Julia Gordon-Bramer Featured Reader at Tavern of Fine Arts on Monday, April 27

Julia Gordon-Bramer will be one of the featured readers at Chance Operation's 5th anniversary reading at the Tavern of Fine Arts, 313 Belt Avenue, on Monday, April 27. Doors open at 7:30 p.m.; admission is FREE.

Also featured will be Sean Arnold, Stef Russell, and Tony Renner.

Open-mic readers will step up to the mic between our featured readers.

Julia Gordon-Bramer is a professional tarot card reader, writer, and scholar of Sylvia Plath. Her book, Fixed Stars Govern a Life: Decoding Sylvia Plath will be out this year with Stephen F. Austin State University Press and can be ordered on Amazon now. In 2013, the Riverfront Times called her St. Louis’ Best Local Poet.

Anthony Bourdain, I hate you.

You, and your layovers, the sixty-
minute getaways to the farthest
limits of Somewhere with no reservations, surrounded
by all the hippest people I will never meet.
Dude, your steely curls are bringing me down,
mussed just right, you are a head and shoulders
higher than everyone, donning shiny
suits, or casually rumpled in Ralph Lauren.
Oh, Anthony, Arbiter of Taste, I hate
your punk rock background,
your Discovery budget, your street cred,
your throaty cleverness, the savage
similes off your tongue. I hate
your Boys’ Club as you bite
underbelly bits and parts unknown
of poor skewered beasts. You: flesh-eater,
bone slurper, booze sucking snob,
with your glory stories of hangovers
fueled by foolish foreign women
smiling from back in the kitchen, stirring
mixing bowls close against their ample hearts.
Anthony Bourdain, I hate
your cigarette smoke as it jets off and away
like curls of skywriting from your pouty lips.
You are not pretty, yet the world is your mirror,
flattering as you simulate your spicy jerk
chicken adventures. Oh, Satan of gravy,
grease, and cheese curd. Sipping scummy broth,
an oily smile hides those white shark teeth.
Goddamnit, Bourdain! Why do you fascinate me?

I am as guilty of watching as the rest, and yet
I have been on the other side of reality
TV. I see the cameramen coaching
its suave illusion toward the next visual lie:
I see the retakes with more oomph; the pretend
sleep and pseudo-conversations; the false
temporary friends. Let’s get confidential,
Anthony Bourdain: if I confess I love your life,
does this mean I must love you?
Will you tell me who you really are, and
am I cool enough
to come along too?

--Julia Gordon-Bramer