1. Andrew Weatherhead writes poems on the train on receipts from books. We heard a couple of them. 2. Craig Morgan Teicher reading.
Out of all the clichés, I love the Brooklyn cliché the most. And I know that the mostly Brooklyn-based poets enjoyed the fact that The Polestar Poetry Series changed its venue for this time from the usual Cake Shop to Williamsburg’s Bruar Falls. Sunday afternoon was nicely mellow when we all met up, necessary to mention, in respectful numbers.
1. Elizabeth & John, who writes fiction. 2. The band: John Pinamont & the Atomic Nevada Two.
The Wold Newton Reading Extravaganza is a monthly reading series held at Word in Greenpoint. According to their website, it is part reading series, part carnival. I expect shiny things at carnivals, like glitter and beads, and sadly there were neither of these at the reading last night. But there was a band! The band played a couple songs before the reading, and one of these was about Michael Jackson, and the rest were mostly comprised of Beatles’ song titles.
1. Retrofuturology. 2. Teddy Henderson, a climate change disenthusiast, & Carolyn Cleveland, a cartoonist. They both are behind climatesocietynyc.org, which is an organization for artists who are concerned with climate change.
Last night at The Observatory, an art and events space in Gowanus with features that tend to the dorky and dark side of things, had an opening for their current show, Retrofuturology. The show was curated by The Hollow Earth Society, whose colonels are Ethan Gould and Wythe Marschall, and which creates BOOKS and websites and is “dedicated to re-sculpting history and to promoting its own elegant–impossible futures.”
1. Co-host M.G. Martin is so excited and he just can’t hide it. 2. M.G. Martin and friend Tess.
Literary Death Match took its first foray into the prophetic arts on Wednesday night. This was LDM: The Forecast Edition, celebrating the release of Forecast, Shya Scanlon’s first novel, and the forecast outside was appropriately spectacular: before the foot of show, it was sleeting sideways. Why the LDM seers couldn’t have used their clairvoyance on some mid-70s sunshine is for them to know and us to curse about while we wait for our socks to dry.
1. Emma Straub & Mike Fusco. Fusco did the design for the magazine, and Straub’s book-release for Other People We Married will be at Book Court tonight. She says that there will be free champagne! And that it’ll be awesome! 2. Noah McLaurine & Zack Zook, who was the emcee for the evening. Both of these fine young gentleman edited CCR.
BookCourt partied last night to celebrate the second issue of its very own literary journal, Cousin Corrine’s Reminder. Besides publishing writing, the magazine also includes “comix” and photography. As for the party, we were given booze, and could gawk at paintings, photography, a slideshow of images from the magazine with plenty of nudity, and the attractive crowd.
1. Fred Krughoff of BOMB Magazine & reader J. Robert Lennon. 2. Reader Lynne Tillman.
I arrived right on time last night at Housing Works for Electric Literature’s release party, and it was already as crowded as hell. Also: dark, which was probably for the film that was shown on a projector, but I like to think it was because the event was “cool,” and cool things don’t happen with the lights turned all the way up.
1. LQ Assistant Editor Aidan Flax-Clark and LQ intern Olivia Rosane. 2. The stage at Joe’s Pub.
Contrary to my perception of the place when I heard the name, Joe’s Pub isn’t really that pub-like. Having passed the ticket-takers at the gated entrance, I was ushered up to Joe’s press section, which is actually a long and very nice bar with a leather bumper for your elbows, I guess. The bar overlooks a lower section of banquettes and tables slowly filling up with evening dresses and business suits. Seated there, next to a gentleman decked out in a Mad Men-style bowtie, vest and cap, I felt quite intellectual enough to witness the Winter 2011 launch party of Lapham’s Quarterly, which is actually just beginning its third year in print, but looks like it has been around since the dawn of Plato’s Academy.
1. Courtney Maum, author of Small Things in Big Places, & Louis Abelman, who works for The New York Times’ website. Both of them are clearly having a shitty time, and Abelman says that Choi is very funny on Twitter. 2. Writer Talia Mailman, reader Miles Klee, Columbia grad student Kaveh, & Jay.
I arrived at Greenlight Bookstore forty-five minutes before Steamboat was supposed to start. I didn’t do this because I like arriving to readings maaaaad early (I don’t), but because, although I kick a$$ at all the important things in life (lying, taking standardized tests, making out), I am hopeless at the small things in life (like writing down the correct time I am supposed to be somewhere). Fortunately, I was in a bookstore! And, omgz, I love books! So I got the chance to actually browse around Greenlight, and I must say, I now have a new appreciation for the store– which is out of the way, for me, and thusly I have only been there for readings, never for browsing. I am happy to say that Greenlight is the kind of store that I could get lost in — no over-eager salespeople, no annoying music, no crowds of people constantly bumping into me as I’m trying to page through a book (like in a certain Manhattan bookstore — *COUGH*The Strand *COUGH*). And when I did decide that I wanted guidance, the staff was what all good bookstore staff should be like: friendly and knowledgeable.
1. Antonio Sicurezza and Susanne Kirchgasser, who met Rick Moody in Italy and moved to New York 4 months ago. 2. Ken Gordon and Stephen Arnoff give up the goods.
Last night, poet David Lehman and novelist Rick Moody turned up at the 14th Street Y to talk about Bob Dylan. The two writers had participated in a man-to-man QuickMuse session and their mandatory inspiration was a rare photograph of Dylan and The Band jamming with Cher. (QuickMuse, run by Ken Gordon, gives writers 15 minutes to compose on topic and records every key stroke therein; afterwards, the whole thing can be played back in warp speed.) For the sake of this post, I will sabotage whatever online reputation I could have had and admit that I know very little about Bob Dylan both biographically and musically. Not nothing, but still not.
I had never been to the 14th Street Y before and as venues go, I wasn’t expecting anything particular. What I—and Rick and David and everyone else except the Y staff—was not expecting was for there to be some kind of Top 40 jazzercise class going on in the next room. So, Dish readers, here is an unprecedented opportunity for you to be there without having been there. Crank some Katy Perry and Taio Cruz out of your laptop and let’s press on.
The heroin story I know best is about a couple. I met the boy a long time ago. He told me he was single but that was a lie. We slept together for a while, off and on, despite his unsingleness. We fought a lot and hated each other sometimes, until one day I looked at him and realized he had become my very close friend. Once I smoked some DMT because someone gave it to me, and it made me giggle and I couldn’t stand up from the bed I was sitting on. I had a dream, and in the dream I was a lot older, I knew I had aged because my skin felt light like paper but the inside of me was solid and dark. The sun was low in the sky and thick yellow like tree sap, that gorgeous time of day right before the sun begins to set. I was with the boy and he was older too, a man now, and we were married; there were vines growing up the fence and the leaves were buzzing with new growth and his skin was warm under my fingers as I kissed him. I looked in his eyes, the man in the dream, and couldn’t believe that I had known, and hated, and loved this person for so long. In him I could see who I was, who I had been.