Caling all boozehound word-nerd types (aka our kind of people): Tomorrow, Oakland, California will host the city's annual Beast Crawl, a celebration of literature that ends with beer. There are four one-hour legs to the event (get it? Because it’s a beast with four legs). The first three legs each have about 10 different participating local businesses that will host literary events ranging from short story recitations to poetry readings. The last leg is an after party to celebrate the wordsmithery of the night.
Oakland isn't the only city with a nightlife literary event designed for the cool geeks among us. New York City, Austin, San Francisco (across the Bay from Oakland), Miami, Seattle, London and—yes—even Iowa City all host an annual Lit Crawl event, utilizing local venues for pop-up readings. Everything from furniture showrooms to bookstores to laundry facilities have been used as spaces in the past. The concept? Turn the "bar crawl" idea on its head by inviting people to get drunk on glorious words (and maybe real libations, too). These events suggest that, despite doomsday predictions to the contrary, the millennial generation is far from resigned to a life of iPhone LOL-ing, with no appreciation for real prose.
As for Oakland's Beast Crawl, the opportunities for enlightenment are endless. And, if you’re anything like us, making choices when you can’t go wrong is difficult. To make it easier, here are our choices for where to hunker down during each leg of the trip.
Leg 1 (5 to 6 pm): Milvia Street and Poetry Flash at Awaken Cafe
We trust Awaken for the best coffee drinks, craft beers and fun-loving company. This atmosphere makes it the perfect point to kick off the night. At this event, six poets—some new to the scene, some involved with the local organization Poetry Flash—will be reading their original work.
Leg 2 (6:30-7:30 pm): Gorilla Press readings at alaMar
Gorilla Press' mission is to take the “stringent submission expectations” out of the writing world and let the art shine. At this event, five Gorilla Press activists will read original work from fiction to poetry.
As for the host venue, alaMar is a new hip spot for food and drinks run by a husband and wife power team: May and Chef Nelson. We spoke to May, who grew up in Oakland and returned there to open the restaurant with her husband.
“Our vision is to create eateries with unique concepts in Oakland," she said. "We are so blessed that the community has embraced us and there’s nothing more gratifying than seeing people genuinely enjoying my husband’s food. One of our pillars is to give back to the community. We are always thrilled to take part in community events, so when Beast Crawl approached us about hosting a leg of the crawl, it was a no-brainer.”
Leg 3 (8 to 9 pm): Open Mic at Captain and Corset
Sitting back with a glass of wine while watching 10 talents share three-minute monologues in the cool atmosphere of Captain and Corset? Yes, please!
Leg 4 (9:30 pm to 2 am): After Party at Telegraph Bar
We know Telegraph Bar (aka "Beeryland") from hanging out there after Oakland's First Friday event. The event organizers could not have picked a better spot for word-lovers to unwind with a cold one. Doesn't get much better than that, are we right?
