JRL reading in NYC next Friday, 1/21

Hey readers--Rhian will be back with a real post tomorrow, but until then I thought I'd let you know I'm reading in New York a week from right this second, Friday January 21, 7pm, at the Housing Works Bookstore Cafe in Soho.  Here are the details.  I will be reading with the very funny Ben Greenman and stealth genius Lynne Tillman (whose magnificent freakout American Genius is not like any book I have ever read in my entire life), in an event dedicated to promoting the fifth issue of the excellent, excellent Electric Literature, the cover of which features a painting of some nude dude playing a video game.

This event is billed as "plus film and a DJ," so you never know, maybe there will be live dancing videogame nude dudes?  I certainly hope so.  Anyway, please come, and buy me nine drinks.  I dare you.

Readings, Again

I've posted about them before, but I've got literary readings on the brain again. I gave one last week, then went to another last night, and there was one at Rhian's bookstore this afternoon. Last week's reading was a university affair (me and two colleagues) and took place in a lecture hall. Last night's was delivered by four graduate students in a record store. Today's was similar to that one.

I have to confess, I'd gotten sick as hell of the things. Around this time two years ago, I would have been happy never to have to attend one ever again. But I dunno--since then, I've really enjoyed some amazing readings, from both published writers and students. I don't think I've changed all that much--I think it's the readings that have changed. The mood of the people who attend them, and the way people talk to each other afterward.

There are specific reasons for this here in Ithaca. At school, our department received an anonymous grant to raise the profile of our series, and as a result, we've been able to publicize more, and draw more interesting writers. The grad students' series used to take place in Goldwin Smith, the English department building, but they moved it downtown to the record store, and now people get to wander in from the street, instead of having to drive up to campus and park. The town-gown border has been blurred a bit. And this other reading, the one today, was I believe an extension of a new local literary magazine.

So we've had a convergence of good fortune and positive energy here. But I'm wondering perhaps if the literary reading itself, in America anyway, is entering a kind of golden age. In much the way that the self-destruction of the record industry (and the parallel devaluation of recorded music) has rendered the live concert more central to the experience of contemporary music, maybe the ongoing implosion of literary publishing is driving the story to the streets.

Just maybe. If you've read this horrifying post at Literary Rejections On Display, you may, right this moment, be considering just how close to the suicidal edge commercial publishers are presently teetering, and wondering what the new literary order might be.

Perhaps it will involve people coming out of their houses and watching each other make fools, or heroes, out of themselves in front of microphones. Increasingly, I hope so. Everyone seems a little more relaxed to me these days, now that they're no longer expecting six-figure advances. They appear to be actually enjoying their cigarettes and beers as they consume them, and to be listening to others without malice. Again--that's just a snapshot of my hermetic little world. But wouldn't it be nice?

What Makes A Good Reading?

I was supposed to post yesterday, but I never got around to it, as I was at the Colgate Writers' Conference, giving a reading. If you dig the conference circuit, this one seems like a good one--I met a lot of nice people and had a fine time.

I have to admit, though, I don't like attending literary readings. More often than not, a good story seems to lose something rather than gain it, when it's read aloud. I often find myself falling asleep, even when the story is excellent. I think I'm programmed to receive narrative on the page--the ability to vary the pace of my reading, to glance back at what I've read, is part of the process, and I think most fiction, anyway, is written to be consumed this way.

Sometimes a reading's great, though. George Saunders is a wonderful reader--I could listen to him anytime. I still put on my old Robert Frost tapes sometimes, but never my recordings of Wallace Stevens, whose poetry I otherwise prefer. Last night I heard a novel excerpt from Hannah Tinti, with whom I shared the stage--she was wry and assured, and I enjoyed it a lot.

I think the reason these people succeed in their readings is that they have found the correct balance, or at least a correct balance, between fealty to the text and actual performance. Not too hammy, not too dry. A good reading can bring out more of the writer's personality than you found on the page; a bad one can make you think that story you liked wasn't so hot after all.

Rhian had encouraged me to read a recent piece, "Zombie Dan," which is a black comedy full of swearing, sex, experimental medicine, and mind reading. I went for it, and perhaps overhammed, but it was great fun to "do" the story in person. Ironically I love to read to an audience--alone in my office, writing, I am so totally not the center of attention, however desperately I like to imagine I am. So yes, I swore and did funny voices and made the most of my moment in the spotlight. It rained, then stopped, and then we all drank about eighteen beers. There are worse ways to spend an evening.