CASUAL ENCOUNTERSZ alt-lit reading
No Moon LA
Los Angeles
Nov. 2, 2023
Strip poker with a blow-up doll, Minnesota meth murder, sub sex addiction, Jet Blue fuckups, a bloody foot accident, a publicist undergoing a nervous breakdown, and other compelling topics: Must be the latest Casual Encountersz (CE) extravagonzo… this time back at Chinatown’s No Moon LAgallery, packed wall-to-white-wall and spilling outside with a cross-section of L.A. word nerds and other scenesters. Multi-dozens of them.
The glut of such events is now an embarrassment of riches, with happenings nightly in L.A. (Time for our city to declare a lit “scene war” on NYC!)
Suavely ebullient CE impresario Sammy Loren up-ed the ante again with this writer roster: Chris Kraus, Juliana Halpert, Lisa Teasley, Derek Brooks, Kennedy Wright, Christina Catherine Martinez. Honestly, there were too many highlights to fit this column, so here’s three….
Martinez is a triple threat: writer/artist/comic. She delivered “FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE” — a text in the form of hyperbolic press release from a stressed-out arts PR gal. The performance climaxed with Martinez crawling through the gallery, growling: “Sammy said NPR was here! Are you from NPR?!?!” Freaking hysterical and brilliant. (No Moon LA is currently showing Martinez’s photo installation, “Eleanor.”)
Kraus read from her newest docu-novel The Four Spent the Day Together. It recounts a chilling homicide (is there any other kind?) among methed-up kids in Hibbing, Minnesota. Kraus continues to purify her trademark product: unflinching, fact-based narratives from the margins of America interwoven in soci0-economic insights. I got a River’s Edge vibe from the text (if you know that creepy-cool 1986 movie). Kraus says the book will publish in 2025 by “I’m not sure who.”
Then there was Wright, who goes by ILoveGreenDay on Instagram, and whom Loren intro’d as a shit-poster and podcaster. Wright read: “Ça plane pour moi.” (Extra points for its title referencing classic Belgian punk song of the same name.) Sample line from this tale of Jet Blue mishaps: “I’m grunting as I fumble with my chargers which are falling out of the sockets like loose pussy.” If the podcast (Doghouse) is anything like her droll fiction delivery, I’ll listen to the end.
Loren kicked it off with a kick-ass story of his own. Halpert, Teasley and Brooks also impressed. Teasley (of the blow-up doll strip poker story) is legit-quality shit and has a book (Fluid) coming. Halpert is an artist with a command of both the written word and the stage. In fact, let me conclude with this: For L.A. to extend its hot lit-happenings streak requires readers like these who keep it short (“5 minutes each, please!”), interact with their audience, and entertain at venues like CE, which graciously supplies vibe, booze, and tuneage. (In this case by DJ Sweetheart.tree, a.k.a. Jacob Gibson of the Netflix show One Piece.)
