The reading last night went well. Kim was a pal and made the trip with us to So-In (that's "Southern Indiana" for you coastdwellers). The bookstore was excellent and the local press coverage was good. The Tribune ("Floyd County's Newspaper Since 1851") did mislabel a couple of the pictures in their article, so going forward, I'll be known as Christopher Rudolph when in New Albany, and poor Mark, who actually lives there, has to let all of his relatives know that he's now Mark Rowe--though maybe he could see it as penance for his interview answer that of course got pullquoted below our headshots, "Writers are a funny lot. It's hard to tell where they fit in, if they do at all."
(UPDATE: See it for yourself, right here.)
We went poems/prose/poems/prose, which equated to ladies first in this case. Erin read some fab new poems from an in-progress cycle about a circus, and also two of my favorites--the now timely piece The Giant Squid Mourns the Loss of His Privacy and one about a guy we've all known (or been), The Secondhand Record Store Clerk.
Gwenda read a crowd pleasing chapter from her YA novel about kids living in Seattle's undercity. The selection in question features high speed underground navigation and a special guest appearance by a De Brazza's Guenon. She also got pulled aside afterwards to provide some insider publishing biz type info for some interested listeners, but I'm sure she'll be sharing that part of the story herself.
Mark read from his new chapbook, our copy of which Gwenda apparently took with her on the plane this morning (see below) thus leaving me bereft of any details about it. I can tell you that he read some of his awesome "cracked fairy tale" poems and also Threnody at Sea, which he took great pains to let the audience know was published by Strange Horizons before he became their poetry editor.
Usually, when you're going into a reading before an unfamiliar audience in an unfamiliar venue, the best idea is to prepare material that's easily accessable and entertaining for the broadest possible selection of listeners. But I decided to, um, challenge conventional wisdom. Yeah, that was the plan. I read the opening section of The Voluntary State and all four extant pages of one of my new pieces, one that uses non-standard dialog tags and doesn't bother explaining exactly what larpers are. The power went out just as I was finishing, I kid you not.
But it came back up, and we hung for a little while before decamping to a nearby Mexican restaurant called Chiquitos, where the chorizo recipe is apparently a one to one ratio of Jimmy Dean mild country sausage and table salt, and the house band is convinced that anything, I mean anything, can be an easy listening song. And if you don't like the way they're singing, reader, well, you can just leave them long haired country boys alone.
This morning (we're getting closer and closer to the locked up keys bit, now), we got up way early because Gwenda had to fly to Atlanta to help make the world safe from avian flu. I'm not an expert on public health, folks, but I do sit next to one on the couch while we watch Veronica Mars, and my take is that insider reaction to the "next big pandemic" exists on a continuum ranging from, on one side, a measured acknowledgment that preparations and precautions are in order, to, on the other side, the observation that his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him, and Power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth. One group consists largely of epidemiolgists and public health experts, the other of elected officials and political appointees. I personally think you should just wash your hands often, and otherwise get on with your lives.
After I dropped Gwenda off at the airport, I decided to grab a bagel and some coffee at the fabulous Magee's Bakery ("Fayette County's Bakery Since 1956"), and, owing to my not usually having to think about this kind of thing at all, I locked the keys in the car. No worries. Our cel phones have a roadside assistance policy associated with them, because if you're going to be driving around in cars, well, the sons-of-bitches are going to give you trouble aren't they? I didn't have the phone number to call for help on me (turns out it's H-E-L-P) but I do have good friends who'll roll out of bed on a Sunday morning and do some emergency googling when called upon. The dude that showed up to unlock the car took about six seconds to gain entry, using as his tools a screwdriver, a rag, and a stick.
While I awaited rescue, I took the opportunity to see and be seen on this gorgeous Sunday morning. Dressed as I was in my night britches and fuzzy slippers, I got glanced askance at a couple of times by quality BMW type folks picking up two dozen glazed for their pre-Bible study fellowship 'n' homophobia sessions. Eventually, though, the sticker covered Festivas and ancient Volvo station wagons started rolling in and disgorging hipsters recovering from last night's Taildragger CD release party at the Short Street Lounge. My people, my people.
Now I've got two days of bachelor squalor to look forward to, and it's coming up on noon, so I'd better get at it.
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