Novelist Percival Everett (whose Erasure is a book we love) and Daniel Hayes (Tearjerker) read tonight at 7:30 p.m. at Beyond Baroque in Venice. 681 Venice Blvd., Venice; $7, $5 students & seniors unless stated otherwise. (310) 822-3006.
Over in Westwood, Lorrie Moore takes the stage at the Hammer Museum as part of the Some Favorite Writers reading series. Hammer Museum, 10899 Wilshire Blvd.; 7 p.m. (310) 443-7000.
Finally, if your taste runs to such things, Toni Bentley (The Surrender) and artist Julien Favre. will be at Mt. Hollywood Underground, 4607 Prospect Ave., Los Feliz on Sunday from 8-10 p.m.; $7; the listing says you have to call for a password (we're betting it's "cornholing"). (310) 572-7347 or www.smartgals.org.
Damn the madness! Percival E. and Lorrie Moore both in one night??? I am very sad that I can't attend either because I'll be at the great OSGOODS show at the LAVA LOUNGE tonight. Anyone seeking a little rock after the readings should stop by. OSGOODS is the band, Lava Lounge is the place (1533 N. La Brea, Hollywood). Price $3 w/ secret password: BeautyFish. Otherwise it's a whole fiver. Oh, and 10pm--They really rock and I highly recommend! I just gotta see Lorrie Moore . . .the wheels are turning.
Posted by: Angela Stubbs | February 25, 2005 at 10:03 AM
The UCLA Hammer Museum was packed for Lorrie Moore. She read two selections: the first from a novel-in-progress, which was funny and very Lorrie. The working title of the novel is The Gate at the Top of the Stairs, or something close, she's not sure.
The second selection was "The Juniper Tree", the story that appeared in The New Yorker a few weeks ago, one of her shorter (shortest?) stories at nine pages. It's a ghost story based on a vivid dream she had when a friend of hers died, Nietzchka Keene, who directed a 1987 film entitled "The Juniper Tree" (aha!) starring a 19 year old Bjork, filmed in Iceland, and based on a grim Brothers Grimm fairy tale (although, from the Go Figure Department, the synopsis of the film and the text of the story have nothing to do with one another. More research needed but not by this girlfriend).
Lorrie's story, "The Juniper Tree" is dream-based; not fairy tale or friend's-film-based, but she said what they all had in common was a theme of sexual jealousy. A juniper tree makes an appearance in the story in the dead friend's fairy-tale-esque garden, and juniper berries are evoked in the lust for gin the characters in the story have.
Lorrie Moore is an icon of mine, her work inspired me to start plucking at a keyboard myself, and I unabashedly adore her (what else could plunge me into Friday night L.A. traffic?), but "The Juniper Tree" is my least favorite story. It feels dream-based, alright, stiff, contrived and loony in a not-good way, and ends with a Soupy Sales pie in the face. But it was great to hear Lorrie again, and I like her hair (she's let it grow since I saw her at the first Tin House Summer Workshop), and I'm picking up my tattered Birds of America for yet one more immersion into her story worlds.
Posted by: Alicia Gifford | February 26, 2005 at 09:56 AM