Everybody Into the Contentious Room!

I recently finished reading San Francisco-based writer, Beth Lisick's, hilarious book of personal essays, Everybody Into the Pool. Last night, she did a reading with Rachel Kramer Bussel as part of the Grace Reading Series. It was supposed to be held at Jimmy Fallon's bar, Mo Pitkin's, which I have been looking for a reason to stop by in hopes of rekindling the spark I swear was there that one time Jimmy and I met at that Paper party. Anyway, the event was double-booked with some Jonathan Ames event. Mr. Ames is to New York's literary scene what Death Cab for Cutie are to the "indie" rock scene or Parker Posey is to B movies, so he obviously has the pull in this situation. A quarter past seven I walk through Mo Pitkin's searching for bookish, girly types, only to stumble upon McSweeny's-ish types clamoring to get on some waiting list. List guy tells me the Grace Reading Series has been moved to the Den of Cin at Two Boots across the street.

When I finally figure out what is going on and clamor down the stairs into the Den of Cin, Rachel Kramer Bussel is deep into her set and the seats in the small room have been filled, save for a bar stool in the front. So, I exercise my rabbit-like qualities and hop through the crowd to the stool, quietly shed my bag and jacket and try to find her anecdotal column about rape fantasies amusing, but really I'm scanning the room for Peter Braunstein and counting down the seconds until Beth takes the stage. When she does, she reads the "New York" essay from her book that tells her story about running into Parker Posey (Everyone in NYC has a Parker story!). With Beth's slam poetry background, she is a great reader. She's very expressive, confident, and can divert from the page to throw in footnotes to her story, unlike Rachel who just sounded nervous.

After Beth's story, the hostess announces that there are free pizzas and free beer and wine to be consumed before Rachel reads one more story. So, we're all stuffing our faces with some of New York's finest pizza and this really good Polish beer (got to find out where to get that in my neighborhood) when Rachel starts with her story, a depressing lesbian erotica piece that leads off by quoting Sleater-Kinney's song, "Jenny."

Well, to finally spice things up, some middle-aged white guy in a suit comes storming down the stairs yelling "You've got to leave. You've got to leave. There's another group waiting to come down here. You were supposed to be out at 8PM and it's 8:20. Get out! Leave!"

Now here's some action! The hostess tries to maintain control and tells everyone to stay put, Rachel to keep reading, and heads over to the stairs to reason with this man, but he just keeps repeating his story, so loudly, making the room so contentious that we all start guzzling our beers and scarfing down the pizza, knowing the inevitable — we have to leave!

The hostess tries talking over the guy (still on repeat with his rant!), apologizing for the Courtney Love-like situation, thanking and apologizing to Racheal and asking us to, yes, leave. I rush over to the merch table, the only person to buy a copy of Beth's book (it will make a great holiday gift!), then over to Beth to tell her how much I liked it and quickly recount my own Parker story. I'd wanted to tell visiting blogger, Jessa Crispin, who was in attendance, that I am addicted to BookSlut but it was kind of like there was a gas leak — everyone tried to remain calm, but we knew it was best just to run the hell out of there.

I walked out into the warm, drizzly evening actually feeling refreshed. I'm glad nothing is predictable in New York, that what could have been a nice little evening of stories and $5 drinks turned into a totally contentious atmosphere with free food and booze. New York, you do not disappoint me.

Links:
Bookslut's account of the event
Beth Lisick's homepage
Grace Reading Series
Two Boots (for the pizza, not the venue)