Brooklyn, Ep. 4

April 21, 2015 — To celebrate all that is literarily and comedically glorious about Brooklyn, Literary Death Match debuted at The Bell House, for a night of brilliant text, calamitous judging, and an oddball Literary Charades finish that saw Kent Russell topple Lane Moore in sudden death overtime to win the LDM Brooklyn, Ep. 4 crown. 

But well before the finale was even a consideration, the night kicked off with Eliza Kennedy who read the brilliant opening pages from her debut novel I Take You. Next up, Kent Russell, debut author of I Am Sorry to Think I Have Raised a Timid Son, a fascinating tale of a man who self-immunizes to protect himself from venom. 

Then the mic was handed over to the night's trio of all-star judges: Mira Jacob, Pete's Reading Series founder and author of The Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing; Lucy DeVito, actress in Hulu's Deadbeat and featured in the film Leaves of Grass; Ben Kronberg, comedian/actor seen in Steve Coogan Hates Twitter & Escape from Brooklyn. The trio flooded Kennedy and Russell with praise, and after a huddled made the night's first impossible decision, naming Russell the night's first finalist. 

Then Round 2 commenced with Lane Moore, comedian, writer for The Onion, editor at Cosmopolitan.com and creator of #TinderLive, who reeled off a gem of a story about a frat guy who was magically self-aware of his dumb future. Finally, it was Josh Gondelman, writer for HBO's Last Week Tonight and Twitter's Seinfeld Today, who read a hilarious piece about Karl Ove Knausgaard reviewing everything in America. 

The mic again was handed to the judges, with praise abound for Moore and Gondelman, before making the night's second impossible choice: advancing Moore to the finals. 

Then up stepped LDM creator Adrian Todd Zuniga, who announced the night's finale: Literary Charades. With a trio of volunteer "actors" on the stage, Zuniga delivered titles of famous books adapted into TV shows or film that the actors had to play out while Moore and Russell guessed the titles. It was a back and forth affair that ended with Russell shouting out the final answer, winning him the Literary Death Match Brooklyn, Ep. 4 crown and literary immortality to go with it.