Jungle book: Monthly Rumpus gets all wild on usby Caitlin Donohue
It’s that time! Monthly Rumpus time! This coming Monday, The Rumpus, a go-to website for procrasting at work in a literate manner, is teaming up once again with Wholphin to bring us a big, author-y romp around. I just saw ‘Where The Wild Things’ are, so I know that 'rumpus' means jumping up on things and wrestling. Wear comfortable pants.
Given a choice of wrestling partner at this month’s “Hate To Be Alone” rumpus, I would most certainly opt for young Chelsea Martin of Oakland, who has a new poetry tome out, Everything Was Fine Until Whatever (Future Tense). Martin's poems veer from the touchingly personal (from her video entitled Let’s Get Deeply Moved: “I want to die quietly in my sleep in the back room at work with liquor bottles all around and concrete evidence I was trying to steal the fax machine,”) to philosophy (“I had a thought the other day. It wasn’t a thought actually, it was more like a burrito. I had a really good burrito.”)
This is much like the other authors who are reading at the rumpus, who also have books out. Tamim Ansary is one of these, an Afghan-American whose books more of us should read if we ever want to understand what’s going on out there in Kabul (besides our military getting all crazy). His latest nonfiction offering, Destiny Disrupted (Public Affairs), is an Islamic reframing of history.
Then there’s Ethan Gilsdorf, who has taken his love of all things nerdy to the next level with Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks (Lyons Press). I think he would be a good wrestling buddy as well, if only because nerds are usually good targets for hammerlocks.
Once we’re all tuckered out from the jumping and roaring, we can doze in a nice big pile while watching Wholphin’s new video. Stephen Elliott, the author of Adderall Diaries (Greywolf Press) will host the readings, music and comedy and the invite says there will be “the chance to kiss someone you don’t know,” which I think is a riff on the venue’s name (Makeout Room), unless these book people are taking the rumpus to the next level.
In which case… let the wild rumpus begin!
Mon/9 7 p.m., $10
Makeout Room
3229 22nd St., SF
www.therumpus.net
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