Gary Shteyngart Reading Super Sad True Love Story
I was wearing a T-shirt that read, Kentucky: Not Just Fried Chicken
This write-up was another post that I’ve struggled to release. I wanted to write something interesting and preferably humorous about the evening because Gary Shteyngart and his novel, Super Sad True Love Story, are intelligent and funny. I found myself unable to create a coherent message about what I was reading, what I witnessed and felt, and how that interacts with who I was and what I was doing. Some sort of blockage was happening, as paralyzing as it was frightening.
I’m going to probably stray into maudlin territory. I apologize; this was the only way I could get something out.
My girlfriend, and sometimes co-writer, goes out of her way to share the things I enjoy: literature, readings, insults, corgis. She is my conspirator in many of these signings, sitting next to me in hard plastic seats, chatting and offering a little shove of encouragement to wait in line for an insult. She’s the extra motivation I often need to even board the train out to Brooklyn after a 9-6 day of wageslaving.
On what was an otherwise amazing evening, with Shteyngart sounding easy and relaxed, entertaining his Brooklyn neighbors, I’ll remember Gary Shteyngart’s reading as the first time I fucked up bad enough to make my best friend cry.
Click Here for More
Posted in Book Reviews, Insults, Readings
Tagged baby, book review, Gary Shteyngart, insult, misha, novel, self-improvement, Shteyngart, Super Sad True, Super Sad True Love Story
Mancrush: confirmed
Salman Rushdie was tired. He peered at the crowd with hooded eyes as he stepped up to the podium, his body language screaming “fuck the Q&A.” This was the last stop on his reading tour for Luka and the Fire of Life, he admitted to a bit of fatigue.
Ah, but his voice! Rich and reassuring, with a drummer’s knack for varying tempo to change the mood. He is every inch a storyteller, a veteran professor working an old lesson plan on a fresh class of students. He read mostly from memory, stopping to look at the book almost as if to keep him on-task; it was like he was tempted to riff off the words on the page like good bands improvise off old songs, new notes and progressions unique to the moment or venue, a singular treat for the audience.
Click Here for More
Posted in Insults, Readings
Tagged 192 books, children's novel, christopher hitchens, insult, insults, luka and the fire of life, novel, rushdie, salman rushdie, satanic verses
David Means wrote this insult with ink made from orphan tears
I bought two copies of Means’ new collection of short stories, The Spot. One for him to sign, the other to leave in the Kids’ section of my local library, looking innocuous if inconspicuous, its cover lacking the cheerful collection of primary colors and anthropomorphic animals one normally finds in the Children section of the local library. Ready to permanently scar some unsuspecting Eager Beaver Reader into wanting to become a short story author.
Click Here for More