Lip Service: True Stories Out Loud, a Miami-based Literary Event
by Adriana Páramo
In a swanky spot on Aragon Avenue, Coral Gables, sits Books & Books, an independent bookstore that every quarter, for the last four years, has hosted a one of a kind literary event: Lip Service, True Stories Out Loud. It is exactly what its organizers say it is: a group of writers, “throwing themselves into the wind.”
Last Saturday evening, while Miami simmered in a damp miasma of heat, Lip Service drew well over two hundred people to the historic building. They could have spent their evening at any of the restaurants, bars, and hangout spots along Ponce de Leon Boulevard, or taken a slow stroll down the Miracle Mile. Instead, every one of the guests walked into the Mediterranean style landmark on 265 Aragon Avenue, past the breezeway holding the newsstand, then made a sharp right turn into an exquisite room with floor-to-ceiling dark-wood bookshelves and a stylish bar nestled in the back. They trickled in one by one and by 7 pm every seat had been taken. Late comers either stood flanking the room or sat on the floor. It didn’t matter. They were there for different reasons: to be moved, to be shocked, to laugh, to cringe, but mainly to let out the inner voyeur and feed him rations of the lives of seven strangers: the readers. I was one of them. By the end of the night, I will have shared with 200+ strangers a personal experience from my past which time has turned into a recurrent nightmare. So I decided to trust Lip Service, the venue, and its guests, to put my heart in their hands and exorcise my demons once and for all.
Lip Service producers Andrea Askowitz and Esther Martinez are veterans. They have done it 13 times, which means they have read 650 stories in the process (approximately 50 electronic submissions per event) out of which they have chosen only about 100 for the 13 events. And although the stories are rehearsed, edited and workshopped before they are read out loud, no subject is taboo, nothing is off limits. Anyone can submit: the aspiring writer, the banker, the housewife, the downtrodden, the fortunate. It doesn’t matter. Lip Service is a celebration of the English language (sometimes sprinkled with Spanish), a gift for lovers of the spoken word, a mixture of theatre and literature, all in a safe environment. There are no hecklers and no judges. Just regular folk hungry for humanity.
My heart pounded furiously and I began to panic when I read the program and realized I’d go last. I’ve never been a good out-loud-reader; my brain is two words ahead of my tongue, my enunciation needs work and I have a thick Spanish accent. I considered making a quick sprint for the door and drive home before it was too late. But it already was. The audience quieted down, some sipped their beverage, cells phones were turned off, the lights dimmed, and music took the stage.
“Piña Colada” played for a few seconds before Jeremy Glazer read Mismatch.com, a personal account of an online date gone terribly awry. It was honest (I’m too shy to meet women face-to-face so I look for one online), funny (I found one date and two hours after meeting her in person, we were dancing, she was drunk, her hand on my crotch.), and perfect for the secret voyeur to relish.
The notes of “Pregnant Women are Smug” introduced Esther Martinez’s piece: Expecting. A lighthearted story about an unplanned and unwanted pregnancy followed by a carefully planned and desperately wanted one 18 years later. The story included allusions to an abusive mother, kamikaze sperm and tender areolas. The audience cringed a bit, laughed some, nodded as if saying, “We know where you’re coming from.”
Eight minutes later, “Walk on the Wild Side” set the perfect mood for Corey Ginsberg’s experience at a BDSM dungeon. The Hanging was a story full of forbidden words: dildos, anal beads, massive pacifiers, a dominatrix, whips, money and a man who crossed the ocean to be hanged in Miami. There was open laughter and muffled giggles, nudges and sweaty hands over half-open mouths. Corey didn’t flinch. She felt safe.
Pink Floyd’s “Money” introduced Doug Shear’s comedic piece, Job Hunting: a self-deprecating tale of unemployment, entrepreneurial debacles and unpaid bills. His piece, laden with adult humor, was a testament to the ingenuity of a middle age man who, in the midst of a recession, finds innovative and often hilarious, ways to outsmart the system.
There were no breaks. Never are. This continuum of music and literature, theatre and more music, creates a rhythm to the reading. The lights were dimmed, people sipped a second glass of wine. It felt like we were friends. Even I felt more at ease now. Then Nirvana’s “Drain You” brought Hector Duarte to the stage. He read Skinned Knees and Sparklers, a short prose poem about his childhood sweetheart who carries a scar on her face; a scar he made with a sparkler sometime around their first kiss. It was sharp and poignant and it seemed to stir nostalgia among the guests.
