Who: Penny Arcade, Kat Georges, Peter Carlaftes, Jennifer Blowdryer, Puma Perl, Frank Messina, Michael Puzzo, Danny Shot, Richard Vetere, George Wallace, more
What: Annual tribute to Charles Bukowski
Where: The Bitter End, 147 Bleecker St. between Thompson & La Guardia
When: Friday, August 14, $10, 6:00
Why: “What sort of cultural hangover keeps Charles Bukowski in print and popular more than twenty years after his death?” S. A. Griffin asks in his Three Rooms Press essay “Charles Bukowski: Dean of Another Academy.” “In light of the fact that a good portion of what has been published since his passing in 1994 may not be the man’s best work, along with some heavy editing at times, why does Charles Bukowski remain relevant well into the 21st century?”
The nineteenth annual Charles Bukowski Memorial Reading takes place August 14 at 6:00 at the Bitter End in Greenwich Village in honor of what would have been the 106th birthday of the author of such books as Pulp, Factotum, Post Office, On Cats, and Love Is a Dog from Hell, with tribute readings by performance artist Penny Arcade, musician and storyteller Jennifer Blowdryer, poets Frank Messina, Puma Perl, Danny Shot, and George Wallace, and playwrights Richard Vetere and Michael Puzzo, hosted by Kat Georges and Peter Carlaftes of Three Rooms Press. Bukowski, who died in 1994 at the age of seventy-three, will be celebrated through poetry, oral history, rare videos, and live performances, with a special look at what he might have thought about the world’s first trillionaire, the decline of alcohol consumption, AI, the demise of the US Post Office, and other contemporary issues.
“It began as a mistake,” Bukowski writes at the beginning of his 1971 novel, Post Office. Where it goes from there will have you thinking twice about your mailman.
As a bonus, various prizes, including books and recordings, will be given away at this always welcome literary event.
[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]