you're kidding, right?" and them repeatedly saying "No," I agreed to do it.

Their pitch was really interesting: They understood that @MayorEmanuel is in the time vortex and doesn't just emerge when Arianna--or anyone else--asks. Instead, they suggested doing something totally new. Take some of the lessons learned in writing @MayorEmanuel and just go for it with something different. Huh.

The Huffington Post gives some of the lowdown here, and also has a nice Q&A with me at the bottom that focuses in on the nature of real-time writing.

I thought about laying out some of the logic of the universe the story takes place in here, but I think it's going to be more interesting to let that play out as the story unfolds. I will say that tonally, it's going to be a very different thing than @MayorEmanuel (and, expectation lowering: not much profanity). But I just finished some of the basic plotting (a lot of the story will be improvised as it's written, same as @MayorEmanuel, but with a single day instead of six months it seemed like a good idea to make sure I've got a basic structure), and I'm excited about the story that will be told.

Of course, for those that know me (or have read one of the bazillion stories about me), you know that I like to experiment and I absolutely view this as exactly that. Let's loop back at the end of the day and see if it was a successful one, OK?

So tomorrow, September 13, in addition to picking up your copy of the @MayorEmanuel book, make sure you're following @HuffPostBooks to witness this experiment unfold.

UPDATE--@MayorEmanuel at the Museum of Contemporary Art! September 13! Sinker | Meno | Marin | LTAB

2011-09-09T00:00:00-05:00

UPDATE--@MayorEmanuel at the Museum of Contemporary Art! September 13! Sinker | Meno | Marin | LTAB

September 13th the book is released! Join us at the Museum of Contemporary Art for readings, a Q&A (with local news legend Carol Marin), and hella fun (especially now that Louder Than a Bomb has been added to the bill)!

@MayorEmanuel Launch Day at the MCA!

Readings by:

Dan Sinker

author of the @MayorEmanuel Twitter feed

Joe Meno

author of The Great Perhaps

Spoken Word by:

Louder Than a Bomb

because they are great

PLUS: Q&A with the one and only Carol Marin

6pm in the Kanter Education Center at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. You should absolutely be there. Really. You. 220 East Chicago Avenue. Come early even: Tuesdays at the museum are free days.

The live DJ set from the @MayorEmanuel party

2011-09-08T00:00:00-05:00

The live DJ set from the @MayorEmanuel party

The Chief Technology Officer of Chicago was an incredible DJ before he was CTO of the city. Now he's a city employee, dropping tracks. I invited him to DJ the Hideout book launch event because he's a great DJ and a friend. What I didn't expect was that he was going to craft a live mix entirely built around the @MayorEmanuel story. He describes this mix as "one big in-joke" but what it really is is one big party.

If you click through and listen straight from Soundcloud, you'll see that he's extensively annotated moments in the mix with links to actual tweets. In the words of @MayorEmanuel: "I fucking love my friends."

@mayoremanuel Book Event Live Set by immerito

Parallel Worlds--Jeff Tweedy performs for both Rahm Emanuel and @MayorEmanuel

2011-09-07T00:00:00-05:00

Parallel Worlds--Jeff Tweedy performs for both Rahm Emanuel and @MayorEmanuel

An incredible diptych captured by Joshua Mellin:

Joshua's Flickr feed has a great set from the Hideout Book Launch Event.

The Book Comes Alive--Jeff Tweedy performs the Black Eyed Peas

2011-09-07T00:00:00-05:00

The Book Comes Alive--Jeff Tweedy performs the Black Eyed Peas

UPDATE: The other song Tweedy performed has surfaced on the web. Added here.

In the story of @MayorEmanuel, one of my favorite moments is when @MayorEmanuel forces Wilco's Jeff Tweedy to play Black Eyed Peas songs because "Not saying they're a good band--they're fucking terrible. But if you want people with money to give that shit away, play the Black Eyed Peas." Tweedy pushes back, but @MayorEmanuel is an immovable force: "So it goes without fucking saying, that he's going out there and playing "I Gotta Feeling," right fucking now."

And then, last night, at the sold-out @MayorEmanuel book release show at The Hideout, the greatest bar in Chicago, like the very best dream ever, it happened for real:

Video captured stage-side by Time Out Chicago.

The next song, "Rock Your Body" proved slightly more of a (hilarious) challenge:

Audience-cam video by Elizabeth Riley.

Finally he wrapped up by reciting a spoken-word rendition of "My Humps" that must be seen to be believed:

"My Humps" video captured by Jasmined.

Best. Night Ever.

The Actual Mayor Signs My Book!

2011-09-07T00:00:00-05:00

The Actual Mayor Signs My Book!

So the Mayor shows up to your book release party. What else are you going to do but ask him to sign your book?

Yeah, that sounds about right.

Louder Than a Bomb at the @MayorEmanuel Book Party

2011-09-07T00:00:00-05:00

Louder Than a Bomb at the @MayorEmanuel Book Party

One of the greatest unexpected outcomes of the whole @MayorEmanuel saga this past spring was getting to give over $12,000 of other people's money to the incredible youth writing organization, Young Chicago Authors. When thinking up who I'd like to have at the @MayorEmanuel book party, they were the first ones on my list--specifically their poetry arm, Louder Than a Bomb. LTAB has created a city-wide (regional now) poetry competition for high school students that is truly one of the greatest cultural institutions in Chicago. Watch the four performances from the Hideout stage and you'll see why:

All video captured by Seijinlee

You can donate money to Young Chicago Authors and Louder Than a Bomb right here.

