I've posted elsewhere a more subjective account of last week's February episode of Tuesday Funk. It was an amazing evening, made all the more remarkable by the fact that it took place in the midst of the Great Chicago Blizzard of 2011. Our brave readers and bold audience alike—a perfect 10 in total—braved winds up to 50 mph and deepening snow to witness an event made all the more special by the roar of death outside the windows of the ghost town that was Hopleaf. Still, the evening was not what it could have been had just one more person showed up—you.
But, to recap, here's what you would have seen if you'd been crazy enough to brave the blizzard. Eden Robins distributed a script that invited audience participation in her hilariously nightmarish tale of fratboy antics. Last-minute fill-in Jackie Adamski favored us with a varied selection of poems, vignettes, and six-sentence stories. Rather than a Poem by Bill, our host presented a blizzard-special Poem by Bob from Brooklyn writer Robert J. Howe. Brooke Wonders delighted us with an excerpt from her novella about a very unusual book. And finally, host William Shunn read his short story "Care and Feeding of Your Piano," out now in the latest issue of Electric Velocipede.
And there was also beer. Thank God the blizzard didn't keep that away.
So that's what you missed at the last Tuesday Funk. The good news is twofold. First, the readers who were detained by the storm—in fact, all the readers, whether absent or present—will be back at a later date so more than just a select ten can hear their work. Second, we'll be back at Hopleaf on Tuesday, March 1 with an all-new evening of readings from Keith Ecker, Maggie Kast, Joe Weintraub, Jenny Seay and Steven H. Silver, and another patented Poem by Bill. Mark your calendars now, and let's hope Mother Nature doesn't put her foot down again next month.
