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By the time I made it to the Pen Cabaret, I was beat-down tired. It was cold and raining and I was sort of hungry. But being a good little PEN Soldier, I scrambled over the Webster Hall. I bought a drink. It cost $24.

Bill T. Jones opened the night with an interpretive dance while reciting poetry by Dylan Thomas. Afterwards, Bea Palya turned her 5000 megawatt personality on the crowd. She had us all singing back up for her in a language we don't even know. Even me, as tired and hungry as I was....

2nd PEN Cabaret. Saturday night, May 3, Webster Hall.

The disembodied voice of Hungarian singer Bea Palya filled the darkness at the venerable night club Webster Hall as she emerged from the back alongside the audience, singing raw, no microphone, no spotlight, in a chillingly eloquent voice. She was the most self-contained of all the performers at PEN's second cabaret. (Writers, containing multitudes, are rarely as comfortable within their own fleshly bodies as she.) Palya took a microphone, singing playfully in front of the first table (where Rick Moody slumped as if to escape the unexpected shared spotlight, although he was onstage later with John Wesley Harding, aka novelist Wesley Stace)).

Palya took the stage, taught the audience to sing and clap along (not ready for floor stamping,...