Category Archives: The Shebeen Club

Vancouver’s Monthly Literary Gathering. My baby. No open mic, no hand-holding, no American beer.

Japanese Kamikaze Manual

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The moment of the crash

You are two or three meters from the target. You can see clearly the muzzles of the enemy’s guns. You feel that you are suddenly floating in the air. At that moment, you see your mother’s face. She is not smiling or crying. It is her usual face.

All the happy memories. You won’t precisely remember them but they are like a dream or a fantasy. You are relaxed and a smile creases your face. The sweet atmosphere of your boyhood days returns.

You view all that you experienced in your 20-odd years of life in rapid succession. But these things are not very clear.

In any event, only delightful memories come back to you. You cannot see your own face at that moment. But because of a succession of pleasant memories flashing through your mind, you feel that you smiled at the last moment. You may nod then, or wonder what happened. You may even hear a final sound like the breaking of crystal. Then you are no more.

Read more of this beautiful madness over at the Shebeen Club blog.

Video o’ the Day: Spiegelman’s Fightin’ Woids

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More on the now-infamous Toby Young book party…can you ever get enough?

If he ever wants a party in Vancouver, I’m up for hosting it. Pass it on.

Here is Spiegelman, explaining how he was ready to sever his opponent’s jugular and rip his entrails out for macrame when he graciously gave way before Young’s wife’s request to “take it outside.” I mean, what’s the point of bitchslapping a rival if nobody can see you? Smart boy.

Quote o’ the Day

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Toby Young, on the ruckus at his book party, and as reported in Lowdown:

The Rumble in the Urban Jungle

It sure wasn’t Norman Mailer bouncing his Scotch glass off Gore Vidal‘s head. But writers Ian Spiegelman and Doug Dechert brawling at Soho House — pushing, shoving and flinging insults — was more than enough to make Toby Young‘s book party a rousing success. Young is the mischievous Brit whose new memoir, “The Sound of No Hands Clapping,” follows his 2002 chronicle of life at Vanity Fair, “How to Lose Friends and Alienate People.”

Spiegelman is the former Page Six staffer who was fired by the New York Post two years ago after his bosses learned — from this column — of his threatening, obscene E-mail to Dechert in a dispute over a young lady.

Apparently, they hadn’t spoken since — not until their fateful encounter at Soho House the other night.

According to witnesses, Spiegelman fortified himself with a few stiff drinks before confronting Dechert, demanding satisfaction.

He called his nemesis something unprintable. Dechert responded in kind. Then, according to the definitive account by Gawker.com correspondent Neel Shah, “Spiegelman proceeded to lightly bump Dechert, initiating some sort of violent lambada, but Dechert refused to shove back. … Not one to back down from a challenge, Marty McFly Spiegelman proceeded to shove Dechert with both hands.”

(Afterward, Spiegelman claimed to a Lowdown spy: “I smashed him three times in the head. He kept saying ‘Not here, man, not here.'” Spiegelman paused here to swig his drink. “I hit him eight times!”)

Young’s wife, Caroline, the mother of their two young children, bravely intervened to break it up. “Either stop fighting or leave,” she scolded.

At which her husband cried: “Are you insane? This is great publicity!”

The New Vidal and Capote

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“Doug, you tiny little fairy, you arrested boy, I will break your back over my knee in the press and I will push your face inside out in private or public . . . Mention my name anywhere ever again, and we’re going to find out two things: First, whose word means anything anymore in this town. Second, how many times I can slam my fist into your face before someone pulls me off you.” He signed off: “Now you wait for it.”

and here it is, at Toby Young’s book party.

Spiegelman vs Dechert

Gawker has the whole slideshow.

Jacob wrestles with an angel. You pick who’s who.

We hate these events, these self-importantant celebrations of a crowd’s collective arrogance. But once every three or four decades, something genuinely interesting happens. In this case, at Toby Young’s book party tonight at Soho House, the crowd was treated to two writers working out their mutual hatred like twelve-year-old boys. Former Page Sixer Ian Spiegelman lost his job in 2004 ostensibly because of a threatening email he sent to [insert sketchy adjective here] writer Doug Dechert (more backstory here). Tonight, these two were reunited and, after the right amount of lukewarm liquor, they worked their issues out with fisticuffs. There’s more to explain later in the forthcoming party crash, but at this hour the pictures are story enough. More bloodshed — or the drink-throwing sissy journalist version thereof —here

and a little background on the party here, from the Huffpo. If I could find it in the debris that is Diary-X, I would post my own review of Toby Young’s first book. All you really need to know is that I used the expression “Three-orgasm Schadenfreude.“

The Shebeen Club: Book Banning, Free Speech, and Mein Kampf

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The Shebeen Club Presents: 

Forbidden Words: Banned Books, Free Speech, and Mein Kampf
on the occasion of the 81st anniversary of the publication of Mein Kampf 

When: 7-10pm, Tuesday, July 18th

Where: the Shebeen, behind the Irish Heather, 217 Carrall Street, Vancouver BC

How: reserve in advance by emailing lorrainedotmurphyatgmaildotcom

How Much: $15 to July 14th, door $20 space-available, includes set dinner and a drink; strictly limited to 25 places

What: Literary jabber, mingling, presentations, chit-chat, and dinner: great heaping mounds of  your choice of bangers and mash or pasta, plus a glass of pop, wine or beer.

Who: The Shebeen Club, Vancouver’s Monthly Literary Gathering.

Join us for an even more heated than usual evening upstairs in the ould Shebeen. We will be marking (rather than celebrating) the 81st anniversary of the publication of Adolph Hitler’s Mein Kampf. Our presentation will focus on the critically timely issues of freedom of speech, terrorism, protection of innocents, and civil liberties.

Dress code: epaulets, gags (full-on gimps will be asked to “normal-up”), Mao jackets, blogger pj’s, or just get a deep-fried tan, bleach your hair, and come as Ann Coulter.

Door prizes: We have a don’t ask, don’t tell door prize policy. We don’t ask you if you like ‘em, we expect you not to tell us if you don’t. Book donations snivellingly accepted.

Meet and Mingle 7-7:30

Listen and Learn 7:30-8

Beery solipsism and merlot-influenced manifesto-ficating 8-9 or whenever they finally throw us out