i can't really sing, so

THIS WEEKEND IN PHILADELPHIA We like to do things in Philadelphia. We like to do them and we like to go to them and we like to be an audience and we like to listen. This Friday, we will be doing t his , which is going to the TireFire reading series, curated and hosted by the lovely duo of Sarah Rose Etter & Annie Liontas. Friday, May 9th at 7pm  (which means, in special TireFire jive, most likely the reading will start at 8pm sharp) at Tattooed Moms (the first bar I ever drank at legally--) come out to see Roxane Gay (!!), Mike Young, Joseph Riippi, and Tara Murphy. I've read books by at least two of those people and plan to read a book by at least one of them this summer. RSVP here . On Saturday, May 10th from 8pm-10pm (Does that mean the reading really starts at 9pm? I don't know. I would show up at 8pm because that's what I do, but you can do as you wish...) poets Marion Bell, Meg Ronan and Lee Ann Brown are reading at the wonderful Chapterhouse & Verse rea...

The holidays mean spending time like money depending on whether or not you like to spend money, but then it's January and you are recovering from all of this time AND money spent, so you are a hermit, mostly. I unhermitted last Saturday to see Eileen Myles & CAConrad read for the Chapter & Verse series and even though the room was small and packed and first too cold and then too warm the reading was excellent and I was glad every second I was there. It wasn't like when I go to see a movie, and I like the movie, but I want it to be over so that I can tell everyone how much I liked it. It was the opposite. It was warm, and there was a reading, and I was listening and grateful, and I wasn't sure that I'd be able to tell everyone how much I was liking it in any real way, so the inverse of that would be just wanting it not to end, except I had to pee, so I knew it had to end or it was going to end with me peeing myself. I just ordered Eileen's Book from Wave...

HAPPENING Thursday 2/2/2012 Tire Fire Reading Series presents : Scott McClanahan, Kendra Grant Malone, Matthew Savoca & Kirsten Kaschock  |  Tattooed Mom 530 South Street  |  7pm-10pm  |  FREE I'm pretty psyched about this one. I am "into" collaborative writing recently, for some reason, and Malone and Savoca are, I believe, reading together from their collaborative work *. It has this feel to it, and it's usually subtly humorous in a way that you probably have to be when you are working with someone else, I suppose. It makes me jealous that I don't have a collaborative poet friend. But moving on, I went to a Tire Fire reading last year, and I met a lot of great people there and saw three great fiction writers read their work. I am looking forward to attending tomorrow, and I'm sure this event will be as good if not better than the reading in November! Make it out! It's supposed to be nice outside anyway. You have no excuse. * Edit: the ...

A lot of good things happened over the past week and a half-ish in Philadelphia, and I missed a lot of them. Barrelhouse had a reading at Temple. It apparently went well. I was napping on my couch with a headache, and I slept until about 4 (it started at 3:30.) Literary Death Match came to the World Cafe. I was at the horrific game that the Eagles played against the Chicago Bears. They lost in the fourth quarter. I shunned one death match for another: the Eagles' playoff hopes are all but dead after today's loss against the Arizona Cardinals. ...Because I watched that game at my Dad's house, I also missed a reading this evening. Asher Lewis invited me to a reading at the Walking Fish Theater that I should have gone to. Football: 0, Literature 2. Kimberly: 0, Literature: 3. Okay. Wait. I need to fix that score. I DID go to the Tirefire Reading Series at the Tattooed Mom on Thursday night, which was pretty damn great. I at least have one point. Mike Young, who I tau...