Stylish square leather seats take up the space between devil-like metal figures, poised on white podiums. Recessed ceiling lights are carefully positioned onto a frank rectangle bar at the back of the gallery, surrounded by brick-and-steel walls-- revealing smiles and glances, chatter, bowed heads reading-- waiting for the event to begin.
An industruous staircase at the back leads up to a full-frontal vintage Chevy fender-and-headlight bench directly behind the railing upstairs, among more paintings and hangings. And even a chance meeting of Matt Gonzalez; how very San Francisco.
The Litquakers sat silently between the podiums and under the lights, as five authors rang out with the truth of their stories, exploring the aesthetic and ethical "phases" of existence in Kierkegaard's “Either/Or” method, on a warm, Wednesday, downtown evening.
Nona Caspers read "The Dog;" Matthew Iribar a story about a struggling artist in SF; Andrew Foster Altschul delivered a snappy piece called "Mile High;" Sean Beaudoin a short on making adeal with the devil; Ben Greenman read the finale, about love and infidelity.
The name of the event hints at the genre itself, shortened stories: shorts. And the rawness of the experience itself, read out loud, live and in front, among wine glasses and thoughtful gases.
Litquake Executive DirectorElise Proulx conducted the first poll of the six-year old festival, which described festival attendees as a distinctly 30-something crowd, and mostly women (among mostly male authors).
Ben Greenman left flyers for his postcard story-writing project called Correspondences, celebrating the lost art of letter-writing. He joked with us at intermission that he usually goes with a humorous story over a serious one, since that kind of silence could mean the audience is in rapt attention, or merely indifferent. And, he also reported that Litcrawl doesn't work in New York, since there isn't a close-knit enough area that works, without having to taxi.
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