about his narcissistic helpless universe

September 30, 4:29 PMSF Literary ExaminerSonny Smith

 

Poetry readings and writers who give ‘talks’ and panel discussions and literary honor ceremonies. What a dangerous concoction! I wonder if anyone will ever have the guts to turn it into a festival? Guess what? Someone has! San Francisco is overtaken by the Litquake event this week and within this event are some amazing! Upstanding! Professional! Published! World class! Two-time Award winning! Finely dressed! Even keeled! Sane! Mass appealing! Writers! You should go!

Or you could read Joe Matt. A graphic novelist from Canada who writes about his pathetic addiction to porn, his outrageously selfish ways with his two or three friends, his blazing display of utter cheapness, his painful attraction and total fear of women, his Olympian masturbatory feats, even his utter lameness as a cat owner.  

The Litquake does boast some interesting to-dos. The Porchlight series hosted by Beth Lisick is always great. And truth be told, you COULD learn something out there from some of the panels and such.

Or you could read Joe Matt reminiscing the first time he was kissed by a girl, the overwhelming feeling of being ‘chosen’ by love, and then his heart deflating when he sees her kissing four or five other boys as if the high school girl has decided, ‘today I will kiss five boys’.

You can bet there will be some sincere readings at the Litquake by some writers that soar so high above the literary gutter that you could return barely tolerating even one word of Joe Matt’s utterly narcissistic helpless universe. You could take in: Ariel Sabar Discusses My Father’s Paradise: A Son’s Search for his Jewish Past in Kurdish Iraq. For instance.

I'm not saying any one thing is better than the other. One could go listen to Susan RoAne discuss Face to Face: How To Reclaim the Personal Touch in a Digital World.  Coincidentally I noticed on the back of Joe Matt’s book it says how he doesn’t have computers or cell phones or e-mail or credit cards or cars or nothing. So maybe Susan RoAne will be talking about him! 

Don’t forget the big event at the end, the litcrawl, where bookworms are encouraged to parrot the frat boy like ‘pub-crawl’, a kind of bridge and tunnel invention (I’m guessing), where (I’m theorizing) upper middle class college grads hit as many bars as they can all in the same night, looking for like minded individuals to… hi –five…er in this case… discuss literature, along the way.

Whatever you choose it will be great!