Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins, will publish a new novel this fall by Tom Robbins called B is For Beer.

According to HarperCollins executive editor David Hirshey, who is editing the book, it is about 100 pages long, and takes the form of a "hallucinogenic hymn to beer, children, and the cosmic mysteries that sustain us all."

Mr. Robbins, author of Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, has not written a novel since 2003's Villa Incognito, and B is for Beer will be his first since leaving Bantam Books, his publisher of almost 30 years.  read more »

Mark your calendars: the state Independence Party is getting together, apart.

A week from Monday, the New York County chapter of the party, which is closely associated with Lenora Fulani, will have its annual fund-raiser at the Woolworth Kitchen Tower.

Tomorrow, a rival, Staten Island-based faction will hold an event to present awards to Councilman Vinny Ignizio, Assemblywoman Janele Hyer-Spencer and Village Voice writer Tom Robbins.

It’s safe to say whoever shows up to one probably won’t show up to the other. But it's nice to know that party infighting isn't putting a damper on the social schedule.

Here's his explanation of why McLaughlin would have been part of the alleged scheme:

Several of the contractors were involved in the city's streetlight program, where McLaughlin had enormous clout as a result of his role as a top official of Local 3 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. While most of his official union business centered on his Central Labor Council role, McLaughlin maintained control over a unit of the electrical workers' union whose members worked for the streetlighting contractors, sources said. By agreeing to reduce labor costs for favored contractors, McLaughlin was able to help steer awards to his pals, the sources said.

Robbins, whose judgement on this kind of thing is hard to match, writes as though the case against McLaughlin is pretty well nailed down.

GOP and the City sends up the Daily News' latest take on TerrorEmailgate, proposing a complex network of alliances all the way from U.S. Coast Guard information officer Nathaniel Heiner (an original member of Sha-Na-Na) to the ubiquitous Kevin Bacon. The Daily Gotham runs an article taking Bloomberg's education record to task. And, as one reader notes, the fame of Freddy's botched appearance with Bill Clinton yesterday has spread so far, so wide, that... the Drudge Report has taken notice.

First, on January 12, Bloomberg campaign chief Kevin Sheekey and City Hall aide Rich Wager meet the former Councilman in Starbucks and offer him a job on the campaign. Ognibene turns them down later that week, as he told us this morning. There's been some suggestion that the offer might have broken a law. But it's also politics as usual, and Ognibene told us he ends that day on good terms with the mayor's men, and without any plans to talk to the press -- much less his longtime tormentor at the Voice! -- about his meeting.

Ognibene wouldn't confirm that Wager was the one delivering what sounded to him, and to us, like an implicit threat. He only said that the conversation took place between his ally and "a very decent young man, who either made a gross mistake or was used" and who, Ognibene speculated, "is deeply pained." We learned from another source that this was Wager.

In any case, a few days later, Ognibene gets a call from the Voice's Tom Robbins, who had covered the bribery scandal. (Ognibene adamantly maintains his innocence.) Ognibene guesses that this is the consummation of Wager's threat, and that Robbins has been tipped by City Hall. So he tells Robbins the whole story.

Ognibene, in any case, told us that the threat had the opposite of its intended effect. Once he'd been threatened, he felt that he couldn't let himself be intimidated. "You never threaten someone," he said. "Then they're locked in."