What a great time at the Makeout room last Saturday night. Amy Tan rocked the house and apparently gets free clothes just like any other great rock star. Oh wait. She is a rock star. But I’m getting ahead of myself. The event started with Rabih Alemeddine reading from his forthcoming novel, The Hakawati. I can tell you the high praise it’s receiving is no hype. It is some seriously good writing. Rabih read about Osama and his gay uncle, Jihad. I’m not making this up. Only Rabih could. Also in the literary mix were pigeons, the sky of Beirut, magic, locusts, sorcery, Shiites, and an old building with no elevator. Like all cities, Beirut has many layers and Rabih read to us about the Beirut of its people. Which reminds me: Rent control. Let’s keep San Francisco of the people as much as we can. Rabih will be on tour (like any good rock star) in April to support the publication of The Hakawati. Keep your eyes open.
Peter Plate was up next, reciting Chapter 18 from his latest novel, Soon the Rest Will Fall from memory. We cracked up at Peter’s story. Santa, in a stolen suit, three days out of San Quentin and fresh off a tiff with a hooker on Geary, robs a medical marijuana club at Seventh and Market. Only in San Francisco, folks.
Stephen introduced the next writer, Jerry Stahl, by saying it was his book Permanent Midnight that made him want to be a writer and isn’t sure he’ll ever forgive him for that. Jerry read us a love story (despite the “hardass intro”) because sometimes "you have to show your heart a little." The first sentence of that love story is, “I did not mean to sodomize Dick Cheney.” It is the opening story in Sex for America. If you want to find out how it unfolds, pick up a copy. Apparently it only took him six hours to write. Six hours well spent. Also, kudos to Jerry for braving the dizzying lights of the Makeout room. He gave the front row (I was one) a vomit alert. Thanks Jerry, for not getting sick on us and I’m sorry you’ve been audited every year since that story came out. You deserve better. Then Peter Plate came back and gave a brief history of rent control in San Francisco. I swear, that man is a walking library. Basically what it boils down to is, San Francisco adopted rent control in the 70s and money-grubbers have been trying to overrule it in this overpriced city ever since. If any of you happened to be at the meeting hosted in part by the SF Tenants Union at the library that afternoon, you noticed that more than half the people in the room were elderly. And I’m not talking about elderly who are hobnobbing with Barbara Bush either.
Next up was your friend and mine, Bucky Sinister. Poor Bucky took some heckling from the crowd when he read his first piece off his iphone. He defended himself by saying he no longer had the brain cells he used to and certainly not ever as many as Peter Plate. He also set it up for those born in the eighties, “There used to be this thing called the Berlin Wall.” For his next piece he returned to paper and read from his most recent book All Blacked Out And Nowhere to Go, a poem called Elegy for the Old Hunts, about the donut shop in the Mission that used to stay open twenty-five hours and it was a tear jerker. If that seems like a contradiction, you just haven’t read it.
One half of the All Star Minstrels, otherwise known as Dan Weiss, sang to us about missing his dog, his cat, everything. Next month, both halves of the All Star Minstrels. Then Justin Chin hit the stage. I'm embarrassed to admit I had a scuffle with Stephen which caused me to miss the first few minutes of Justin's reading. I had to hide my head in shame and laughter. Sorry Justin, we’ll try to be better behaved next time. It’s hard to fix a mike and a rug at the same time. What I did hear though, I loved. What I learned: you shouldn’t ask Gertrude Stein for directions because eventually you will need to get there. Wise words.
And then came Amy Tan, the only Progressive author (so far) who has also been on the Simpsons. Amy gave us insight into her mind via her closet— things that she wouldn’t normally disclose unless under hypnosis (her words—not mine). Upon the straightening of her clothes she realized “I buy the same things over and over again,” and suddenly my mind flashed on the three black cardigans in my own closet. Later at the Uptown, it was revealed to me (by Rabih) that Amy Tan carries a whole medical kit in her fancy evening bag and if someone came up (theoretically) and stabbed me, Amy could suture me up in a second. I asked Amy if that was true, “Well, I’d snap a quick picture first,” she quipped. Let it be known that Amy Tan has many skills, writing being only one of them, but I hope she never has to stitch me up.
