Lit reading
KGB (bar)
85 E. 4th St.
New York City
Jan. 11, 2024
I know, I know: Another review about KGB bar.
I can’t help that they’re the only establishment in NYC that consistently hosts literary events and doesn’t seemingly draw from the same pool for every show. I went to this reading for a single reason: One of the readers, David Simmons, is very funny on Twitter. I recognized no one else on the bill and, admittedly, had not yet read any of Simmons’ actual work.
In the end, I couldn’t be gladder to have gone.
Kicking off the night was our host, O F Cieri.
The difference between this reading and others was immediately apparent by the tone Cieri set. Clever, fractious, angry, and horny, Cieri’s piece straddled the line between prose and poetry, a hilarious and pithy amalgamation of sexual miscreance run through with glittering lines — “‘I’ve got the brain disease that makes me think hot people are smaller than me” — and meditations on lack of sexual imagination possessed by “psycho guys.”
A favorite line of mine: “No need to change that faded old band T‑shirt, it has just as many holes as lingerie,” sums up the permission that O F’s opening salvo granted the room and the readers to follow.
It was immediately apparent that we were in for no night of navel-gazing introspection, that the honesty of what was to come wasn’t going to be couched in moralistic opprobrium for the body. The words that night must breathe, fuck, and bleed.
As Kat Giordano, the following reader, said: “And that makes me an asshole, a vessel that can’t stand how empty it is…” Now this is the Indie Lit that I come out to these readings to see and so very rarely really get to witness. None of it edgy for the sake of being edgy, but all of it sharp because that is the nature of a well-wrought blade.
From Giordano’s April Penis, a brutal piece about the sadness of looking through the nudes sent by former lovers: “I feel guilty jerking off to fossils…”
The transgressions didn’t stop there. Lauren Badillo Milici started off one of her pieces by informing us that “This is a poem about a guy who said don’t write a poem about me.” And herein is the truth of the spirit on display that night — the work this group of writers set about doing was the deep discipline of writing what must be written, regardless of consequences or source of the material.
It must be said, however, that this is not out of cruelty, but a sheer fact of the vocation of writing. If it is to be said, it must be spoken and if it is true, then it ought to be heard.
None on the bill better exemplified this credo than the wonderful Alexandrine Ogundimu, who read from her novel-in-progress. Ogundimu’s piece seemingly served one purpose, and one purpose alone: To melt the golden calves of the Indie Lit world. It was a cathartic experience that tickled the audience through and through.
Throwing around half-veiled references and the shadows of shibboleths, Alexandrine treated us to a metafictional experience by describing being at a reading in the bar we were all in, the sort of reading that we all hate but can’t seem to avoid. Alexandrine took her shots at the cool kids and at six-figured, half-assed debut novels. A room full of misfits having found each other, and everyone’s doubled over laughing at what we’ve all been left out of.
So, it’s no wonder that the headliner couldn’t be a New Yorker, couldn’t be another outsider on the inside. They got David Simmons to come all the way up from Baltimore to show us how it’s done.
And, damn, did he ever drop the bomb on everyone
I’ll offer a brief summary here as endorsement and encouragement to you, Reader, to go and buy his books ASAP.
The piece he read will be part of a collection to be released by CLASH here soon, so suffice to say I’ll spoil as little as possible. In short, Simmons’ story was of that special sort that you just can’t make up unless you know you know what you know about what you know, it’s an experience thing and, therefore, a true thing of a higher order. The breakdown: Two heroin addicts set out on a mission to steal rare cheeses because their plug, an “antediluvian dope man,” runs another hustle selling the curd on the black market. Short of cash and in need of a fix, Simmons treated us to our heroes’ quest for the finest cheddar they can get. Run through with wit and charm, but couched in a language all his own, David Simmons’ narrator pondered the grit of his story down the gristle of the gram.
Thursday night at KGB we were treated to something radically different from the literary it-people, the downtown intelligencia, and the soft anarchism of Brooklyn’s DIY scene. This was a reading where the readers took real risks and didn’t apologize for them; as Simmons said in response to the reader who proceeded him, ‘If there’s one thing I love, it’s shots fired.” In the end, what was a seeming hodge-podge solidified into one of the best readings I have ever attended. Craft, content, delivery — all of it — top-tier. It’s a shame that it was so little attended. Keep track of these folks’ names, you’re gonna want to read all of them. Buy their books, I certainly will be.
