1 post tagged “jonathan coulton”

I had not seen The Book Eaters, but I have read the fragments of Aeschylus’ play (now lost), Hoi Bibliophagoi, in the Loeb Library. Plutarch writes that the play was quite popular in Alexandria, Egypt in the latter half of the first century BCE. That is, until an unruly and morally offended mob set fire to a number of public works (including a library) and destroyed the original editions. This revenge is that story.

It was a late last night, but a wonderful last night at Revenge of the Book Eaters, a benefit for 826NYC, a place to tutor children in writing. The Beacon Theatre was packed with people of all genres with hipsters serving as  stopgaps around the bars. The "Will Call" line was quite long, but as we had our tickets, we easily passed through to our seats. I had never been to the Beacon before. It has a small atrium with red carpet and a box office beside a staircase to the right. Going into the theatre, itself, is traveling back to an earlier time of American Art Deco that can only arise from the aesthetic excess after the Second Industrial Revolution during the Roaring Twenties. To prevent a rush to the stage by manic and unruly fans, two proud, helmet-clad, Greek parthenoi thirty feet high guard each side of the proscenium arch, an array of pole arms within their reach. The crowd was full of excitement. It was a wonderful sight for this classicist.

John Hodgman, a man of personal envy though not spite, served as the MC of the evening and spoke briefly about a number of dubious, yet scholarly-sounding "facts", the luxury of being a professional writer, and slyly hawked his book, The Areas of My Expertise. He also reminded us that this was a benefit event for children and that if there was a child on stage with him at that moment, he would stand on the back of that child so the audience could see him better. Along with him was Jonathan Coulton, coonskin cap clad folksinger who crooned a wonderful ditty called Re Your Brains concerning office politics and zombies.

Next, Jon Stewart came on stage to a great round of applause and after some words (some justly unkind about Mel Gibson), read, along with the executive producer of The Daily Show, the new introduction to the paperback version of American, the Book, and a chapter about the Senate with addenda/marginalia by a history prof, Dr. Schwartz. Correctly cited was the caning of Massachusetts Senator Sumner in the Senate for his (justly) unkind words concerning slavery. Incorrectly cited (and caught my Dr. Schwartz), was the Senate decree that only wiffle canes would be allowed in the Senate from that day forward. There was a little bit of Latin punning involving the etymology of “bicameral” and C-SPAN’s shoddy production quality at which I laughed a bit too hard. This can be traced back to the fact that I am a nerd. As they left the stage and everyone cheered, I felt like I was part of something that was changing the country. As naïve as that feeling is.

After Mr. Stewart, performed an acoustic John Roderick of The Long Winters, a very tall man with a wonderful stage presence. All of his songs were wonderful, but the last one, whose name I cannot remember, involved a spaceship crashing, and it was my favorite by far.

The nasally wonderful Sarah Vowell appeared with Eric Bogosian and performed together “an essay written four hours ago” about Charles Preuss, the Oregon Trail cartographer accompanying Charles Fremont. Preuss had a very wry Schopenhauerian (my description) approach towards the Western Frontier. He hated it. And later committed suicide. Mr. Bogosian intoned the Deutschsprachische accent of Herr Preuss.

Sufjan Stevens is a shy, young man with unruly coiffed hair, a stunning voice and skill for songcraft. All the men on the stage wore ties, which, along with his banjo and older rhythms, took us all to an earlier age of
American music. He performed a few songs, one I recognized from his Seven Swans release, "The Dress Looks Nice On You" to which he hinted may be about a teacher of his who took him under her wing and taught him to write stories. This album also has my favorite song his, "The Transfiguration".

Dave Eggers came out and talked about the whole reason we were there that night, 826 Valencia, a tutoring program for kids to teach them how to write. It’s become wildly popular, but ever needs funding. He showed us some work by a little boy named Alex who had cut out pictures from magazines and added commentary about the children of a gingerbread man and a peanut, Tom Cruise as a heavy metal rock star, and, among other things, monkey pickers (they pick your nose). We laughed pretty hard. After watching a great video about the mission of 826, Mr. Eggers literally passed around a bucket for people to donate. $20 (allegedly) got you a hug from Eggers, said Mr. Hodgman. I was too far away to get the hug, but as I dropped my Jackson in the bucket teeming with currency, he gave me a pleasant smile of thanks.
“If we get $5,000, Sufjan will perform with David Byrne!” John Hodgman cajoled. That tease!

After an intermission, David Byrne took to the stage and performed, confessing that he had never done this before, a full country set. He began with "There Stands The Glass", a song he had learned but never learned the name, and then performed the Talking Heads’ "Little Creatures", a song I’d not heard in YEARS. After a few more, he played "The Big Country". It was a great set!
Lastly, Sufjan Stevens came out and the two played "Saginaw, Michigan" by George Jones.

It was a wonderful, late night and I wanted to write and write and write. I immediately fell in love with the mission of 826 and if I lived in Brooklyn I would volunteer my time in a heartbeat. I come relatively late to writing as a vocation. I understood writing as merely a vehicle for scholarship and so I didn’t take it seriously for many years. That was a foolish, foolish thing to believe. I squandered a talent. A child should never believe such a lie.

And so we caught a cab on Amsterdam, fell asleep on the train to New Haven, and dreamt of the land of the Book Eaters.