There’s a whole post on how much I love Elisa Albert, the featured reader at the 92Y Tribeca Open Mic tonight — alongside with the wondrous Sway Machinery — but here, let me just rant a bit about how excited I am that it’s happening in the first place. Yes, the name is a bit of a mystery — I mean, it’s nowhere near 92nd Street — but that’s New York for you.
But here’s what it is: A fast-paced (3 minutes, or 1 sheet of paper), exciting open stage where people can come to do poetry, stories, songs, or anything they want that inspires them. I spent most of my life trying to get to this city, and now that I’m here — and I’m surrounded by a hundred of my favorite writers and artists — I kind of want to get everyone together, not just to do their hit single, but to drop any piece that they’re in the mood to read. Last week, I got to talk to Dara Horn, one of my favorite novelists, and she told me this idea she had for a new book — and it was half an hour of me sitting in a cafe with my jaw steadily progressing lower and lower toward the ground.
It was that kind of moment — the kind where she’s pumped with creative energy and I’m pumped with oh-WOW-wtf energy and we both recognize that a bona fide creative moment happened. So, if you have anything to share — or just want to hear a bunch of really cool people do really cool things — stop by tonight. It’s free. Oh, and there’s a bar attached, so things will just get interestinger and interestinger.