The evolution of Paul Hornschemeier's book cover

2011-08-29T00:00:00-05:00

The evolution of Paul Hornschemeier's book cover

When I started talking with Scribner about the @MayorEmanuel book, I had a short list of illustrators that I wanted to work with for the cover. At the very top of that list was Paul Hornschemeier. And it was a major highlight when both Scribner and Paul said yes!

I gave Paul pretty free reign in early discussions, and he came back with a bunch of great ideas that went in all kinds of different directions. The one that would eventually become the cover, started out in a different direction for sure:

I loved the phone, and the action, but the sword didn't make sense. I suggested bringing Quaxelrod into the mix and, for a touch of absurd, a falconer's glove:

Blam. He nailed it right there in the pen sketch. All that was left was fleshing it out, and folding in the type:

Man, I love that cover. Paul's also a comics artist and author on his own right. While you're picking up books, you should pick up his latest too--it's fucking amazing.

@MayorEmanuel at the Museum of Contemporary Art! September 13! Sinker | Meno | Marin

2011-08-25T00:00:00-05:00

@MayorEmanuel at the Museum of Contemporary Art! September 13! Sinker | Meno | Marin

UPDATE: Louder Than a Bomb has been added to the lineup, because they are amazingly awesome.

September 13th the book is released! Join us at the Museum of Contemporary Art for readings, a Q&A (with local news legend Carol Marin), and hella fun!

@MayorEmanuel Launch Day at the MCA!

Readings by:

Dan Sinker

author of the @MayorEmanuel Twitter feed

Joe Meno

author of The Great Perhaps

PLUS: Q&A with the one and only Carol Marin

The @MayorEmanuel Book Launch Event SOLD OUT!!

2011-08-23T00:00:00-05:00

The @MayorEmanuel Book Launch Event SOLD OUT!!

Don't say I didn't warn you, the @MayorEmanuel book event hosted at the Hideout has sold out in just four days. So sorry if you didn't act fast. But don't worry this isn't the last book event in Chicago, no way

The @MayorEmanuel Book Launch Event! September 6th at the Hideout!

2011-08-19T00:00:00-05:00

The @MayorEmanuel Book Launch Event! September 6th at the Hideout!

UPDATE: Event is sold out.

Chicago! With help the from great folks at the Hideout and Quimby's we've lined up an incredible night of readings, spoken word, music, and crazy amounts of fun. It's also a great chance to get your hands on the book a week before it's official release! It will sell out, so order your tickets now!

The @MayorEmanuel Book Event!

Featuring the Chicago release of "The F***ing Epic Twitter Quest of Mayor Emanuel"

Readings by:

Dan Sinker

author of the @MayorEmanuel Twitter feed

Megan Stielstra

author of Everyone Remain Calm

Dmitry Samarov

author of Hack: Stories from a Chicago Cab

Spoken Word by Louder Than a Bomb

PLUS: Surprise Musical Guest Performing the Music of the Black Eyed Peas

And tunes spun by DJ John Tolva

Tickets cost five bucks, and proceeds go to Young Chicago Authors/Louder Than a Bomb. Repeat: It will sell out, so order your tickets now!

The Songs of @MayorEmanuel mix now on Spotify

2011-08-18T00:00:00-05:00

The Songs of @MayorEmanuel mix now on Spotify

Music played such a huge part in the @MayorEmanuel story—from drunken nights of karaoke in the igloo to the otherworldly strains of Journey's "Separate Ways" at the end of it all, it's a story that wrote its own soundtrack. Late at night one night, I compiled all (or, nearly all) of the songs in the @MayorEmanuel saga into a pretty great mix on the awesome service Spotify. Click here to listen!

Dan Sinker talks @MayorEmanuel at the Personal Democracy Forumn

2011-08-18T00:00:00-05:00

Dan Sinker talks @MayorEmanuel at the Personal Democracy Forumn

On June 6, I gave a 15-minute talk at the Personal Democracy Forum 2011, held at NYU's Skirball Center. It was an incredible opportunity to talk both about the feed, but also about some of the larger ramifications of real-time communications (and allowed a great opportunity to "beta test" parts of the epilogue of the book).

Watch live streaming video from pdf2011 at livestream.com

Talking @MayorEmanuel and Google, at Google

2011-08-18T00:00:00-05:00

Talking @MayorEmanuel and Google, at Google

@MayorEmanuel's visit to Google was one of my favorite stories to write, and so I was honored to join Brian "Fitz" Fitzpatrick (whose own Segway scooter inspired the "Segway Jousting" segment in that story) to talk about @MayorEmanuel as part of the "Authors @ Google" series.

Dan Sinker talks @MayorEmanuel with Stephen Colbert

2011-08-18T00:00:00-05:00

Dan Sinker talks @MayorEmanuel with Stephen Colbert

On March 8th, I joined Stephen Colbert on the Colbert Report to talk about @MayorEmanuel. It was an incredible experience. Thanks Stephen!

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