The Answer: A Fine Evening for All

Believer, Beware has birthed into the world, with a holy wail and wicked laughter and much libation, which Merriam-Webster reminds us is “an act of pouring a liquid as a sacrifice (as to a deity)”. The evening at the wonderful Le Poisson Rouge attracted more than 150 people, a third of them walking out with a brand-spanking-new copy of the Killing the Buddha anthology. Read the praise here, or watch us talking about it on Break Room Live last week, or better yet, go to your local bookstore or that place that is not just a river in South America and BUY IT NOW.

We had posed the question: What do you get when a Buddhist raconteur, a junior-high Jewish messiah, and a transsexual cowboy for Christ walk into a bar? The answer, provided by one viewer from Beliefnet, was “passionate and talented writers read[ing] smart, often hilarious, stories about their bumbling, stumbling and wrangling toward faith,” and then going on to explore the way she answers questions about her own beliefs. That’s the deal. Answer questions. Ask new ones. Repeat.

Irina Reyn, our prepubescent messiah, was all grown up, and had become the American she had always dreamed of; transgendered writer Quince Mountain, in sharp black Carhartt overalls and trying out his new voice, regaled tales from a sexual awakening in Christian summer camp stables that involved leather straps, lariats and wadded up bandannas; and Paul Morris finished us off by breaking into full song, filling in all the spaces that had to be written around in the book due to those pesky copyright laws. Ooga. Chaka. CHONK.

If you were there, thank you for coming. If you weren’t, we missed you and hope to get some audio and photos up soon so you can reenact the evening in the comfort of your own home. And did we mention you should buy the book…?