Thursday, January 10, 2013

Why Do Literary Readings Always Make Me Want to Kill Myself?


That's the question posed by The Moving Finger.

From the piece...


Because literary readings are subconsciously viewed as the cultural equivalent of bran. They’re good for us and therefore something we dutifully attend, like church or a community college life drawing class. They remind us of school. We associate them with homework, just as we might a visit to the textile museum. Yay, we get a day off school but, boo, we’re still learning about stuff. Whereas activities such as mini-golf, laser tag, electro-stim—we think of these as entertainments, something we do for fun in our leisure time. Literary readings aren’t going to shake their reputation as the added-fibre of our entertainment diet until the people who organize and participate in them snap out of this mentality. Organizers must insist to themselves and their audience that having some shlubby author stand up and grunt into a microphone while holding a book in front of his terrified, sun-deprived face equals one rip-snorter of a Wednesday night.

How do you do this? Here are some very basic strategies.

1—Serve liquor.

No comments: