Time to get off the couch, teach

So far, what I’ve seen of Get Lit! this year has been a bust in terms of attendance. That’s too strong, of course. I’ve been to only two of the three evening events – Monday night’s readings by Claire Davis, Pete Fromm and Teri Hein, and tonight’s showing of “American Splendor” and the post-screening talk by comic-book author Harvey Pekar . (Because I was at Tuesday’s showing of “Bobby Jones, Stroke of Genius,” I didn’t make it out to West Valley High School to see either the youth or teen poetry slams.)

Now, Monday’s event at Borders Books was free – and 30 people showed. Tonight’s event, which included one of the best movies to be released in 2003, cost $20 – and 100 people showed. Both events should have been better attended.

Look, I don’t blame Spokane. We’re a working-class city , an Inland Northwest metropolis that will sell out a weekend’s worth of mainstream movies when The Met sometimes can’t attract more than a dozen people to see the finest examples of foreign and/or American independent films. You can’t force people to support what they don’t like.

But Spokane has a Jesuit university , a liberal arts college and two community colleges. Nearby Cheney has a public university. There are a dozen high schools within a 20-minute drive from Riverfront Park . The total number of students represented here numbers in the tens of thousands, their combined faculties several thousand at least.

So where are these folks? This is the sixth year of Get Lit!, one with the best lineup yet put together, and so far virtually nothing. And even if you can argue that Pekar, the author of a series of comic books, doesn’t exactly excite you, then what about the movie – generally considered to be one of last year’s best films – and the fact that some of those comic books were illustrated by comic-book legend Robert Crumb ?

Things could still turn around. The standard hors d’oeuvres crowd is likely to jam itself into Lorinda Knight Gallery tomorrow night to hear the likes of William Kittredge , Annick Smith and John Keeble. Sarah Vowell should get the captive student crowd at Eastern Washington University on Friday. Kurt Vonnegut has essentially sold out the 750-seat Met for Saturday night, and Dave Barry and Garrison Keillor should end up filling at least half the Opera House in their respective shows on Sunday.

But look: Everything should be well attended. Professors and teachers should encourage their students to attend readings by writers other than those with national reputations. Hein and Davis and Fromm have all won awards for writing about life as we know it in the region. It’s educational as well as supportive of local art.

And the adults should get out themselves, even if we’re talking only about those who teach literature. That they don’t is simply embarrassing.