READ HERE NOW Posted on December 4, 2009 by Michelle Tea
Kevin Killian performs his dark side at City Lights
Man I am so jacked up on the biggest Shirley Temple in a dirty glass from Vesuvio, extra formaldehyde from the maraschino cherry, please. I went there for a mocktail after hearing Kevin Killian read from his latest book, Impossible Princess, at City Lights. Kevin Killian is so freaking funny, and his work is so brazenly vulnerable in that it’s vulnerable to be so weird and risky and also risque, and he just plunges into the hilarious muck of it with pretty much the best vibes I’ve ever felt off a writer giving a reading. Some literary organization has to create a Best Vibe award and give it to Kevin Killian. Having City Lights call him and ask him to do a book with them felt like some sort of award to Kevin, and to have the editor specifically solicit his weirdest works must have felt like he won some experimental writer lotto. I mean, everyone I know is always afraid their work is too weird for a publisher, you know? Or is that just me?
Kevin read the story Rochester, a collabortion with the zinester Tony Leuzzi featuring a sort of alternative universe Kevin Killian — hideous, lecherous, sewing aprons from rags and mashing apples to grisly pulp while a chimpanzee bangs out stories he edits and passes off as his own. The chimp is also sort of psychic. Tony is a shallow Castro queen who hardly even cares about Kevin Killian, who is set up in the piece as a literary legend but sort of lumbers and lurches about, poking the boy’s behind with a screwdriver. Kevin read his dialogue in this labored monster voice, with amazing timing, very theatrical. Kevin Killian is a consistent delight to hear read, he is just so smart and witty and strange, the best combo, right? And you probably all already know about him cause he used to blog right here but if you don’t, go back and read his old posts.
