The Clues Are There in Black and White

I went out to KGB last night to hear Elizabeth Crane read one of the short stories in her new collection, All This Heavenly Glory, spurred on not just by my enthusiasm for her stories but that of several people I know in literary circles. "Howard the Filmmaker" certainly didn't disappoint--I know it's got to be a thinly veiled portrait of some semi-famous film director who has a reputation for using his oeuvre as leverage to get into women's pants, but since I can't think of anybody who's directed autobiographical stories portraying himself as a pickup artist or documentaries where women talk about orgasms, I guess I'll never figure out who it's supposed to be (shrug). It's a pretty hilarious story, though (and it turns out that if you subscribe to the "premium" edition of Nerve.com, you can read it).

Before Crane, Maggie Robbins read from Suzy Zeus Gets Organized, a novel in rhyme ("Suzy hails from Indiana / land of crops, of Fords and farms / Suzy lives in New York City / land of cops and car alarms"). The audience loved it, with the laughs increasing in volume as Suzy's story unfolded with each couplet.