by JULIET WATERS

Mark Jacobson, editor of The KGB Bar Nonfiction Reader writes: "Throughout recent history it has been no problem to hear deranged, drunken poets of varying abilities screeching their arch and moldy verses on the subway, or in espresso bars backed by atonal jazz. Open mikes for fiction writers have been a purple-prose scourge throughout the land since the invention of electricity. But beyond the infernal spin of TV pundits, rarely are newsmen, magazine writers and essayists heard reading what they've written."

This is not much of an injustice really. Journalists will never have the same drive to read their work in public because (a) they are in the habit of being published and read, and (b) they are not by nature people who like to give it away for free. This explains why the KGB Bar non-fiction readings did not start out in the iconic KGB Bar on Manhattan's Lower East Side.

Jacobson started a Wednesday night reading series in his Brooklyn apartment mostly, he claims, so he wouldn't have to keep going to Manhattan to socialize with magazine writers. To his surprise they happily hopped the F train once a week because, "despite their well-honed images as either secretive men or women of streets both foreign and domestic, city-room drones, info hoarders, studious academic types or semi-elegant essayists, [they] like to hear the sound of their own voices as much as the next egomaniacal, passive-aggressive scrivener. Maybe even more..."

Then, one week in the mid '90s, "some joker from The New York Observer snuck in and wrote a piece about it." And the next thing you know, people were showing up "like they were invited... The fact was they were not invited. We did not want foreign mouths on our beer bottles, or alien cigarette butts crushed into our dinner plates." Apparently, however, they also didn't want to hire security. So the series moved to the KGB Bar, which at that time was also becoming a venue for fiction readings (The KGB Bar Fiction Reader, edited by Ken Foster, was published to critical acclaim in 1998.) Soon, the first Wednesday of the month was "Journo-Slam." The evenings probably weren't all that unlike the other readings, except that the material was probably more instantly accessible, and, arguably, discardable.

Some writers in this collection are journalists with familiar names. Mike Wallace writes about the draft riots, which became a major plot point for Gangs of New York. Luc Sante, the respected cultural archivist of American street life, writes a dedication to New York's dead and forgotten denizens so moving and imaginative it was also included The KGB Fiction Reader. Some are familiar names who aren't journalists. Steve Earle's piece about witnessing an execution is heartbreaking, but not because of its subject material, which really has been done to death. A moment, however, where Earle fucks up on a simple but crucial task entrusted to him by the murderer on death row entirely deflates whatever do-gooder righteousness might normally creep into such a piece. This could only have been written by someone willing to invest much, much more than research. And some writers are legends. Budd Schulberg's story about his epic struggle with Hollywood to make a movie out of his screenplay for On the Waterfront reads like a perfect vehicle for another screenplay.

The usual Wednesday night roster was five or six readers, which explains why few of the essays in this collection run more than five pages. The quality is consistently high, but the end effect feels a little bit less than the sum of its parts. If there were such a magazine as New Yorker Digest, this might be what it would be like. These quick bursts of interesting material inevitably leave you wanting much more. But if you think back to some of the readings you've ever been to, you might decide this isn't such a bad thing.

The KGB Bar Nonfiction Reader edited by Mark Jacobson,
Avalon, pb, 414pp, $23.95