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From Stephen Elliott
...moreElla snorted a last bit of smoke from her nose, like a dragon, and flung her butt in the creek. “That’s not a job, Soph. That’s slavery. There are child labor laws. I bet you could call social services on your mom and they would take you away like that.” Ella snapped her fingers.
Food, drink, fortune-telling, live music…is there anything about the release party for Michelle Tea’s new novel that doesn’t sound amazing?
The book is Mermaid in Chelsea Creek, new from McSweeney’s McMullens; the refreshments are pierogi, chocolate, and cocktails; and the entertainment includes Annah Anti Palindrom, Daniel Handler, and of course, Tea herself.
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Michelle Tea is an author, performer, public speaker, event producer, educator, activist, and now, with her new Sister Spit imprint at City Lights Publishers, the editor of her own press.
...moreBy pretty much all accounts, last night was tense but hopeful for the Occupy movement in the Bay Area. (For an account of the national movement, check out Brian Spears’ roundup from this morning.)
This is somewhat of a relief after Tuesday night, when a coalition of Bay Area police used tear gas, nonlethal rounds, and more in Oakland, critically injuring 24 year-old veteran Scott Olsen by shooting him in the face with a projectile and then throwing a flash grenade at the people trying to help him.
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The Rumpus and the Believer Magazine Proudly Present:
September 12th, 7pm, The Make-Out Room, 3225 22nd Street, San Francisco.
Featuring brilliant authors Michelle Tea, Susan Straight,
Jesus Angel Garcia, David Rocklin, and music by Hate Factory!!
Writer and punk rock legend, Richard Hell, wrote a forthcoming autobiography, I Dreamed I Was a Very Clean Tramp.
For those of you curious as to what astrological sign is behind the multi-talented artist, don’t worry. Michelle Tea covers that topic, finds out what he’s been reading and more in this interview with him.
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“Nothing stays on the margin forever, nothing stays in the middle forever either.” — Justin Chin
“It’s always been my belief that every generation has to take responsibility for itself-documenting its own interests and experiences.” — Jennifer Joseph
...moreSECTION 10
Our room becomes invaded by another party! There are only four of them, three men and a woman. Catacomb aficionados are 85% male and 70% under the age of twenty-five, a demographic Antoine fits into neatly. This group is older.
...moreSpread Magazine’s Working Girl’s Book Awards: Including Autobiography Least Likely to Improve Sex Work’s Public Image,
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SECTION 9
We pass a well, a perfectly round mouth in the stone where all this blue water spills out. There is a rusted banister around it. Very deep, Antoine smiles. Fifteen meters? Don’t fall in! We’re already fifteen meters beneath the earth.
...moreSECTION 8
Antoine tells me things as we walk the tracks and I swing my flashlight around, catching explosions of dense, bright hip hop tags painted by actual artists and crappier, punk rock Anarchy symbols in gusty trails of spray paint.
...moreSECTION 7
We walk the Parisian streets until we reach Kay’s car, parked on a residential corner near the fence we’ll be climbing. We’re Climbing A Fence? I squeal with delight to Judy. I Love Climbing Fences! When I was a child I tried to start a fence-climbing club, I loved it so much I wanted to be organized about it.
...moreSECTION 6
At Place d’Italie the square is all lit up for Noelle, with strings of lights cascading down the facade of the town hall, and covering the front of the Centre Commercial, where we are meeting for our into trip into the catacombs.
...moreSECTION 4
Judy, who was in the front seat of the cab, turned around and said, We would like to have a sex party. I am amazed at my good fortune. Every time I wrap up an affair with someone I’m certain it is the last time I will ever have sex, and each time someone reveals that they’d like to get with me I’m astounded at my luck and flooded with gratitude.
SECTION 3
After kissing on furniture I later learn from Wet is intensely germ-ridden, I followed Antoine up the curving, wrought-iron staircase and out into the street. It is a Parisian street which means it looks like a movie set, with blue and white Christmas lights hung in sky and a corner store with stands of fruit tumbling forth like bulbous jewels.
...morePart 2. All I wanted to do in Paris was have an affair, go to the Louvre, and see the catacombs — the underground labyrinth that snakes beneath the city and has served many purposes, most famously as a crypt containing the bones of over five million Parisians who’d been buried in the hideously overcrowded Les Halles cemetery in the eighteenth century.
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