Litquake throws party for artists, community

Paint Yerself Up and Mutate!

Congratulations! You’ve been invited to a party thrown specifically for creative people who have a tenuous grasp on themselves, who, like Friedrich Nietzsche, know that “when a hundred men stand together, each of them loses his mind and gets another one.” All you have to do is bring twenty dollars.

If you’re even remotely interested in the arts—literature, theatre, opera, visual—this will be as much spectacle as it will be performance, impulsive as it will be gratifying to anyone who gets overexcited about anything and shows up at a party where everyone else is overexcited to find themselves new by being someone or somehow they’re not used to. Explorers of esprit, twisters of tongues, fructifying facial prisms.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about click here. Or eat this:

Every year San Francisco hosts the largest literary festival in the West Coast. The city’s long history of prolific dissidents and holy vagrants is only different now because it’s gerunding. The festival’s called Litquake, if you’re still waiting for that. This is the diamond anniversary (I get my quick information from Google and Wiki and they say diamond is the new Ten Year, which used to be the tin year); this is the tenth anniversary of the largest literary festival on the hip side of America – there, that’s what I’m saying, and the whole thing opens up on Friday, October 9 with an incredible idea.

It’s called Black, White, and Read: Litquake’s Opening Night Book Ball. I already told you it costs $20; this comes with an adult beverage and nibbles. There aren’t any more expenses unless you don’t understand the glory of pocket liquor. I’m not officially recommending this technique but Litquake is encouraging you to make a mask of your favorite author, and since I’m a lit slut my gods have always been authors, and I often find myself asking: What Would Faulkner Do? (It’s a lot more fun than asking what Dostoevsky would do, and I’m not bold enough to ask how Hunter S. Thompson would handle any situation unless I’m prepared to go to jail. And then where would I be? Jail.)

The Ball is based on Truman Capote’s famous masked event thrown in 1966, considered “the social event of not only that season but of many to follow” (1). The rising success of Litquake – claiming an attendance of about 400 people its inaugural year and upward of 32,000 (yes, thousand) last year – has me suspecting that this party will, in fact, be the mega-party of all Who’s-Who-in-the-Art-World parties. Already Litquake’s become famous for its consistently daunting and seemingly endless lineup of literary superstars, from Dave Eggers to Amy Tan, Ishmael Reed to Stephen Elliott, just to name a few (and so on until the end of time, until the troops come home, et cetera, hallelujah). There will be over 500 authors this year over the course of the 9 day festival, which, in addition to authors of intergalactic fame, features and supports local writers of every California star and stripe (there will probably be bears, too).

“Recession elegance, literary hijinks and smarty-pants schmooze” (2) – this we are promised! San Francisco pulsates with writers of every kind imaginable; some you just have to hear to believe. Accordingly, there are many amazing forums for creative expression here (Porchlight, The Grotto, Literary Death Match or here for a more comprehensive list, including writing groups, reading series, bookstores, venues, ETC!), but seldom are so many literati gathered in one place at the same time for anything but a marquee reading or some other sober and structured discussion. I’m not knocking these – we all love City Art’s literary series, we buy tickets in advance to the theatre (or the theater) – but writers are creative and bizarre, and to have them meet only in these settings is like introducing different species to one another at the zoo. This much-needed twist in custom is probably paramount to Litquake’s eruption as a fecund force in the world of letters; it offers us a chance to meet each other on a personal level. We may set our pens and quivering papers in their respective folders, attaches and trapper-keepers and dance like the creators we truly are.

Never has this been more the case than with Black, White, and Read. I think Litquake is really hoping to make this year‘s opening night something to remember. They’re giving us crazies a chance at the floor (Faulkner bless them!). Mingle, artists! Your excitement need not be contained!

Although again, it can be disguised. Masks will be provided if you are too busy or lazy to make one. The main thing is to be there.