Forgive your host for his apparent neglect of this blog, but he has been hiding in the desert for the last two weeks, trying to push his book a little closer towards finished. And now I’ll drop the pretentious use of the third person to tell you that I’m a little behind on hammering out all the details for the next reading, on Saturday, November 7th. But in the meantime I wanted to repost a recap of our last event, co-produced with Litquake: “BE AFRAID! Evil Queens, Menacing Dykes, and Secret Gay Agendas.” Evan Carp, who blogs for Examiner.com, gave us a great write-up, complete with a few videos:
“I am so glad I stuck it out and made it to this event…I entered what has recently been voted Best Barbershop in San Francisco. The place was a very intriguing setting for a reading and hosts them regularly now, I learned. More about that can be found at barbershopreadingseries.com and I highly suggest it. I will certainly return to Joe’s (and maybe even for a haircut). The old chairs still include little built-in ashtrays and the building is spacious and well-kept. As soon as Meliza Banales opened up with her fast-paced and outrageous tale of a doomed cloning experiment – staged for the sole purpose of having sex with herself, literally – I realized Litquake had fast and completely become something entirely different for me. Not only was this event showcasing a reading series in itself – more importantly it was very community-oriented. Litquake was suddenly opening up a new series to me and in its way was featuring a whole neighborhood’s accumulated literary efforts…
Marcus Ewer read an essay on “the gays” from 1967 and with the aid of a hand-puppet managed to satirize just about everything there is to be said about homos and heteros. Aaron Shurin recited a tender and gorgeous piece he has recently written had the entire room noiseless. We took a break, socialized a bit – the barbershop really is a great place for this – and when we resumed, Justin Hall took the stage and had the place rocking with laughter with a ribald comic on the assassination of JFK that featured, I believe, Glamazonia the Uncanny Super Tranny. Monica Nolan read from her new book Bobby Blanchard, Lesbian Gym Teacher, which is an unapologetic account of teen love told for laughs. Justin Chin, who was the only author I had previously read ended the night with a story so gruesome and X-rated I don’t think the internet is even prepared for it. It was an exclamation stomped onto an evening of revelry.
The energy did not flag, the laughs rolled like thunder in a devilish divine way, and the room was filled with people in every corner, crack and crevice. For only $5 at the door, this event, which included endless amounts of wine, cupcakes, and beer, was a bargain so outrageous that when it ended we milled about and congratulated ourselves for having been witness to it.”
A special thanks to all of our performers; Meliza Banales, Marcus Ewert, Aaron Shurin, Justin Hall, Monica Nolan, and Justin Chin. As well as Liam Passmore, my co-producer from Litquake.
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