Saturday, March 26, 2005
LES is bes'
Last night I went to my first NYC reading. Best I can tell, it was in/around Little Italy. Total hole in the wall called Happy Ending, which I walked past at least thrice before realizing. I'm pretty sure it was a Chinese restaurant/lounge, come to think of it--not unlike the infamous Jimmy Woo's/Jade Pagoda, yet with a touch more class. Actually, sort of a cross between Cha Cha and JP. Not that CC's classy. Anyway, enough.
The reading was great! It was hosted by Opium Magazine (http://www.opiummagazine.com/), a zine featuring, mostly, humor writing. There were five contributors/readers, including the editor, and three of the five really wowed me. Probably my favorite was this:
Equation
by Rachel Demma
The number of times you hit snooze this morning is inversely proportional to your degree of satisfaction with your life choices.
If you get into the office before 10 then you won't feel bad taking an hour and 20 minutes for lunch and leaving at 4.
The number of beers you consume during happy hour is equal to twice the average interval of consumption, the derivative of this function being equal to zero, with a slope into the number of years your current situation will remain constant.
A certain percentage of the remaining bar population is less than or equal to the person you have just met and linger with over a whiskey as happy hour winds down.
Another round surpasses the usually low standard deviation from the normal banalities of small talk, suggesting a high significance level, with a confidence interval of < .05. If cynicism leaves the bar at 9:48 moving very slowly, weaving slightly, and is passed by your expectations, rising at a rate of mutual laughs per joke and moving at an ever increasing velocity, which will arrive at Seth's impromptu house party first? The diameter of your circle of friends in common equals the sum of the past three months in adjacent neighborhoods and the squares of the lengths of the other two sides of the story. The depth of the conversation you have at the party is equal to the length of time you feel compelled to stay on the fire escape smoking multiplied by the volume of gin and tonic consumed. The ratio of the area between you to the space that separates you is greater than or equal to anything else right now. You may arrive at prime factorization by sharing a cab which gives you the least common multiple equal to any perimeter that is sum zero. Where k is a constant, if you multiply by too many, sin(x) and sin(y) cancel each other out. Afterward, the quiet of the room reveals you both as vertically opposite angles--two angles formed by the intersection of two lines. This means that you share a common vertex but no sides or interior points. Minus random variable p, four times the circumference of the remaining hours before tomorrow is equal to the amount of sleep you would have gotten. The number of times you hit snooze in the morning will be inversely proportional to your degree of satisfaction with your life choices.
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Nice, huh?
Later, I met the editor behind http://www.madhattersreview.com/, which I promptly bookmarked. Very cool site. She gave me her card and told me to be in touch w/ her, that we should do coffee sometime. But I don't know, I'm intimidated.
So before Happy Ending, I charged the Lower Eastside, full speed ahead. I love love love this neighborhood, and am tha-rilled to live w/in easy walking distance of it. One memorable exp: dodging coat-peddling vendors who, because I was dressed for 60 degrees (it was 45), shouted after me, "You look cold, you need a coat! I've got just the one--look, look!" That'll teach me--but probably not--to dress like I'm smart.
Speaking of coats, I tried on a fluffy pink one (uh, I'm not exactly *fluffy pink*) at a chichi vintage shop and heard the likes of this from the mouth of a very frisky Italian dude: "Oh my god, you have to... that is SO YOU. It's very hip, and it's just, it's YOU. You do know that Britney Spears and Natalie Portman were in here just the other day. I dressed them, took pictures... it was fabulous." I left w/ the promise to think it over (right) and return in 30 or so minutes. "Oh no. It'll be gone, GONE by then. Britney, Natalie... the stars are all OVER this store." Cool your jets, guy. The coat's kind of ugly.
After Happy Ending, met up w/ a friend of my friend Dr. E-ho Mlle--now a new friend o' mine. He & his boys were headed for a LES bar, and since I was (roughly) in the area, it was a cinch. This bar reminded me a bit of The Comet, although again, different. (I'll try and stop drawing Seattle comparisons.) We went to one other place--named after male anatomy--and late, late, called it a night.
Still haven't embraced my new time zone.
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You're telling me there is actually a chinese restaurant/lounge in NY called "Happy Ending"? Are you sure there weren't some nefarious activities going on in the back room? Keep a look out for "Happy Endings Nail Salon".
you went to the cock!
Guilty [blush] as charged. But it was Doug! I'm new here--I know nothing!
Meet the editor for coffee. You never know what'll happen. Hell, that's how I met Alyssa. And Laura. And well...all of you guys.
You're right. I know I'll see her on the 6th at a Cornelia St. reading (contributors to her review)--I should suggest a date then.