Friday, September 15, 2006

I rarely wish I lived in LA, but I wish I could go to this

This sounds totally amazing. I haven't read I Hate Myself and Want to Die but can recommend the other three. Especially Tania Katan's book, My One-Night Stand With Cancer, which not only has a cupcake on the cover but makes cancer (and lesbianism) FUNNY. Yes, really. Funny and touching all at once; I dare you to read it without crying.

"Jill Soloway says comedy and tragedy go together," The Jewish Journal

In Jill Soloway's collection of essays, "Tiny Ladies in Shiny Pants," the Emmy-nominated writer and co-executive producer of HBO's "Six Feet Under" recalls the time she lost her virginity at 17 to a 36-year-old with a golden chai dangling from his neck.

"I was running from the bathroom back to his bed," she writes, "leaving slivers of myself everywhere: The girl who wanted to be here; the girl who didn't want to be here; the girl who thought the whole thing was exciting; that he was an idiot; that his apartment was tacky, yet sexy; that I was turned on; that I wasn't; that this was fun; that it wasn't."

However traumatizing the experience was then, she jokes about it now. "If you can laugh with your friends over something, you own it," said Soloway, lounging in jeans and a T-shirt in her Silver Lake home. "I don't think it's a contradiction to find painfulness funny."

On Sunday, Sept. 17, Soloway will explore the ways comedy and tragedy fit together by moderating a discussion, "Laughter in the Rain: Mining Humor from Pain," at the West Hollywood Book Fair. She will lead a conversation with Tania Katan, author of "My One-Night Stand With Cancer: A Memoir"; Brett Paesel, author of "Mommies Who Drink: Sex, Drugs, and Other Distant Memories of an Ordinary Mom," and Tom Reynolds, who wrote "I Hate Myself and Want to Die: The 52 Most Depressing Songs You've Ever Heard."

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