Brooklyn, Ep. 2

October 9, 2013 — After an all-time classic at our Brooklyn debut in May, Literary Death Match returned with an equally dazzling showcase at Union Hall that ended in wildly, hilarious fashion as Paul La Farge outlasted Maris Kreizman by a score of 67-21 in a Lone Star Lit finale to win La Farge the LDM Brooklyn, Ep. 2 crown. 

But before the closer-than-the-score-suggests finish, the night kicked off with Kreizman (writer and curator of Slaughterhouse 90210) reading a personal essay that, in her words, was "about angsts, obsession and contemporary adult pop ballads." Her opponent was poet Jason Koo (author of Man on Extremely Small Island) who ripped off a pair of heartaching/hilarious poems, one of which focused on the little-known town of Effingham, Illinois. 

The mic was then handed over to the trio of all-star judges: Roxana Robinson, award-nominated author of Sparta and four New York Times Notable Books; Dan Wilbur, author of How Not to Read: Harnessing the Power of a Literature-Free Life; and writer/comedian Raj Sivaraman. After delivering wise-cracks and magestically charming comments, the three acknowledged that they loved both writers fully, but in the end decided it was Kreizman who would advance as the night's first finalist.  

After a booze-skewed intermission, Round 2 kicked off with the delightful Iris Smyles (author of Iris Has Free Time) reading an excerpt from her novel called "Dispatches from My Office." Finally, it was Paul LaFarge (author of Luminous Airplanes, The Facts of Winter and Haussmann) who told a series of never-read-in-public-before "ghost stories." 

Again the judges were under the spotlight, with praise-filled commentary abound before deciding that it would be La Farge who would be the night's second finalist. 

Then host and LDM creator Adrian Todd Zuniga took center stage to announce the night's finale: Lone Star Lit, in which Zuniga read off 1-star Amazon reviews about Time's 100 Best Books of All-Time, and the two finalists and their crowd-volunteer teammates had to shout out which book they were talking about. After a lockstep start, Team La Farge could not be denied, tallying at will in the late rounds en route to winning him the Literary Death Match Brooklyn, Ep. 2 medal, and literary immortality to go with it. 

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