#53: Karma Bookstore

What goes around comes around

Karma Bookstore

Lower East Side, Manhattan: 136 E 3rd St.

Karma is a bookstore for the Lower East Side artists and art lovers. The sparse and minimally designed store features mostly art books— compilations of Kandinskys, Barbara Krugers, Francis Bacons, and plenty of other artists I’m not cool enough to know about. These books are all gorgeous and cool, they are also not cheap. In addition to books, this store has a cabinet of curiosities including an original Harmony Korrine script and a vinyl of that insane Kurt Cobain/William S. Burroughs collab. 

What I got:

Eugenie Sokolov

I love Serge Gainsbourg, from his sexy 60s prime to his perpetually drunk creepy uncle 80s nadir. Eugenie Sokolov is the musician’s only novel— it’s about a performance artist who uses farts as their medium. You could easily take this as a metaphor the author’s decades long career of inventive bullshit and provocation. I was especially psyched to see the afterward in this edition by Russel Mael (singer of the greatest band of all time, Sparks).