Date: Tuesday, January 15th, 2008
Time: 6:30 p.m.
Location: The MCA

“Motherfucker, I TOLD you to not to bring that shit in here.”
“Whatthefuckever, vato. I carry my Ashbery everywhere I go. Now shut the fuck up before I make you and your Larkin my bitch.”**

Calling a reading series “Lit Gangs of Chicago” may not be the most inspired decision the MCA has ever made, but don’t let it dissuade you from attending. It’s truly wonderful that a public institution makes such an effort to bring diverse reading series to a wide audience. Also, there’s something really strange and nice about seeing a midwinter reading at the cafe. It could be those impossible windows looking out at a snowy courtyard, or maybe the funny pink eyeball wallpaper that backdrops the audience. The niceness owes its largest debt to the respectful crowd — the seats are filled with people you don’t always see around.

For this event, the Reconstruction Room series will break out of Roscoe Village to do a reading about “calls and calling” (negative three points for every vignette about missed phonecalls from former lovers). It should be a treat to see the regulars in a different venue, to see how the after-work set reacts to their often zany interactivity (I’m thinking of the time Erin asked the audience to throw little balls of paper at her as she read a poem). For those busy on Tuesday, the Rec Roomers will reprise the reading the following night at their regular haunt, the Black Rock Bar.

**actual conversation recorded at the clubhouse of an actual Lit Gang in Pilsen.