Shanghai, Ep. 2

September 10, 2013 — In a whizbang affair at Shanghai's glorious Glamour Bar, Literary Death Match returned to the Pearl of the Orient for a fun-filled night that finished with Diana Yin outscoring Tom Carter by a baker's dozen in a Literary Spelling Bee that won Yin the LDM Shanghai, Ep. 2 crown. 

But well before spelling was even a consideration, the night commenced with writer Jenn Chan Lyman reading a sweet tale about two friends looking for a roommate — all with romantic overtones. Next up was Tom Carter (expat journalist and editor of "Unsavory Elements"), who fired off a detail-laden piece from his book Unsavory Elements about a group of ex-pats going to a Chinese brothel. 

Then the mic was handed over to the night's quadret of all-star judges: Gail de Courcy Ireland, screenplay and fiction writer; Ned Kelly, editor of That's Shanghai; Claire Vanessa Lim, a member of Zmackcomedy improv's mainstage cast; and John Leary, short-fiction mastermind/hilaritist.

The foursome fired off a series of witticisms, with Super-Intangibles judge announcing that Lyman had scored an 8 — or was it infinity? — and Carter scored a 132. The four judges then huddled amongst themselves, and after a tense deliberation decided it would be Carter who would advance as the night's first finalist. 

After a bevy of intermission beverages, Round 2 began with poet/translator Shelly Bryant (poet, writer, translator — author of Cyborg Chimera and Under the Ash), who reeled off a short series of five poems that sometimes skewed almost sci-fi, and were all wondrous. Finally, it was writer/blogger Diana Yin who delivered a fantastic novel excerpt about radio calls to Nanjing (which the narrator begrudgingly had to call Nanking). 

Again the judges were called upon, with Kelly saying Bryant's poems were like great sex, metaphysical and magical, but like bad sex, they were too short. Leary chimed in scoring Bryant's reading an R while Yin's reading, Yin's reading, which he described as a dream he wanted to return to, scored a drawing of an umbrella. 

Then up stepped LDM creator Adrian Todd Zuniga, who announced that the night's finale would be a Literary Spelling Bee. Yin was hot from the start, while Carter struggled, and after Yin had taken a commanding 25-11 lead, it was up to Carter to spell Solzhelnitsyn's entire name to tie it up and force sudden death. But it wasn't to be, and Yin was draped with the LDM Shanghai, Ep. 2 medal, winning literary immortality to go with it. 

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Comments

[Tom Carter]

Thanks fellas! I'll be showing up with both guns blazing! Bound to be bloody good fun!

[Heatwolves]

sounds cool i'm gonna try to come down.