BY KRISTIN MACDONALD
Published October 25, 2006
The Bookeaters are coming, and they mean business. This Sunday night, Eastern Michigan University's Pease Auditorium will play host to some of the brightest names in contemporary literature and indie rock, their forces combining in the name of one very worthy cause - teaching kids not only to improve their writing, but grow to love it along the way.
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The benefit show's proceeds will go to 826michigan, an Ann Arbor non-profit organization that provides free tutoring services and creative writing workshops to kids ages 6 to 18. Taught by enthusiastic volunteers (with some University students and alumni among them), classes range from random literary trivia to lessons in plot structure to the study of homonyms, with a playful emphasis on keeping the proceedings as entertaining as they are instructional - where else could you find a workshop on absurdist poetry entitled "Nonsense is Better Than No Sense At All"?
826michigan, one of several 826 writing centers sprinkled throughout the country, has been flourishing since opening in June of last year. The 826 originated in San Francisco in 2002 as the brainchild of popular author Dave Eggers, perhaps best known for his memoir A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and as editor of the literary magazine McSweeney's. Eggers still maintains an active role in the 826 centers, throwing his literary celebrity behind much of their fundraising, and as headliner is the driving force behind the Bookeaters benefit tour. Having already swept Los Angeles, Chicago and New York with celebrity support from the likes of Jon Stewart, Aimee Mann, Lemony Snicket and Jake Gyllenhaal, the tour's stop here in Ann Arbor will be its last.
Officially titled the "Revenge of the Bookeaters," the tour bills itself as a show asking "the eternal question: which is better - music or the written word?" Note that it doesn't promise a definite answer.
Stephen Malkmus of Pavement, Blanche frontman Dan John Miller and alternative country rockers the Cowboy Junkies will perform, with authors Julie Orringer ("How to Breathe Underwater"), Ryan Harty ("Bring Me Your Saddest Arizona") and Ann Arbor's own Davy Rothbart, creator of Found Magazine, providing the literary presence. With Eggers on board, count on a night of wit, enthusiasm and - best of all - a stand-out cause.
Revenge of the Bookeaters
Sunday at 6:30 p.m.
At the Pease Auditorium, Eastern Michigan University
$25
