"The J Train from Marcy Avenue"

The "Bad Dates/Bad Sex" fiction reading last night was entrancing. I am usually easily bored at such events, and don't attend unless, say, David Sedaris or I have been invited to speak.

Karen Heuler (author of Journey to Bom Goody) created this event and had requested beforehand a bio from each of the four readers about our dating pasts -- something to "humanize" us to the audience. Mine included a few memorable first dates (the Ukrainian hip-hop DJ who wore fake silver teeth), up to and until my current spelling-bee paramour.

Karen did quite a job rewriting the intros to segue into her introductions to each of our short stories; she practically created a work of literature just to introduce four people.

Notably, one of the other readers, Martin Cohen, read a short story about being in an imaginary relationship with the female subjects of two different paintings at the MoMA (one a Modigliani, nicknamed "Mo") and ultimately having to choose one over the other.