Book Club #16 Update

For those of you who don't know, Mongrel isn't just about cool progressive HD cinema, we're also very interested in literature, and music, and basically anything that has anything to do with art and communication and outsiders and absurdity (theater of the absurd).

Literature is changing, like everything else. It's been changing for a while, but most people don't know that because they've remained enslaved by the walls of academia and mass market publishing. With the internet, thank goodness, these walls have crumbled. Comic books, genre books, cult books, true crime, memoirs. The playing field is so much less vertical and more horizontal - the way it should be. Good writing is stimulating and challenging and entertaining - doesn't matter what the forms or formulas or journals say. Because of the internet, and sharing and community people are now forced to think for themselves and be proactive about what their aesthetic/intellectual/sensual jujus really are.

The book in paper form isn't dead, yet. It's still great technology that hasn't been much improved on. At Mongrel we read books and we share ideas and we talk. This is the Mongrel bookclub. We've been doing it for over a year and half. We pick outsider writers who are cool and controversial. We meet about once a month and talk shit and usually drink stout, or hard cider, or beer, or whatever. Anyone can join the group at anytime for any reason. Past members have been actors, writers, artists, teachers, and psychobilly musicians. I love this group because I always come away with insights and inspiration I totally would not get if I was just reading and drinking stout in my office and talking to my wall.

This month we're reading Valis by Philip K. Dick. We'll be meeting around the first week of April at the Barbarella Bar in L.A. Yes, I know, L.A. - people do actually read in L.A. For those of you who live outside the center of the center, we're trying to set up a videopodcast and encourage those in the sticks to read and post comments. This is fun and it's free and it's all for you.

Please post a comment if you have any questions or concerns. Thanks.