Pack your suspenders, I'll come meet your plane

Last night at the Slipper Room, I witnessed the indomitable writers of Featherproof Books get up onstage to read stories they'd crafted from stuff like vaguely icky greeting cards with cartoon bears on them and CDs with music composed by Barry McGuire ("Eve of Destruction"), to coffee mugs inexplicably touting internet abbreviations, to a pair of erotic suspenders. Keep in mind, if I were them, I, too, would be a bit crazed by the hours and hours they've spent packed into a van at this point. It was all part of the cross-country Dollar Store Tour. Observe:

Aaron Burch, editor of Hobart, pre-strip. (Sorry I didn't get that pic.)


Zach Dodson, framed by heads (I don't know, it kind of looks deliberate, don't you think?) IMHO, he's just as funny an actor as he is a writer...on MyBook and SpaceFace.



The lovely Amelia Gray, author of the just-out AM/PM, a book of very short fiction. (Don't worry, I won't say the f-word).

During a chat with Amelia, I asked her how they'd survived two weeks already in a van without killing each other, and she revealed that the group worked out one simple principle for surviving the long hours in the van -- whoever's most likely to throw up, gets the window seat.

Dollar store junk + literature = gold?

Featherproof Books is a Chicago-based independent publisher, who, this summer, have loaded 7 or so of their very earnest and talented writers into a van like some kind of hyper-literate indie-rock band, and taking their show on a month-long cross-country tour. Tonight, the Dollar Store Tour is landing in The Slipper Room in NYC, at which I hope to join some of my elusive acquaintances from the local blogerati to watch D.E. Rasso, Robert Lopez, Aaron Burch, Blake Butler, Zach Dodson, Amelia Gray, Mary Hamilton and Jac Jemc read stories they've written based on broken waffle irons, CB radios, and fake Tiffany lamps.

Faithful readers will note that I'm a rabid backer of weird literary events, or really any literary event that manages to break out of the tweed-jacketed-guy-sitting-on-a-stool-reading-excerpts-from-a-book-about-his-childhood-in-1953 mode, or twentysomething-overdressed-girl-desperately-trying-to-make-something-literary-about-that-time-she-curled-up-on-her-couch-for-three-days-waiting-for-her-ex-boyfriend-to-call-back mode, so the originality of this event excites me thoroughly, and I'm looking forward to talking with some of the readers about just how badly they want to kill each other after two and half weeks in a van together.

The event, which kicks off tonight at 8 and will cost you a $1 donation, also features DJ sets from Take the Handle.

The Slipper Room is on the Lower East Side at 167 Orchard at Stanton St.