No New York Cringe next week, but Cringe everywhere else in October

Hi, New York. I trust you’re still maxed out from the two Cringes and all the book release hoopla in September, so we’re taking a month off. During that month off, though, there will be Cringes in Boston, Dublin, and London, pretty much any city ending with an N, so maybe "off" is not the right word here.

New York Cringe will be back in November, the day after the election, and hopefully we’ll all be so happy that night that even our teenage diaries will seem happy in retrospect. If not (knock on wood), we’ll pour our new adult angst out together. But yeah, let’s hope for that first scenario.

Two essays on the same subject that made me pump my fist in the air

1. “Your body is not a MySpace,” In Which Why You Wanna Go and Do That Love Huh, by Molly Lambert of This Recording

2. “Your body is not a Trapper Keeper,” Sleevie Wonder by Nalini of Free Range Nalini

Whether or not you agree, the two best things you’ll read all day.

Boston Cringe Booked

Tuesday, October 7 at the Midway Cafe, 8 pm. Email me if you’d like to read. And thank you to everyone who sent bar suggestions (especially Emily)! I got a lot of great recommendations. Never doubt the sheer force of kind strangers on the internet.

DC and Philadelphia (and Dublin) Cringes still coming! Watch this space.

Dive bar education

In the locked ladies’ room of a nice, clean, well-lit restaurant, sitting on the toilet (if we must get into details), the doorknob started to turn and before I could properly react, my leg shot out and kicked the door to keep it shut, and without even realizing what happened, I said, “Thank you.” To my leg.

Cringe East Coast Book Tour Is Coming

More info soon, but if you live in Boston, DC, or Philadelphia and would like to come see Cringe in your city, email me.

ALSO if you can recommend any good bars in Dublin for the first Ireland Cringe, it would be greatly appreciated.

It's a reading series, based on the book, based on the reading series.

A very big thanks and high five to everyone who came out to the Cringe book release party at Housing Works last week. Are you sick of hearing about the Cringe book yet? If you said no, please allow me to take care of that for you now.

If you didn’t make it to the release party, or you did but didn’t get your book signed by all the contributors, you’re in luck, because this Wednesday at Freddy’s is a very special All-Book Contributor Cringe, with readings and signings, and if you don’t have your copy yet, you can buy it, right there, in the bar.

Commerce! Humiliation! Fellowship! It’s just like a mega church.

Cringe Reading Night
Wednesday, September 10, 8:30 pm
Freddy’s Bar & Backroom
485 Dean Street (6th Ave. & Dean), Brooklyn
2/3 to Bergen, any train to Atlantic/Pacific
More directions

Cost: as always, free dollars

Van Helsing

It’s Saturday night, my family just flew back to Oklahoma, and I am sitting on my couch watching a truly horrible movie on SciFi. It’s awesome. I think it’s starring Walter Peck from the EPA. People are getting their faces eaten off in the sunniest Eastern European town square ever and every commercial is about shammies and joint pain. Except for the commercials about some new show called True Blood, which I guess is about sexy, sassy Southern vampires with Anna Paquin refining her tragic Rogue accent.

I don’t get why everyone is so fascinated with vampires all the damn time, or why anyone over the age of 14 thinks they’re sexy. Vampires are not into doing it. Vampires are into being pale and pouty and draining your will to live. They’re like frozen teenagers. I think people who think vampires are somehow sexy maybe just don’t know how to have sex, or maybe they have had sex but decided it just wasn’t for them, they’d rather wear velveteen and resent people.

I have not ever been into those Twilight books or the Anne Rice novels or even Buffy. CALM DOWN, deep breath; I know everyone loved Buffy, and many people I respect have told me about its great writing, but I could never get past Sarah Michelle Gellar’s bershon attitude and her post-nasal drip voice. This is also why I could never get into Veronica Mars: the main character and her sassy little quips made me grit my teeth. Now I’m not saying I’m too cool here: I was super into Alias. I also have a soft spot for dramatic movies where people ride horses in the rain and run through candlelit courtyards in empire-waist dresses and everyone is so torn up with honor and valor they can barely sex straight. BUT. At least they’re actually interested in sex, not just moping around a decaying Southern mansion and whining about their problems, which as far as I can tell is all vampires do when they’re not actually sucking blood. They’re like college freshmen in terms of angst, self-involvement, and hygiene. I would advise all these guys to spend a semester doing Habitat for Humanity, get laid, buy some shampoo.

Okay I have to go, Walter Peck’s daughter just ripped his heart out with her nazgul hands and Bad Boys II is about to start. I'm glad we talked.

"It reminds me of an interview with Umberto Eco from this summer’s Paris Review"

Hoooooooooollyyyyyyyyyyyy shhiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit