As Peter just reported, last night’s 826 Seattle benefit was a lot of fun and every bit as special as we’d led you to expect. In this supposed battle between words and music, I think I’d call this one as a victory for both.

The excellent lineup on the music side of things more than delivered — opening with a few songs from Smoosh, lovely acoustic renditions of Rogue Wave favorites, new Decemberists songs from Colin Meloy, sad piano playing by Ben Gibbard (including a duet with Meloy of Blur’s “End of a Century” and a solo cover of the Band — a.k.a., the most depressing song in the world), and Stephin Merritt (with a ukulele, complete with secret compartment) performing two of the 69 Love Songs and two new songs inspired by the work of Lemony Snickett (who joined him onstage for accordion accompaniment.)

But if forced to vote for a winner, I’d cast mine for the words side: John Hodgman’s hilarious introductions and stage banter with (yes, occasioanlly zombie-themed) musical accompaniment by mountain-man costumed Jonathan Coulton, Sarah Vowell reading story about a miserable mapmaker, a three-act play written by Daniel Handler and performed by special guest Ben Gibbard (as Daniel Handler), Colin Meloy, and Sarah Vowell. Dave Eggers showed a video explaining the 826 mission and read the work of an eight-year-old collage-making celebrity watcher, possibly to demonstrate that while kids have a lot of creativity, they can use occasional help with spelling and grammar.

With this, people in the audience threw money into buckets in exchange for a hug from Dave Eggers ($20), a punch from Sarah Vowell ($5, or 5 for $20), signed posters ($100), or just to feel good about helping a worthy cause.

The benefit organizers had hoped to raise at least $5,000 and Seattle out-liberaled all of the other cities on the Bookeaters tour by more than doubled that goal. As a reward, Colin Meloy performed the worst song he’s ever written (”Dracula’s Daughter”) as part of a one-time-only band (”Dracula’s Daughter”) featuring the girls from Smoosh on drums and spoken word/cheerleader duties, Ben Gibbard on piano, Daniel Handler on accordion, and Zach Rogue on guitar. Now aren’t you sorry you didn’t go? If you’d been there you could have enjoyed this in live format instead of compressed handheld video and low-quality audio: