Most performance art doesn’t come with a built-in clackety-clack soundtrack, but this one does—live, every night through May 1, on Washington University’s KWUR 90.3 FM.

That’s because Los Angeles-based performance artist Tim Youd is retyping Stanley Elkin’s 1971 novel “The Dick Gibson Show”—word for word—on a vintage Royal typewriter, just like the one Elkin used. He’s doing it from midnight to 5 a.m. —  on-air and in real time —  bringing a Jewish literary legend’s voice (and keystrokes) back to life.

The project, “Up All Night on KWUR with Tim Youd,” is Youd’s 84th retyped novel in his ongoing “100 Novels Project,” which blends literature, visual art, performance and deep obsession. But this one is personal.

“I read ‘The Franchiser’ and I loved it,” Youd told The Source at WashU. “It resonated so deeply for me… I carried around this idea that it would be great to do ‘The Dick Gibson Show’ on a Midwestern radio station.”

And now he is—while typing for five to seven hours a night, conducting interviews with artists and curators and playing archival recordings of Elkin, a WashU English professor and prolific author, reading from his own work.

Each evening begins with a short archival clip of Elkin—reading, being interviewed, just talking.

“It was curator Joel Minor’s suggestion that I start each night’s broadcast with an archival clip of Elkin reading, being interviewed, talking,” Youd told the Jewish Light. “Each night I appreciate that suggestion more myself. It sets the tone for me, that I need to pay attention to his nuances. Elkin is words and words and words. Maybe a listener, a student, will catch the slightest drift of the Elkin magic when they hear it directly from him.”

Who was Stanley Elkin?

Elkin wasn’t just a WashU professor or a regional writer—he was a nationally acclaimed literary force. Known for his sharp wit, satirical style and densely layered prose, Elkin made his mark with novels that embraced the absurdities of American life while digging deep into moral and emotional truths.

A Brooklyn-born, Ohio-raised Jewish writer, Elkin earned his PhD from the University of Illinois and joined WashU’s Department of English in 1960. He would remain there for 35 years, mentoring generations of writers even as he battled multiple sclerosis—a condition he never let limit his output. He published more than a dozen novels and short story collections, earning two National Book Critics Circle Awards and a place in the American literary canon.

He wrote big characters with big voices—salesmen, pitchmen, outsiders—often navigating the absurd with a laugh and a grimace. His Jewish identity informed much of his work, but never defined it narrowly. Instead, he wrote from a place of cultural insight, existential curiosity and a relentless ear for language.

“The Dick Gibson Show,” the book Youd is currently retyping, was a finalist for the National Book Award in 1972 and has been hailed for predicting the rise of talk radio and the fragmented performance of self that would come with the internet.

For Youd, it’s the perfect vehicle to explore how language, performance and obsession collide—and why he’s spent the last decade turning the act of reading into a physical, public ritual.

“The deep-down reason is compulsion,” Youd said. “I realized, ‘Wow, I can make art and read at the same time and reading is going to be the art.’”

Happy labor, static silence

Youd isn’t just typing—he’s also hosting. In addition to Elkin’s voice and his own typing, the overnight broadcast includes interviews with artists, critics, curators, astrologers and even typewriter repair experts. Then, the chatter drops off and it’s just Youd, the typewriter and the sound of fiction being rebuilt—keystroke by keystroke.

“My entire ‘100 Novels Project’ is my attempt to be a good reader and to keep getting better at it,” Youd said. “Elkin requires me to be at my best. Every sentence, every word in an Elkin story is doing something. Reading Elkin at the level required is demanding, but it’s a happy labor and the engagement has made the night hours go by faster. I’m bushed by 7 a.m. though, let me tell you.”

He’s also aware of the physical toll.

“I did do an all-night retyping fairly early in the project, but it was easier when I started at (age) 45 as opposed to now when I’m 57,” he said. “Those first couple of nights will be a beating. I’m going to be a zombie when I’m not typing.”

The performance coincides with the “Stanley and Joan Elkin’s Artistic Kingdom“ exhibition at WashU’s Olin Library, celebrating the 30th anniversary of Elkin’s death. The show highlights both Stanley’s literary legacy and the visual artwork of his wife Joan, to whom he dedicated nearly all of his books.

When to listen

“Up All Night with Tim Youd and Stanley Elkin”
KWUR 90.3 FM or mixlr.com/kwur-903
Through May 1
Midnight–5 a.m. Sundays–Thursdays
11 p.m.–5 a.m. Fridays
10 p.m.–5 a.m. Saturdays