Tonight Ben Greenman gave his final scheduled reading in New York, as part of his tour for Please Step Back, at Barnes & Noble in Tribeca. He and Todd Zuniga of Opium Magazine turned into a three-ring spectacle with my approval although I didn't want to know beforehand what was going to go down. In the first photo (all were snapped by TZ on his iPhone), Ben attempts to set a world record for writing the longest story in sixty seconds. In the second, I am sitting in the front row between star-on-the-rise Megan Branch and Lauren Elkin of Maitresse, who enviably splits her time between Paris, Hong Kong and New York, if you can believe it. She showed me the book she's reading, an anthology of new hip scene Inculte, and we talked about Oulipo, and I've gotta get to Paris, soon! Afterward a bunch of us strolled up to Walker's for a drink, standing around talking shop at the bar; a perfect New York evening. Todd's taking Opium's Literary Death Match on the road to Paris, London, San Francisco, LA and Chicago, in addition to the current issue of the magazine, which is almost sold out thanks to all the global press it's been getting (the cover boasts a nine word story that won't be revealed for a century). I love it when cool people mingle. The more, the merrier.
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