Podcast: Chuck Palahniuk at the Brattle Theatre
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Whenever Chuck Palahniuk comes to town, you know you're in for something weird. After all, the man is a card-carrying member of the Cacophony Society (the jolly culture jammers who gave us the Santa Rampage) and claims to have caused some 40 public faintings with his gruesome reading of "Guts," the grim saga of a boy who turns his own colon inside out with a pool filter.
Palahniuk
may not have dropped any swoon-inducing prose bombs this time around,
but he sure didn't disappoint. At last Tuesday's way-sold-out reading at the Brattle (courtesy
of the fine folks at the Harvard Book Store), we were treated to:
-a great yarn about how he pissed off German public-radio listeners with his broken Deutsch-speak
-a reading of the propagandist fairytales that warped the mind of young Pygmy, the titular protagonist of Chuck's latest novel
-a spirited Q&A with local writer David Wildman, in which Palahniuk exploded a few internet rumors and declared David Fincher's Fight Club musical "not dead yet"
-a
vinyl-penguin-inflating competition that threw off chemical fumes so
thick, the air was practically shimmering with phthalates (and
excitement!) In case you're kicking yourself for missing out, or
you just want to relive the memory, we recorded the whole thing, just
for you. Enjoy.
DOWNLOAD: Chuck Palahniuk speaking at the Brattle Theatre 5-5-09 [mp3]
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