The melancholy lingering in the air after Hector’s poetic cadence was quickly dissipated by the hip-hop beats of “Baby Got Back.” Then Andrea Askowitz, founder of Lip Service, took Cavewoman to the stage. Andrea is a writer, a comedic storyteller, a lesbian and a mother of two. And all of this came through in her piece. She took the audience right into the gynecologist’s office where, plunger in hand, she inseminated her lovely wife (a woman she’d met over the internet) with handsome, intelligent, sensitive sperm; sperm that loved his mom. And while Andrea sent more than a few guests near hysterics, I had one last bout of panic. I was next.
Mercifully, a technical difficulty prolonged the musical introduction to my piece Monserrate Peak. A song by the Spaniard artist Bebé played for almost a full minute; twice as long as it should have been. I took the extra seconds to psych myself up, to think of the writers who have read their stories right there at Books & Books, on the same stage, held the same mic in their hands, and addressed a similar audience: Isabel Allende, Carlos Fuentes, Allen Ginsberg, Frank McCourt, Salman Rushdie,among many others. I found this realization unsettling. For a few seconds I wasn’t sure whether to feel privileged or intimidated. I looked over at Andrea and Esther; they smiled as if they knew exactly what was going through my mind and like the fairy godmothers they are, one whispered “Breathe in, breathe out, you’ll be fine,” while the other said, “Read slowly, have fun.”
I walked to the stage, adjusted the microphone, took a good look at the audience and I knew it was going to be okay. So I told them the story of an abusive relationship that started out with an Englishman bullying his girlfriend but ended with the girlfriend kicking his ass, Colombian style.
People hung around after the event was over. They wanted to shake hands with the readers, to say thank you for making me laugh, for making me cry, for moving me, for inviting me into your life, for reminding me of my humanity. They left satisfied. They had come for theater and literature but left with the lives of the seven strangers who dared to read their hearts out.
And we the writers-cum-readers, would we do it again? Would we take the bandage off and expose our fresh wounds in front of strangers and let them live our personal stories, albeit vicariously? Would we tell them again about our inadequacies and frustrations, the secrets of our pasts, about our shattered dreams and triumphs? Would we “throw ourselves into the wind”? Would we? The answer is yes. In a heartbeat. And if not us, somebody else will. Lipservicestories.com is already accepting submissions for its next reading on December 4. And there doesn’t seem to be anything on the horizon preventing Andrea or Esther from bringing the event to Books & Books again and again until either the audience tires or Florida runs out of storytellers. Neither of which is likely to happen.
Last Saturday evening, while Miami simmered in a damp miasma of heat, Lip Service drew well over two hundred people to the historic building. They could have spent their evening at any of the restaurants, bars, and hangout spots along Ponce de Leon Boulevard, or taken a slow stroll down the Miracle Mile. Instead, every one of the guests walked into the Mediterranean style landmark on 265 Aragon Avenue, past the breezeway holding the newsstand, then made a sharp right turn into an exquisite room with floor-to-ceiling dark-wood bookshelves and a stylish bar nestled in the back. They trickled in one by one and by 7 pm every seat had been taken. Late comers either stood flanking the room or sat on the floor. It didn’t matter. They were there for different reasons: to be moved, to be shocked, to laugh, to cringe, but mainly to let out the inner voyeur and feed him rations of the lives of seven strangers: the readers. I was one of them. By the end of the night, I will have shared with 200+ strangers a personal experience from my past which time has turned into a recurrent nightmare. So I decided to trust Lip Service, the venue, and its guests, to put my heart in their hands and exorcise my demons once and for all.
Lip Service producers Andrea Askowitz and Esther Martinez are veterans. They have done it 13 times, which means they have read 650 stories in the process (approximately 50 electronic submissions per event) out of which they have chosen only about 100 for the 13 events. And although the stories are rehearsed, edited and workshopped before they are read out loud, no subject is taboo, nothing is off limits. Anyone can submit: the aspiring writer, the banker, the housewife, the downtrodden, the fortunate. It doesn’t matter. Lip Service is a celebration of the English language (sometimes sprinkled with Spanish), a gift for lovers of the spoken word, a mixture of theatre and literature, all in a safe environment. There are no hecklers and no judges. Just regular folk hungry for humanity.
My heart pounded furiously and I began to panic when I read the program and realized I’d go last. I’ve never been a good out-loud-reader; my brain is two words ahead of my tongue, my enunciation needs work and I have a thick Spanish accent. I considered making a quick sprint for the door and drive home before it was too late. But it already was. The audience quieted down, some sipped their beverage, cells phones were turned off, the lights dimmed, and music took the stage.
