It was a warm but windy Halloween night on the Lower East Side. The streets were bustling with people just getting out of work and the clothing stores were starting to fill up. The doors of clubs and bars were beginning to be guarded by a velvet rope accompanied by a large man, waiting to permit patrons to enter. But on Chrystie Street across from Roosevelt Park, stood a small coffee shop: Dixon Place. It was calm, quiet, and inviting. It didn’t have a single piece of Halloween decor and instead, it was Broadway themed. There was a stage with curtains on the wall to give the feeling of a Broadway stage and there were abstract paintings along the walls.

Inside were about 6-10 people, all dressed in a range from casual to semi-formal. I saw my friends Teona and Rushab waiting for me with an empty seat for me to sit in, and shortly after, Yussef showed up. Our chairs were set up to face the stage and free water was being served  during the readings. There was a pile of advertisements for Dixon Place that showed the Fall Guerilla Lit Reading events. On October 31st, there were three readers: Laura Catherine Brown, Brian Leung, and Jacob M. Appel. One particular reader, Jacob M. Appel, caught my attention the most.

Jacob was the first author to read. He was dressed in a blue shirt, blue jeans, and a black hoody. He had long, dark, curly hair. He started his reading by describing a time when he and his girlfriend wanted to have a pet. Jacob wanted a dog, preferably a Doberman Pincher and his girlfriend wanted a baby. He comically then said “so we compromised and got a hedgehog”. He was very calm and laid back when he gave his reading. He was slouching, had one hand in the pocket of his jeans with the other hand keeping the book open with his thumb in the binding so he could see both pages. He shifted the book a bit when he went from the left page to the right page, giving me the idea that maybe one of his eyes are stronger than the other when he read. He fluctuated the first syllable whenever he said his girlfriend’s name, Adeline. He did not change his tone for any other word except his girlfriend’s name. He went on to talk about how Adeline did not believe the hedgehog was happy where it was and that they should hire a pet therapist to see if it was anything serious. Jacob described that he was not as eager as his girlfriend to hire this therapist and in a heated argument, he finally gave in. When they met with the therapist, Jacob realized that he treated both humans and animals in the same office and found this very peculiar. This is when Jacob said “I will stop here. Thank you very much” and I remembered that I wasn’t watching him and his girlfriend fight about their hedgehog in New York City, but in-fact I was still sitting with everyone in Dixon Place and began clapping along with the small crowd attending. I was entranced by his use of syntax and laid back tone that I forgot I was in a coffee shop at 7:30 on Halloween night. I thoroughly enjoyed his reading.

I spoke with Jacob after all the authors finished reading and asked how long it took to write his book and if he’d written anything else. He told me that it took him about six months to a year to write his book and he gave me an answer to my second question but I can’t remember the titles. But I know he had written more books. He told me that he was a chef in a small restaurant but to my surprise, he did not want me to come by because he said they still needed to get some things figured out. Nonetheless, he enjoyed talking with me, as did I, and he gave me a copy of the book that he read. He reached into a large sack of books and pulled one out that had “Einstein’s Beach House Stories” written by him. I really liked Jacob’s reading and intend on reading his full book.