It’s 6 a.m. in Reykjavik...
And I’m feeling like a jester.
I am on a bus engulfed in sulphuric fumes (more on this next week). I did not pack my Repettos because it’s subzero, but I am wearing my fuggs and my bag looks like I stuck up a pharmacist —vitamin C, D, zinc, oil of oregano. Last night I did a reading with some of my favorite contemporary writers at The Standard East Village as part of Mikeala Dery’s fab reading series Fashion Fiction. I am not a fiction writer so I ended up reading a piece I wrote for SSENSE (the first time Steff ever edited my writing) about a shameless Vaquera skirt with thong underwear stitched on its front and back. To give the people at the bar their money’s worth I also wore the skirt, an item that since I wrote this piece has been hovering, bogeylike in the back of my wardrobe, a thing of tremendous power and bulkiness. I debated whether I should wear this skirt and really, you know, commit to the bit. But was it all too theater kid?
Which got me thinking about the whole concept of readings, sharing your work, and more broadly, that soggy moment of the soul that comes between forcing yourself to do something you don’t particularly want to do, and doing it. The realization that you (a previous carefree devilish you) signed current you (sorry bum) up for extreme humiliation and now it’s time to deliver. Maybe that’s karaoke with your friends. Maybe it’s the NYC marathon.
I’m not talking about Christian Bale losing 50 pounds for a role. Get Stanislavsky out of here! Call it “locking in,” call it “just get through it” mode. It’s when you must accept that you are playing a character and that character is the jester. You are a storyteller. You are there to entertain.
If you are an aspiring writer or public speaker or you’ve been to a few to many friends readings that featured people garbling into their phone, here is some advice from someone who hates doing it but who learned from the best (I am a student of the M. Rips school of oration, a man who felt a moving after dinner toast was a more critical skill than literacy) on how to deliver something:
Pick something that has a beginning, middle, and end. You’re telling a story—and that story has to make sense. The only exception to this is if you are reading at Dada Poetry Night at Dave and Busters.
Print out your piece.
Read it a couple times, like a human being. Notice where you naturally pause, or where there is a significant moment that you want a reaction.
Then, mark it up. EDIT!!! TIME IT! TRY TO MAKE IT UNDER 10 MINUTES. You may be the galaxy’s most elegant writer but nobody will know how perfect your sentence is because a) you’re probably at a bar, and b) dense paragraphs of text, while they have their own musicality, are impossible to understand.
Go slow. Yes, slow.
Look up from the goddamn page every now and then. Connect with the people you’re reading to.
Half a glass of wine before you read isn’t the worst thing in the world.
At the reading Stephanie Wambigu easily calculated how long things would take to read based on word count. That’s a pro.
If you haven’t watched “Swimming to Cambodia” by Spalding Gray. I urge you to!! It is a life changing piece of art!
My favorite TikToker of the week is this guy who does fish reviews.
Actress Lauren Fern just kicked off her downtown drama club with an improv class.
And Ariella Starkman is having a coat drive. If you work in media/fashion I know you have some extra coats you’re thinking of selling on The Real Real that instead you should bring to the drive!
Speaking of readings I think the Lily of Health Gossip should organize a juicy one.
I went to Dimes proper recently and the waitress/model/it girl working there had the best quarter zip on. I basically bought it then and there (rare).
M Rips from the school of oration said, “Nicolaia’s points are correct”.
I responded, “ Well, they are your points.”