#keith ecker

[thesomethingblog]

I will be performing at this. First time in a while. I'll be performing alongside fancy people like Keith Ecker and Samantha Irby. Hoping for more good things to come.

[thesomethingblog]

Reading Series Review: Guts and Glory, August Edition

Hosted by Samantha Irby and Keith Ecker, Guts and Glory is a series concerning personal stories from people about anything, from showcases of bravery, to showcases of fear, to anxiety, insecurity, and outright hilarity, things that take real "guts." And glory, I guess.

I'd heard about it before, mostly because I'd heard of Samantha Irby, though at this point, who hasn't heard of her? She completely took over two whole pages of the latest issue of Chicago Magazine, has a book out by Curbside Splendor (called Meaty, and it's only $16 to buy it in all its wonder), and remember, she still does that whole blogging thing. So when I found out she hosts this series I figured, "Fuck it, I'm bored and I'm sure the two or three people who read my blog want to hear about a series that's not Reading Under the Influence (which will be happening again in about two weeks).

I walked down Lincoln Ave. to Powells Bookstore passing by the Army and Navy Surplus, a kitschy Turkish restaurant, and a place where you can paint while you drink fancy wine, because if it worked for artsy drunks in the past, it should damn well work today. I reached Powells a little after 7, when the reading starts, because as I've previously discussed in a blog I deleted out of shame (before finding out I had nothing to be ashamed of), all readings claim to begin at a certain time, but really start anywhere from five minutes to half an hour later, I guess because writers need time to pre-drink before we during-the-reading drink.

The wait wasn't long before the reading began in the backroom of Powells. Keith Ecker and Samatha Irby took to the front with a full room while I took to the back near the doorway standing awkwardly and pretending like I totally knew people there even though the only people there I knew were fictional and stuck on paper.

The night began with comedian Bill Bullock doing an off-kilter semi-read of a piece he wrote for another reading series called Seven Deadly Sins, about his abusively strict, and sometimes outright abusive, father (the theme was "wrath"). He would frequently go off-page and give sidenotes until he began speaking of his writing process, claiming how he "isn't a writer," but a comedian at heart, then going into how when writing the piece, it was initially supposed to be about the wrath of his father, but as he wrote on and on, it became clearer to him the true wrath of the piece came from himself. It was odd to watch because I didn't know how to feel. On one hand, what he said was powerful all the same, but on the other hand I wanted to hear him read the story, not just hear him tell us what it was about, but read it to us so we could come up with our own guesses.

M Shelly Conner began her piece with a small ode to the slang word "boss," meaning to be such a master at something, that you are able to teach others how to do it, to paraphrase. She then told the audience why she is a boss at heartbreak and getting dumped, how she has learned not to "call her mom...

"fifty times...

"in an hour...

"during the holidays."

Her piece constantly rose the stakes and wrenched our attention because, who doesn't want to be a boss at taking heartbreak? She told us how we need to let it roll off our shoulders, instead of, say, throw a chair. It kept getting better and better and I almost didn't want it to end.

Rachel Collins began her piece by telling us how she's always wanted to be gutsy. She likes the word, likes how it sounds - "guttural" - and lead us right into the depths of her fears of never being able to love or be loved ever again and never being able to bear her own child, having to settle for the 25 to 30 she helps to raise, shape, and mold every year in classrooms, children she realizes might not remember her in ten years. The whole time watching her I couldn't help but think, "there's nothing more fucking gutsy then putting your insecurities on blast."

Melinda McIntyre told us the trials and tribulations of being in a polyamorous relationship with a Logan Square hipster married couple, painting a realistic picture of modern polyamory that's less "orgy" and more "dinner and a movie."

Kim Morris, in light of a recent hit-and-run , read about her time as a bike messenger, drinking with bike messenger friends Mike and Jeff and Tommy, celebrating Friday on a Tuesday, then attending Tommy's funeral less than a week later, having been followed and purposely hit by a car, "bike mangled, neck snapped." It was an ongoing motif in the story, "bike mangled, neck snapped," as it was in real life for the reader, and it hit us just as hard.

Guts and Glory found Keith Ecker showed us different kinds of assholes in the world, what defined them, and when he slowly but surely began turning into an asshole himself, not a "white collar asshole," or a "blue collar asshole," but just an asshole, and how he pulled himself out of such a spiral of asshole-ishness. (That is a word because it has letters.)

