Our first selection is James Kaelan reading The Surrogate as part of his Zero Emissions Book Tour. We chose this clip because it’s a complete story, which we love (we like to hear excerpts too, but love full stories), the story presents a vision that is dark and sometimes funny and always expertly written (and includes a “letter” that consists only of the word “Dear”); we also like the clip because James reads not only from an actual book but in front of a whole colorful wall of books, Green Apple Books, and we love that bookstore, too. Last, we like this reading because it has a great story behind it—Kaelan is in the midst of a cross-country bicycle tour to promote his first book, We’re Getting On, and we figured this was the least we could do to help. (This was the most we could do.)

James Kaelan reading The Surrogate at Green Apple Books.

This coming week » We love the last Sunday of every month, when we get to experience a rotating cast of street poets in The Tenderloin at the American Street Showcase, followed by the Portugese Artists Colony (which this month, in addition to colonists’ readings, includes a short play by Ken Slattery and fiction by Syda Day) and, if that’s not enough, Guinevere Q puts on a terrific variety show (kind of described here) in the basement of the beautiful antique store Viracocha.