It was a superpacked house for last night's Glitter & Mayhem Edition of Tuesday Funk at Hopleaf, made all the more crowded by the teetering tower of audiovisual equipment piled at the front of the room. If you weren't able to be there, here's what our overheated but amply rewarded audience saw.
We started off strong with a funny and affecting tale of marriage and mutual amnesia from Noël Jones. Next came Holly McDowell, who brought us a powerful story of a young girl oppressed by her religious community. After our topical Haiku by Andrew, demented genius James Kennedy delivered a madcap story of a crazy race through the Martian atmosphere, synchronized with motion picture accompaniment!
After a break for beer, we opened the second half of the program with a Poem by Bill about sports and politics. Then it was all Glitter & Mayhem, as anthology co-editor John Klima told us a little about the inception of this collection of nightclub and rollerdisco stories. Maurice Broaddus and Kyle S. Johnson brought helped us get funked up with their George Clinton–influenced tale "The Electric Spanking of the War Babies." And Laura Chavoen provided a surreal slideshow of images to bring William Shunn's reading of their Chicago-set body-swapping tale "Subterraneans" to kaleidoscopic life.
All in all, it was an delightful night, but if you couldn't be there, don't despair. We'll bring you plenty of video excerpts in the weeks to come, and then we'll be back on Tuesday, November 5th, 2013, for an evening with Paul McComas & Greg Starrett, Vojislav Pejović, J.H. Palmer, John Rich, and Rosamund Lannin. Please come out and see us!
