Vermin on the Mount

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reading, treating the audience to a selection from his debut novella, Nothing in the World, in English and from his unpublished novel, Pacazo, in Spanish.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.

VERMIN AT VOZ ALTA

You read right! For the first time ever we're taking Vermin on the road for a night of irreverant readings in the heart of downtown San Diego. What's more, we've got a stellar line-up featuring Roy Kesey, Victor Payan, Sean Carswell and Lizz Huerta. Why San Diego? Voz Alta is an art, music and culture collective located next to Landlord Jim's, the home-away-from-home of our featured artist, Ricardo Islas.

Meet the Vermin:

Roy Kesey was born in a red truck in Northern California. His short stories have appeared in over 40 magazines and his “Dispatches from Roy Kesey, an American Guy Married to a Peruvian Diplomat Living in China” appear regularly in McSweeney's. He will be reading from his first book, Nothing in the World.

Lizz Huerta is the acclaimed and accomplished poet and performer from San Diego who is fast becoming a Vermin favorite. She is the author of several chapbooks, including The Wings of Every Crow, Hostage of Gravity and The Papered Seed Inside of the Stone.

Sean Carswell is a writer, educator, publisher and surfer who makes his home in Ventura. He is the author of a collection of short stories (Barney's Crew), a book of essays (The Glue and Ink Rebellion) and a novel (Drinks for the Little Guy), which has been called “the best book about a carpenter since the Bible.”

Victor Payan is an award-winning San Diego writer/producer and co-founder of the Keep on Crossin' movement by day, masked impressario of Aztec Gold by night. Will Lou Chalibre, the masked man with the microphone, be making a special Vermin appearance? Come to Vermin and find out!

SWINK/VERMIN TAG TEAM!

After a day of books, commerce, and encounters with emotionally disturbed people, the Swink faithful and Vermin centurions braved cross town traffic for a night of no-holds-barred readings in the upstairs lounge at the Mountain bar in Chinatown. It's a dangerous game we play. Eight hours of book panels, book signing, and bookety bookishness is almost more than even the most fervent book lover can bear. Almost, but not quite. Salvador Plascencia is on the verge of hysteria.

Luckily, plenty of antidote was on hand. (Hint: it's cold and gold.) Cecil Castelucci, author of Boy Proof and Queen of Cool, is armed and ready.

Alexis Orgera is the poetry editor at Swink and a one-woman sales juggernaut at the Swink/Vermin booth. She's also a middle school librarian and a fantastic poet in her own right.

If you've been wondering when the next issue of Swink is coming out, fear not. You have three months to prepare to the onslaught of literary goodness that awaits you this summer. Neale DeSousa offers a sneak peak with a dispatch from Goa.

As is usually the case, there were last minute cancellations, missed flights, and viral emergencies that left us short a few readers. At ten o'clock the night before the reading the incomparable Lizz Huerta, a newly appointed director at the art, music and culture collective Voz Alta in downtown San Diego, volunteered to fill in, which she did in her usual spectacular fashion.

Did you know Salvador Plasscencia was in attendance at the very first Vermin on the Mount? It was held in a boiler room beneath the banquet hall of a Hualtuco hotel in September of 1891. Or maybe it was Scotland.

Ben Ehrenreich read from his debut novel The Suitors, a book that cries out to be aloud. At least the dirty parts do. Thankfully, that's exactly the kind of person Ben is, which makes him a very Vermin kind of a guy.

SWINK/VERMIN AT THE LATFOB

For the last two years, Swink Magazine and Vermin on the Mount have joined forces and operated a booth at the L.A. Times Festival of Books. The LATFOB is fantastic event for people who love books, but it shouldn't be confused with a literary event. Sure, there are lots of compelling panels chock full of brilliant writers of bona fide literature, but the LATFOB is ultimately about two things 1) commerce and 2) crazy people. You have to come to terms with the fact that the biggest lines will be for cook books and that people with a curious neglect of personal hygience will accuse you of spreading satanic messages. With that in mind, there are two approaches to weathering the shitstorm that is the LATFOB.

This is the stern, serious, but ultimately misguided approach of the gentleman across from the Swink/Vermin booth. Despite the whimsical title of his booth, which I choose to think of as a rhetorical question or, at least, one that demans an unflattering answer, this is not an inviting place to spend time or money, which explains why the booth was usually empty and it propietor packed up early.

We added a sofa, a record player, and a cooler full of suds and transformed the Swink/Vermin booth into a lounge, a respite from the pecuniary demands and crash of madness that is LATFOB. At least Jolene Siana thinks so.

There is a third approach, the huckster approach, taken by the memoirist next to us, and that is to lie your ass off ("I am an Amazon top-seller, top 100") and misspell the title of your own book on all your promotional material. She also misspelled the word "memoir" on her booth banner. I'd show you a picture, but I'm fairly certain she'd sue.

My favorite moment in the festival came when a super bright young kid approached the booth and started asking me questions about my book. You know how some kids are so smart you can see it crackling in their eyes? This kid had that. He was about nine or ten and his parents were nowhere in sight but there was no way I was going to sell my book to him as it's not appropriate for his age.

Kid: "What is your book about?"
Me: "I'm sorry, it's not for you."
Kid: (Offended) "I didn't ask who it's for, I asked what it's about."
Me: "It's short stories, but it's for adults."
Kid: "Hmmm."
Me: "What kind of things do you like to read?"
Kid: "Bunches of stuff. From kid's books to stuff that's waaayyy beyond your book, believe you me."

And I do.