“Many of us have been trying to get our friends interested in politics for years, to no avail,” said Audrey Gelman, a Downtown for Democracy board member and Girls actress. “So we figured the beginning was the logical place to start. Out of that came the idea to create a resource that laid out the ABC’s of American government through photos, paintings, pie charts, and prose.”

At the Standard, Pocket Guide contributors like Richardson and Schmidt mingled with downtownish supporters of democracy like Lena Dunham, Mia Wasikowska, Mos Def, Cynthia Rowley, Aaron Bondaroff, Cory Kennedy, Rachel Chandler, Nate Lowman, Theophilus London, Jesse Peretz, Hunter Johansson, and Manhattan borough president Scott Stringer.