Stephen Elliott closed the evening by saying, “You all just participated in democracy. Wasn’t that easy?” It was, so we’ll see you next month when we’ll welcome Jane Smiley, Michelle Richmond, Yiyun Li, Charlie Anders, Jeff O’Keefe and don’t forget, both halves of the All Star Minstrels.
In closing, I’d like to take a moment concerning the rumors that a certain reclusive and perhaps curmudgeonly author from New England will be gracing the Progressive stage this season. At this point I can neither confirm nor deny, but you are well advised to stay tuned to this station for more information.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Amy Tan is my new BFF
Anthony Swofford and the IVAW
Anthony Swofford, whose read for the Progressive Reading, attended the Iraq Veterans Against The War Winter Soldier event and wrote it up in Slate.
Monday, March 10, 2008
The March 15 Progressive Reading
When: Saturday, March 15, 7pm
Where: The Makeout Room – 3225 22nd Street, San Francisco
Price: $10 - $20 sliding scale ($5 if you make less than 25K)
EVERYBODY ATTENDING GETS A SAVE RENT CONTROL T-SHIRT! (different from last months)
Readers
Amy Tan author of Saving Fish From Drowning and The Joy Luck Club
Jerry Stahl author of Love Without and Permanent Midnight
Justin Chin author of Gutted
Bucky Sinister author of What Happens In Narnia Stays In Narnia
Peter Plate author of Snitch Factory
Rabih Alameddine author of I, The Divine
Hosted by Stephen Elliott
We strongly recommend getting tickets in advance as these events sometimes sellout. Advance tickets get priority seating. Purchase tickets in advance by sending $20 per person through Paypal to tribe@stephenelliott.com. If you can't afford $20 but want to buy advance tickets send me an email.
Sunday, March 9, 2008
NPR and the SF Tenants Union
Michael Krazny at KQED did a whole show on rent control recently. Take a listen while you read below...
Straight from the San Francisco Tenants Union website:
Save Rent Control!
Learn About Prop 98 & How You Can Help Defeat The Rent Control Repeal Measure On The June Ballot
Citywide Tenants Convention
Saturday, March 15, 1 PM, Main Library, Koret Auditorium
Tenants from across the city will be coming together on March 15, 1 PM at the Main Library, Koret Auditorium to learn about Prop 98 and to get plugged into the campaign against Prop 98. If you want to save rent control, please come--we need your help!
Proposition 98 on the June ballot is disguised as a measure to reform eminent domain laws. The measure's real target, though, is rent control. It would repeal and ban any rent control, as well as other measures promoting affordable housing such as inclusionary affordable housing laws. The competing measure to save rent control—Proposition 99—lets voters choose real eminent domain reform, without any hidden agenda like rent control repeal. Proposition 99 also takes the eminent domain reform issue away from right-wing groups, which have been trying to use the eminent domain reform issue as a mask to attack consumer and environmental regulations. Plus Prop 99 has a poison pill, invalidating the rent control repeal measure is 98 wins.
Click here to get to the SF Tenants Union homepage for more information.
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
And...
Hey, I know it's a Rabih love fest going on. But don't forget Amy Tan is reading March 15. Amy Tan! When was the last time you got to see Amy Tan for the price of a very good looking, politically meaningful t-shirt? 
You might want to consider getting advanced tickets...
Also, something to look forward to. Yiyun Li will be joining us for the April 19 reading.
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Dublit, More on Rabih Alameddine, and don't forget you're getting a new shirt this month
Thanks to our good friends at Dublit, you can hear all the Progressive Readings here. Listening to them will make you want to come out on March 15th for Rabih Alameddine. I don't know what he'll be reading from, but I got my hands on a copy of his book, I, the Divine and I can't believe how great it is. How did I not know this book existed? And don't forget you'll score yourself another shirt as well as see Jerry Stahl, Justin Chin, Amy Tan, Peter Plate, and Bucky Sinister in person.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Next event in the Progressive Reading Series: March 15
Get ready for a spectacular March reading, that includes novelist Rabih Alameddine. Rabih's fourth novel, The Hakawati, comes out in April, and it's already getting rave reviews. Kirkus calls The Hakawati "a dizzying, prodigal display of storytelling overabundance" and Publisher's Weekly says "Alameddine's storytelling ingenuity seems infinite."
Then there's Junot Díaz, who says of The Hakawati, "Here is absolute beauty. One of the finest novels I’ve read in years."
Don't miss Rabih—along with Amy Tan, Peter Plate, Jerry Stahl, Justin Chin, and Bucky Sinister. Another great Progressive Reading, coming March 15. Below is the poster for that date, in all its glory.
Friday, February 22, 2008
Rebecca Lichtenfeld
Great news. Rebecca Lichtenfeld has decided to join us and play a couple of songs at the August reading. She's a musician and human rights advocate, working closely with Peter Gabriel and his Voice Of Witness foundation. She's performed with Maya Angelou, Harry Belafonte, and the B-52s. None of that tells the story of Rebecca's magnatism and commitment to progressive causes. You'll have to come see it for yourself.
Even more great news, Matthew Klam will be joining us for the September reading.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Save all rent control (not just Steve's)
Thanks to everyone, homeowners and renters alike, who came out to support rent control last Saturday night. Our brave host, Stephen Elliott, gave us his reason for supporting rent control; I believe it was a flat at 19th and Gurerro, but let me make it clear: We all have a stake in this. If Prop 98 passes in June I might not end up seeking shelter in a doorway on Market Street, but that’s just me. Not only does a rent control repeal threaten to overpopulate doorways everywhere, it aims that threat at the city’s most vulnerable populations: the elderly, the disabled, those without support systems in place. The exodus of renters that Prop 98 would facilitate would make all of San Francisco look like the Marina. (And who wants to live there? Not me. Seriously, it’s so far away from everything.) And aren't there enough people being forced out of their homes already?
With that in mind, Colm Toibin took the stage and told us how renters in his native Dublin lost the battle and well, nobody can afford to live there anymore. Oh, and his glasses weren’t broken; they came that way. He unfolded them, popped them on and read a story about a juvenile detention center, with one gruesome scene relating the pulling of a tooth using a pair of pliers. Now, you may or may not remember, my teeth hurt when Tobias Wolff read last month— that was sheer anxiety. This month it was sympathy pain. While Toibin read, I could actually feel my gums tightening around my incisors. I’m not kidding.
Next up was Vendela Vida, co founder of 826 Valencia, which always deserves a link. In between reading her story, Soleil, available in a new collection edited by Zadie Smith, called The Book of Other People, (proceeds benefit 826NYC, which also deserves a link) and also has stories by Nick Hornby and George Saunders. Vendela told us the genesis of the story; a teenage girl growing up in California had wayward Swedish au pairs invading her bedroom— someone to look up to, who was cooler than mom—and who steered her wrong, very wrong, in important matters, such as hair and fashion. Beware the au pair!
Larry Smith and Rachel Fershleiser came up next and showed up how to do the Six Word Memoir Slam from their new book Not Quite What I Was Planning. (They also got a nice write up in this week's New Yorker Talk of the Town.) Local literati including Daniel Handler, Joe Loya and Elizabeth Bernstein shared their six word memoirs with the crowd. Stephen Colbert’s six-word memoir: Well, I thought it was funny.
Next came, all the way from Canada, by way of New York, Michelle Orange. She read about her recent trip to Beirut. Yes, Beirut. Here’s a bit of gallows humor, a joke told to her by her tour guide— an Israeli general threatened, at the beginning of the 2006 war to turn Lebanon’s clock back twenty years, but that was the best news the women had heard in decades. Why not go for thirty? Also toward the end of her piece when our heroine was last seen exiting a museum, a large plume of smoke begins rising in the air. A U.S. Embassy car had been blown up. The bomb was detonated a breath too soon, and only injured the car’s passenger and driver. But the three people who happened to be passing by were dead. A soldier from a nearby checkpoint came to search Michelle’s bag and asked where she was staying. “You should go back now,” he said. “I would leave here if I were you.” I have to say also, that the usual bar chatter, which can be annoying, was absent while Michelle was reading. We were all listening very closely.
