Seven years ago, a lovely bookstore on Pike Street called Pistil
Books closed its doors forever. (The former literary storefront is now
the Bimbo’s/Cha Cha Mexi-Intoxicant Complex.) Thanks to the magic of
the information superhighway, Pistil has been selling books online at
www.pistilbooks.net ever since, and today the hosts are
celebrating their 15th anniversary in bookselling with a party
at their house, which doubles as Pistil’s shipping and receiving
warehouse. Guests were told to dress as a famous literary figure and
bring a piece of bad art for everyone to enjoy.
Two Dorothy Parkers are here already, and the obvious Tom Wolfe has
already made an appearance. Noam Chomsky is out by the barbecue,
watching a man in a cowboy hat and leather vest (I ask him, “Are you
Larry McMurtry?” and he responds, “Uh… sure! Who’s that?”) grill up
some pork chops. Bookstore owners and filmmakers hobnob over a
delicious drink called a Painkiller, which is a creamy, highly
alcoholic concoction served out of cold mason jars.
Like every good literary party I’ve ever attended, there’s the
aggressive, small woman out on the back porch, smoking way too many
cigarettes and relentlessly insulting all the boys, causing them to
fall madly in love with her. She’s made a dress out of a
pastoral-landscape tapestry and is claiming to be Walden Pond.
(Swoon!) Inside, there are tons of bad paintings, including a
particularly frightening black-velvet portrayal of a child sleeping
with a cow. Once the weather clears up a little, the paintings will be
screwed to the neighbor’s garage. As things wind down and Patty
Hearst leaves, faux-McMurtry tells a joke that begins, “So two Jews are
standing in front of an evangelical Christian church…” Shockingly,
the joke turns out to be inoffensive. 
Want The Stranger to feel really stupid after overhearing
a conversation about the state of modern poetry at your house
party? E-mail the date, place, time, and party details to
partycrasher@thestranger.com and get crashed by a
chosen-at-
random Stranger staffer.