Finally and fucking fantastically, Samantha Irby told us all the secret to living like rich people without being rich - house sitting. Kennilworth, Winnetka, you name it, she's house-sat there. "I shouldn't have had an apartment in 2003." She lead us into a story of being blown away by the glistening muscles of an attractive man, only to find out he's less a "man," and more a "high school boy." Oh yeah, she was also wearing pink flamingo pajama pants and an "inside" bra, the kind with no underwire that makes your boobs look saggy.

The night ended and I sufficiently managed to evade any and all awkward conversation by leaving right afterward, passing by that arts and wines place where I got to watch drunk people try to paint while drunk.

Guts and Glory tab: None, because it's free. It's also BYOB.

[jrvmajesty]

Live Lit is the fastest-growing arts scene in Chicago—you’ll find storytellers everywhere from Theater on the Lake to your corner bar. What’s Live Lit? Why is it popular? What makes a show good? Helping Don and Tyler answer those questions are Samantha Irby and Keith Ecker, prolific performers and writers and the producers behind the show Guts & Glory. They talk shop and offer advice for would-be storytellers that mostly boils down to this: find your voice, tell the truth, and in the words of Sam Irby, "keep your shit to eight minutes." Afterwards, Moth StorySLAM-winning storytellers Stephanie Douglass, Erin Kahoa, and Valentine Soposky take over the studio for a breakout session about how they prepare to get onstage and spill their guts. Want more Live Lit action? Check out this calendar of Chicago shows. There's a show almost every night of the week, so get out there—and tell us what you think!

[826chi-blog]

Guts & Glory: Live Lit for the Lionhearted

Guts & Glory: Live Lit for the Lionhearted (brought to you by Essay Fiesta's Keith Ecker and blogger Samantha Irby) features some of Chicago's boldest storytelling and encourages performers to take creative and personal risks with their writing. Each show is carefully curated, with an eye toward diversity of voices and perspectives. Donations benefit 826CHI!

Tonight's readers: Neo-Futurist Dina Marie Walters Solo in the 2nd City producer Carly Oishi Comedian and actor Whit Nelson  Performer Jeff Miller Writer Jill Neumann KEITH ECKER SAMANTHA IRBY 

So. Tonight. 7pm. Powell's Bookstore in Lincoln Square. BYOB and FREE.

You don't want to miss this.

(But in the event that you must, this event takes place the 3rd Wednesday of each month.)

[inourwordsblog-blog]

Visit Original Link

Broad Shoulders: An Olympics of Storytelling

This is the much belated fourth edition of Broad Shoulders, a new collaborative podcast to showcase stories from across Chicago’s Live Lit community. Each month, the show invites performers from various Live Lit shows to come and read their work, and those performers are either chosen by the audience or the hosts of those shows themselves.  For this month’s show, Essay Fiesta and Story Club hosts Keith Ecker and Dana Norris joined host Nico Lang and guests Patrick Gill (Essay Fiesta), Will Hindmarch (Story Club) and Mimi Nguyen (In Our Words).

[inourwordsblog-blog]

This is the second edition of Broad Shoulders, a new collaborative podcast to showcase stories from across Chicago’s Live Lit community. Each month, the show invites performers from various Live Lit shows to come and read their work, and those performers are either chosen by the audience or the hosts of those shows themselves.  For this month’s show, Essay Fiesta and Story Club hosts Keith Ecker and Dana Norris joined host Nico Lang and guests Adam Guerino (Queer Comedy at Zanies), Janna Sobel (Here’s the Story) and Andrew Marikis (Story Club).  Although there was no technical theme, many of this month’s pieces ended up having to do with dying or the end of the world.  We really need to get out more.

[neighborhoodr-chicago]

There are dozens more of these trendy geographic pockets of coders and venture capitalists. There's the Silicon Gorge in England, the Silicon Gulf in the Philippines, the Silicon Forest in Oregon, the Silicon Glen in Scotland, the Silicon Slopes in Utah, the Silicon Taiga in Russia and the Silicon Wadi in Israel. But what of Chicago?

Personally, I like Silicon Cornfield. Also, Silicon Prairie, Silicon Flatlands, and Silicon "Where They Say 'Pop' Instead of 'Soda'"