Steve Almond, who quit his teaching job at Boston College, thanks to Condi Rice’s invitation to speak at commencement, (which he said was not really an act of conscience, rather a spasm of disgust) read a series of letters he received as part of the fallout. Here’s an excerpt from Nathan’s, a young pen pal: Hey asshole, maybe you’re just upset because Rice has bigger balls than you. Steve read his replies in a dry voice: Dear Nathan . . . Check out the podcasts for the (almost) full effect. What I mean is, you had to be there; luckily we have the podcasts for the next best thing (and posterity). Lest you think Steve Almond is only full of glib commentary, he ended his reading on a poignant note. It's not all fun and games at the Progressive Reading Series, folks. The full story of Almond's decision, er, spasm of disgust, can be found in his new book, Not That You Asked, from which I feel obligated to quote these two sentences, “I had quit my part-time job. It was a testament to the political lethargy of the country that such a pissant gesture would excite adulation in the first place.”
Charles D’Ambrosio read two short pieces of nonfiction, One about the halfway house in Seattle where his brother, Mike, who is schizophrenic, has lived in for 12 years— it’s closing. The house is, according to D’Ambrosio, a shithole. However, it’s where his brother’s friends are and upon the closing, they’ll be scattered. What he read was letters Mike would write to the whole family like this: Dear______ and just fill in the names. One especially lovely line from Mike, “I am fine as a blade of grass,” which made think of this from the Talmud, “Every blade of grass has an angel that bends over it and whispers, ‘Grow, grow.’”
If you missed it, you still have your chance next month to raise even more money to save rent control. We will again convene at the Makeout Room, on March 15th and it’s the same deal—you can get your tickets in advance by sending twenty bucks to tribe@stephenelliott.com or take your chances at the door (good luck with that). You’ll also score yourself another (different) groovy shirt. We’ll be hearing from the lovable, the irascible Bucky Sinister; the charming Peter Plate; the fabulous Justin Chin; the one and only Amy Tan; mastermind Jerry Stahl and Rabih Alameddine, about whom I know nothing, but Junot Diaz, whom I trust, says this about his book The Hakawati, “Here is absolute beauty. One of the finest novels I’ve read in years.” See you there.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Event Number 3
Announcing: The March 15 Progressive Reading
A Special Benefit to Save Rent Control in San Francisco
www.ProgressiveReadingSeries.org
When: Saturday, March 15, 7pm
Where: The Make Out Room – 3225 22nd Street, San Francisco
Price: $10 - $20 sliding scale
On June 3 there will be a proposition on the state ballot disguised as Eminent Domain reform. Hidden inside this bill is a ban on all rent control in the state of California. All funds from the March, April, and May readings will go to efforts to Save Rent Control.
EVERYBODY ATTENDING GETS A SAVE RENT CONTROL T-SHIRT!
(A different one from last month's event...)
Readers
Amy Tan author of Saving Fish from Drowning and The Joy Luck Club
Jerry Stahl author of Love Without and Permanent Midnight
Justin Chin author of Gutted
Bucky Sinister author of What Happens in Narnia Stays in Narnia
Peter Plate author of Snitch Factory
Rabih Alameddine author of The Hakawati
Hosted by Stephen Elliott author of Happy Baby and editor of Sex For America
The Progressive Reading Series happens on the third Saturday of every month though the 2008 election at 7pm at the Make Out Room in San Francisco.
We strongly recommend getting tickets in advance as these events sometimes sell out. Advance ticket holders get priority seating. Purchase tickets in advance by sending $20 per person through Paypal to tribe@stephenelliott.com.
Get on the Progressive Reading email list by sending an email to:
steves_list-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
More information on the Hidden Agenda Scheme