“Piña Colada” played for a few seconds before Jeremy Glazer read Mismatch.com, a personal account of an online date gone terribly awry. It was honest (I’m too shy to meet women face-to-face so I look for one online), funny (I found one date and two hours after meeting her in person, we were dancing, she was drunk, her hand on my crotch.), and perfect for the secret voyeur to relish.
The notes of “Pregnant Women are Smug” introduced Esther Martinez’s piece: Expecting. A lighthearted story about an unplanned and unwanted pregnancy followed by a carefully planned and desperately wanted one 18 years later. The story included allusions to an abusive mother, kamikaze sperm and tender areolas. The audience cringed a bit, laughed some, nodded as if saying, “We know where you’re coming from.”
Eight minutes later, “Walk on the Wild Side” set the perfect mood for Corey Ginsberg’s experience at a BDSM dungeon. The Hanging was a story full of forbidden words: dildos, anal beads, massive pacifiers, a dominatrix, whips, money and a man who crossed the ocean to be hanged in Miami. There was open laughter and muffled giggles, nudges and sweaty hands over half-open mouths. Corey didn’t flinch. She felt safe.
Pink Floyd’s “Money” introduced Doug Shear’s comedic piece, Job Hunting: a self-deprecating tale of unemployment, entrepreneurial debacles and unpaid bills. His piece, laden with adult humor, was a testament to the ingenuity of a middle age man who, in the midst of a recession, finds innovative and often hilarious, ways to outsmart the system.
There were no breaks. Never are. This continuum of music and literature, theatre and more music, creates a rhythm to the reading. The lights were dimmed, people sipped a second glass of wine. It felt like we were friends. Even I felt more at ease now. Then Nirvana’s “Drain You” brought Hector Duarte to the stage. He read Skinned Knees and Sparklers, a short prose poem about his childhood sweetheart who carries a scar on her face; a scar he made with a sparkler sometime around their first kiss. It was sharp and poignant and it seemed to stir nostalgia among the guests.
The melancholy lingering in the air after Hector’s poetic cadence was quickly dissipated by the hip-hop beats of “Baby Got Back.” Then Andrea Askowitz, founder of Lip Service, took Cavewoman to the stage. Andrea is a writer, a comedic storyteller, a lesbian and a mother of two. And all of this came through in her piece. She took the audience right into the gynecologist’s office where, plunger in hand, she inseminated her lovely wife (a woman she’d met over the internet) with handsome, intelligent, sensitive sperm; sperm that loved his mom. And while Andrea sent more than a few guests near hysterics, I had one last bout of panic. I was next.
Mercifully, a technical difficulty prolonged the musical introduction to my piece Monserrate Peak. A song by the Spaniard artist Bebé played for almost a full minute; twice as long as it should have been. I took the extra seconds to psych myself up, to think of the writers who have read their stories right there at Books & Books, on the same stage, held the same mic in their hands, and addressed a similar audience: Isabel Allende, Carlos Fuentes, Allen Ginsberg, Frank McCourt, Salman Rushdie,among many others. I found this realization unsettling. For a few seconds I wasn’t sure whether to feel privileged or intimidated. I looked over at Andrea and Esther; they smiled as if they knew exactly what was going through my mind and like the fairy godmothers they are, one whispered “Breathe in, breathe out, you’ll be fine,” while the other said, “Read slowly, have fun.”
I walked to the stage, adjusted the microphone, took a good look at the audience and I knew it was going to be okay. So I told them the story of an abusive relationship that started out with an Englishman bullying his girlfriend but ended with the girlfriend kicking his ass, Colombian style.
People hung around after the event was over. They wanted to shake hands with the readers, to say thank you for making me laugh, for making me cry, for moving me, for inviting me into your life, for reminding me of my humanity. They left satisfied. They had come for theater and literature but left with the lives of the seven strangers who dared to read their hearts out.
And we the writers-cum-readers, would we do it again? Would we take the bandage off and expose our fresh wounds in front of strangers and let them live our personal stories, albeit vicariously? Would we tell them again about our inadequacies and frustrations, the secrets of our pasts, about our shattered dreams and triumphs? Would we “throw ourselves into the wind”? Would we? The answer is yes. In a heartbeat. And if not us, somebody else will. Lipservicestories.com is already accepting submissions for its next reading on December 4. And there doesn’t seem to be anything on the horizon preventing Andrea or Esther from bringing the event to Books & Books again and again until either the audience tires or Florida runs out of storytellers. Neither of which is likely to happen.
