Mao Marathon at the Jane Hotel

…at the Jane Hotel’s luxe comfy ballroom, where I found a spot on an old homey velvet upholstered couch, was an all afternoon performative reading of the entire text of of Frederic Tuten’s 1971 novel The Adventures of Mao on the Long March by over 70 people including Linsey Abrams, Michael Almereyda, Kurt Andersen, Laurie Anderson, Véronique Béghain, Ross Bleckner, Thomas Bolt’s, Cecily Brown, Lori Marie Carlson, Mary Ann Caws, Jerome Charyn, Clifford Chase, Michael Coffey, Lydia Davis, Mónica de la Torre, Jim Drummond, Deborah Eisenberg, Adam Ende, Barbara Epler, Francisco Goldman, Brad Gooch, Francine du Plessix Gray, Adam Green, John Haskell, Amy Hempel, Oscar Hijuelos, A.M. Homes, Richard Howard, Dakota Jackson, Ben Janse, Wayne Koestenbaum, Bettina Korek, Anne Kreamer, Paul La Farge, Dorothy Lichtenstein, Douglas Light, Phillip Lopate, Karen Marta, Patricia Marx, J.W. McCormack, Edward Mendelson, Gregory R. Miller, Hannah Tennant-Moore, Walter Mosley, Linda Norden, Sarah Paley, Robert Polito, Ernesto Quiñonez, Jonathan Rabinowitz, Dawn Raffel, Pedro Reyes, Rachel Rosenfelt, David Salle, Grace Schulman, Wallace Shawn, Aurelie Sheehan, Julie Sheehan, Geoffrey D. Smith, Iris Smyles, James Leon Suffern, Betsy Sussler, Lynne Tillman, James Traub, Lily Tuck, Edmund White, Andrew Zornoza – which just happened to coincide with my breezing through New York on the way to a few days in Princeton.