a while back i read a story at the telegraph about how people, lots of people, were passing out at chuck palahniuk readings. you know, the guy who wrote fight club. sounded silly to me. i’ve been to readings; many, many readings. that’s not intended as some kind of misguided badge of intellectual accomplishment. quite the opposite. i worked at a bookstore and so had the misfortune of attending a whole slew of extremely awkward literary assemblies. they are like a small scale shared hallucination where in the midst of every kind of banal distraction insisting the opposite (screaming children, cheap folding chairs, plastic cups, scornful employees, beeping security doors, stuttering p.a. systems, tilted cardboard podiums, and quite often utterly uncharismatic readers, alternately mumbling, rushing, or laughably self important) all in attendance sit in hushed revery stubbornly attempting to summon from the ether a meaningful / hilarious / intriguing, and life enriching experience. perhaps i had the misfortune of a long string of shitty readings, but from my experience i had to suspect any and all fainting spells were due to cheap wine, recirculated air, and boredom. yesterday i came across the chuck palahniuk short story which illicited these visceral reactions. it’s called guts and it’s both silly and filthy. it’s a story of experimental childhood masterbations gone awry with a topping of, well… guts. after reading it i can imagine listeners walking out, getting turned off or bored and wandering away, but fainting? did he use visual aids?