LA, Ep. 8
Friday, April 20, 2012 at 3:29PM April 20, 2012 — A magical night of literary whimsy, wit and lit at Atwater Crossing/ATX finished with Team Krys Lee (author of Drifting House and representing Granta) outdueling Team Jerry Stahl (author of Permanent Midnight and representing Rare Bird Lit) by a score of 9-7 in a wild Pulitzer Prize-themed Cyrillic-Off that won Lee the Literary Death Match LA, Ep. 8 crown.
The first round was serendipitously cocaine-themed: Tom Bissell (author of Magic House and Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter; representing ZYZZYVA) taught us how our degree of removal from a man with a gun is smaller with cocaine; while Stahl (who also authored Painkillers: A Novel) stormed through a sensitive piece about the insertion (and subsequent loss) of a cocaine straw into a jiggling, white, Hyde-esque derriere.
The populace showed symptoms of exhilaration, yet they longed for the clean hard words of our three wise judges: The Walking Dead writer/producer Scott Gimple, Oriana Small aka Ashley Blue (author of Girlvert: A Porno Memoir) and Richard Lange (author of Dead Boys and This Wicked World).
“Bisell was unshook,” Gimple cried, and Small said that never had so much dignity been given to the strange powder. It was then remarked that Stahl gripped the mic impressively and with much force, but that Lange never wanted to have sex again. After a heated debate amongst the judges, it was Stahl that was advanced as the night’s first finalist.
Round 2 brought a much-needed dose of the female touch: the brilliant newcomer-novelist Lee read a haunting extract from Drifting House about a mother going to work on her child with a saw, while Lauren Groff (author of Arcadia; representing Slake) read about a coxswain doing a mediocre-to-insulting job of deflowering a mild behemoth Beth.
Lee impressed Small with her sparkle and her leather, and made Gimple write and say the words “Holy Damn.” Lange believed Groff was a kind of sublime literary turducken of authors shoved within other authors. Transformers T-shirts were also the hot topic. Another impossible decision, but after lengthy deliberation, the judges decided it was Krys Lee who would be the night's second finalist.
The finale saw LDM creator Todd Zuniga invite three volunteers from the crowd to aid the proceedings: two as helpers to the finalists, one as a "human stanchion" who displayed the names of famous authors written in Cyrillic. The finalists were then compelled to shout out their best guesses, with help from the audience. It was Lee who displayed her virtuosity on the subject, and who thus clinched victory from the Jaws of Cyril to win the Literary Death Match crown, and literary immortality to go with it.
Reader Comments (1)
Sorry to miss this Todd...I saw Jerry Stahl last month when he told a story at the Moth at UCLA, Royce Hall. He was riveting. Making me want to tackle him to the floor and insist he answer all the questions his story left unanswered. But like the other several hundred people, I just shrugged, said wow...and headed for the door amongst a sea of story-lovers. I have tickets to see Richard Lewis at the Luna, or I'd be there. Ya'll are in for a good show.