VERMIN V. SAN DIEGO

Either it's nickel beer night at the carny bar or the first ever Vermin in San Diego! Last Saturday, the Vermin road show braved irregular train service and cars exploding on the freeway for a gig in Sailortown U.S.A.

Knowledge is the best weapon against ignorance, but a book upside the face is equally effective. Vermin heavyweight Sean Carswell read a story from his collection Barney's Crew about a bar-room brawl. Here he is teaching the crowd at Voz Alta the art of book combat. The technical term for this maneuver is a One-Two Spine Shatterer.

San Diego poet Lizz Huerta has wormed her way into our verminous hearts. Here she is strutting her stuff, and by "strut" I mean "ooze" and by "stuff" I mean, well, I'm not sure what I mean. Some pictures are worth a thousand words; this one leaves us speechless.

I had a feeling San Diegans wouldn't take the Angeleno invasion lightly, and they came hard with masked man of mystery Lou Chalibre with a whole range of tricks, trips, and stunts up his sleeve.

Lastly, Roy Kesey, an American guy married to a Peruvian diplomat living in China, busted out a bi-lingual reading, treating the audience to a selection from his debut novella, Nothing in the World, in English and from his unpublished novel, Pacazo, in Spanish. Here he is composing his thoughts (in Chinese):

Vermin on the Mount returns to Los Angeles on Sunday (yes, Sunday) June 25 with mischief and mayhem from Jami Attenberg, Chad Tsuyuki, Trinie Dalton, and Benjamin Weissman.