Pictured below and on this Flickr stream: incredible shots of signs taken from New Orleans and the Gulf Coast after Katrina.

The sum total is a self-published book by Eric Harvey Brown and Lori Baker, Signs of Life, and one of our favorite modern mashups. It goes something like this: Someone, or many people, picks up a camera,

finds a thread and through-line, uploads to Flickr, creates a book using a one-stop publishing shop like Lulu, sells it online to whoever’s interested, donates the proceeds to the source of the images when such a donation is appropriate, and gives out food and drink at a party to promote the book and/or cause where real people meet face to face. What’s better than that?

For our many readers in the tri-state area, that party is tonight, in Jersey City, at Bar Majestic, 6-8pm. More receptions follow later this fall. Click here for deets.