On Saturday night, Marcia and I went to Lit Crawl in the city. Lit Crawl is the finale of Litquake, San Francisco’s Literary Festival. In one evening, 31 venues host readings from everyone from travel writers to novelists. And it’s all free.

So, we picked the three events we wanted to go to, drove to San Francisco, circled around the Mission for 40 minutes before finding a parking spot, and walked to the first event … only to find that the bar it was held in was so packed, people were standing on the sidewalk trying to get in.

It was the beginning of our disillusionment. Every event we went to was so overcrowded, shoving your way in was like walking into someone’s mouth–hot, humid, and kind of gross. Once inside, jammed between people, bags, and bar corners, you found that you were not listening to the type of famous, brilliant writer who would warrant all the ado. Nope. You were listening to an average writer who very often hadn’t even published that much.

As usual, there was a lot of what I call San Francisco stuff–discussions about gender studies, observations about sex toys, woo-woo spiritual stuff. Not that those things can’t be interesting in some contexts, but in San Francisco, they take it to another level. For example, sex over 60 is an important topic. But an old lady trying to teach the audience sex tips? A bit much.

However, at least that was interesting. Much of it wasn’t. Or might have been, except so many writers read in such a dreadful monotone, I couldn’t force myself to pay attention. But I would still take that over the Jesus story, a feable attempt at religious satire that quickly denigrated to a long-winded bad joke. (So Buddha and his followers were sitting around one day, and one follower said, “Hey Buddha, show me what’s under your sarong…”)

All that said, I do know there were some good writers a Lit Crawl. Maybe we just ended up picking the wrong events. In any case, by the end of the evening, Marcia gave Litquake a new nickname, which you can read about here.

I will be in Italy for the next 10 days. When I come back, Italy pictures!