"I was always writing comedy, I just didn't know it." --Michael Showalter

Last night I went to see Michael Showalter read from his new memoir MR. FUNNY PANTS at Union Square. Showalter was full of mirth in a way that didn't quite gibe with his , but set out to write the über-memoir -- "A MILLION LITTLE PIECES meets A HEARTBREAKING WORK OF STAGGERING GENIUS meets EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED meets EVERYONE POOPS" -- and ended up with a meta-memoir and collection of some of his comedic pieces that translate well to the page.

I saw Showalter read from MR. FUNNY PANTS way back last year but this time he really took it to another level with a dramatic reading of a poem he wrote when he was 18 called "The Apartment Story," full of all the grit and seaminess 18-year-olds think the world contains. It's sort of faux-Bukowskian. You can read the text here or hear him read a version of it here (from 2006).

The reading was part of the Upstairs at the Square writer/performer series (see my review of the Joseph O'Neill/ Aimee Mann event here) and the other featured performer of the night was singer Neko Case. She was an ideal counterpart to Showalter, in that she was very anti-performative and casual until she stepped up to the microphone and gave everybody chills. Here's a number she sang last night called "Magpie To The Morning" (video is static image):

Important Preorder: Mindy Kaling's essays

November?!! But love the title (somewhat altered from the original). Till then, you can tide yourself over with Michael Showalter's memoir MR. FUNNY PANTS (out Feb. 22) or Tina Fey's essay collection BOSSYPANTS (April 5).

Find me one more comedian's book with the word "pants" in the title and we can be a trend story!

I've been trying to turn it into a verb ever since

Highlights of last night's Rumpus event at the Highline Ballroom:

• Michael Showalter has a book coming out! It's called MR. FUNNY PANTS and the excerpt he read consisted of absurdist word games.
• After Showalter biffed the URL of the site, which was not that funny, Sam Lipsyte did a callback to it before he read, which was.
• This is the second time in four months I have seen Lipsyte and Colson Whitehead on the same bill. Are they in cahoots?? Nah, it was probably just a coincidence. (Whitehead was really funny, but funnier last time.)
• Speaking of Lipsyte, The Rumpus held a short fiction contest where contestants had to use one line from his novel THE ASK. Four winners read, but one was clearly better than all the others, and that was Maureen Miller with her unforgettable riff on punctuation. Miller also performs an important public service in running a site for parsing rap lyrics ETA and has some other funny stuff you can read here.
  

Fun times. My friend A and I were so close to the action that the women we were sharing a table with turned out to be connected to the Rumpus founder and he came and sat with us during some sets. Were you there? Who was your favorite performer?