The Folly is damn handsome. It’s also damn cheap—-it’s free, that is, on account of a fundraiser the editors of the D.C. literary journal held at Marvin not long ago. And a lot of it’s pretty damn interesting. There’s a poem by Child Ballads leader Stewart Lupton; possibly fake and plainly fake histories of Wisconsin towns and Catholic apostates; erudite drawings by Elizabeth Graeber (of recent City Paper cover-story fame) and Decoy; a recipe for “Lover’s Stew” nested between ones for Borsch and Green Pea Francais; and one fantastic Missed Connection (“me: the redhead in the paisley waistcoat”; “you: Christopher Hitchens”). The whole thing is printed on various lovely paper stocks, and none of the content is available online.

One other thing I learned from The Folly: that if you are a D.C. gallerist and you have a very prominent art collector in tow, you can skip the line at Marvin, where Sheldon Scott—-who is on The Folly‘s editorial board—-is the general manager. He writes as much in the intro to his interview with Mera Rubell. Worth knowing!

I picked up my copy at The Folly‘s launch event last Friday. According to Folly “Editor-in-Grief” Andrew Bucket, the remaining copies, fresh from the printer, will be stacked at Smash Records in Adams Morgan beginning tomorrow at noon, and you can grab one gratis.

Photos by Darrow Montgomery