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b'In\\xa0Arbitrary Stupid Goal, Tamara Shopsin takes the reader on a pointillist time-travel trip to the Greenwich Village of her bohemian 1970s childhood, a funky, tight-knit small town in the big city, long before Sex and the City tours and luxury condos. The center of Tamara\\u2019s universe is Shopsin\\u2019s, her family\\u2019s legendary greasy spoon, aka \\u201cThe Store,\\u201d run by her inimitable dad, Kenny\\u2014a loquacious, contrary, huge-hearted man who, aside from dishing up New York\\u2019s best egg salad on rye, is Village sheriff, philosopher, and fixer all at once. All comers find a place at Shopsin\\u2019s table and feast on Kenny\\u2019s tall tales and trenchant advice along with the incomparable chili con carne.\\n\\nFilled with clever illustrations and witty, nostalgic photographs and graphics, and told in a sly, elliptical narrative that is both hilarious and endearing,\\xa0Arbitrary Stupid Goal\\xa0is an offbeat memory-book mosaic about the secrets of living an unconventional life, which is becoming a forgotten art.\\n\\nPraise for\\xa0Arbitrary Stupid Goal\\n\\n\\u201cArbitrary Stupid Goal\\xa0is a completely riveting world\\u2014when I looked up from its pages regular life seemed boring and safe and modern like one big iPhone. This book captures not just a lost New York but a whole lost way of life.\\u201d \\u2014Miranda July\\n\\n\\u201cTamara Shopsin\'s illustrations are instantly recognizable: economical, seemingly simple and straightforward, but always working on a few different levels. Tamara the person is similar: quiet but charming and warm and tough and determined. Now it turns out her prose is the same way: funny and playful but revealing, and making us see the world we thought we knew with fresh eyes.\\u201d \\u2014Christoph Niemann, author of\\xa0I Lego N.Y.\\n\\n\\u201cTamara Shopsin\\u2019s new memoir is hilarious. Just in like the West Village itself, you zigzag along on a fun adventure, never knowing who you are going to meet. What a fun read!\\u201d \\u2014Amy Sedaris\\n\\n\\u201cTamara Shopsin\\u2019s memoir is a funny and absorbing portrait of the city in a grubbier, less corporate incarnation. If you believe, as she does\\u2014and I do\\u2014that New York is, \\u2018matter-of-fact, the best place on earth,\\u2019 then read this book. And if you don\\u2019t believe that, after you read this book, you will.\\u201d \\u2014Roz Chast\\n\\n"[Shopsin] weaves a marvelous patchwork quilt of stories about a Manhattan that doesn\\u2019t exist anymore . . [Arbitrary Stupid Goal\\xa0is] an artistic ode to a way of life that people now living in New York City might never experience." \\u2014Publishers Weekly (Pick of the Week, Starred Review)\\n\\n"A warm evocation of a quirky life and exuberant times." \\u2014Kirkus\\n\\n"Deeply nostalgic but not at all mawkish, Shopsin\\u2019s supremely charming and affecting memoir of\\xa0growing up\\xa0in a pre-gentrified Greenwich Village will enchant fans of restaurant lore and postwar New\\xa0York historyalike. In short, impressionistic chapters illustrated with photos, ephemera, and Shopsin\\u2019s\\xa0own adorably\\xa0insouciant line drawings, the book conjures a vanished\\xa0bohemia\\xa0without any hint of the\\xa0irritating pedantry\\xa0that dogs so many of its kind. Shopsin\\u2019s parents\\u2014familiar to fans of the writer Calvin Trillin\\xa0and those\\xa0who\\u2019ve seen the documentary I Like Killing Flies\\u2014opened Shopsin\\u2019s General Store in 1973\\xa0and turned\\xa0it into a restaurant shortly thereafter, one beloved by local weirdos, celebrities, models, artists,\\xa0and everyone\\xa0in between. Shopsin, who still works there sometimes, recalls her unconventional childhood\\xa0and those\\xa0who shaped it with considerable warmth; she pays special attention to her dad\\u2019s late friend, Willy,\\xa0an outsize\\xa0personality whom\\xa0Shopsin\\xa0cares for in his dotage. Gumball machines, meat slicers, Nazi\\xa0bunkers, and\\xa0pancake methodologies all make cameo appearances, much to the reader\\u2019s delight.\\u2014 Eugenia Williamson, Booklist\\n\\nTamara Shopsin\\xa0is a well-known cook at the distinctly New York City eatery Shopsin\'s, a\\xa0New York Times\\xa0and\\xa0New Yorkerillustrator, and the author of\\xa05 Year Diary\\xa0and\\xa0What Is This?, as well as the coauthor of\\xa0This Equals That\\xa0and\\xa0Mumbai New York Scranton. She lives in New York City with her husband.\\n\\nEvent date:\\xa0\\n\\nThursday, July 27, 2017 - 7:30pm\\n\\nhttps://skylightbooks.podbean.com/e/tamara-shopsin-discusses-her-graphic-memoir-arbitrary-stupid-goal/'