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M O N D A Y
How many pop culture references can you fit onto a page? Mark Leyner can make it hold more. A former medical advertising copywriter, the author of Et Tu, Babe, and My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist can also throw around terms like otolaryngology, vitiligo, pancreatectomy, and clitoral hypertrophy like nobody’s business. Leyner’s frantic universe of Khmer Rouge wet T-shirt contests, Amy Fisher’s conjugal visits, and Mary Poppins-induced kidnapping of expatriate Englishwomen leads critics to endless steroid and amphetamine allusions or cyber-prefixed adjectives. But there’s one postmodern non sequitur that’s too weird even for Leyner’s fiction: What is one of America’s smartest and funniest young writers doing working for John F. Kennedy Jr.’s George? Ask him in person when he reads from his latest collection, Tooth Imprints on a Corn Dog, at 7 p.m. at Olssons, 1200 F St. NW. FREE. (202) 347-3686. (Michael Schaffer)