do I look flat in this?
Monday, oct. 16, 2006 | 0 comments
So now, awake and wine-headachy, here are a few more details about last night’s reading. It really was very fun, and I laughed a lot, and Lisa Brown was in top form, her reading was just hilarious and great (or as my godmother, Meg, said, “such a sketch!”), and I’m so glad I was there, and so glad I did it, but it also had its rough spots:
The audio situation for the Wolphin short-film screening part of the show was very, very sad, for which I am partly (or maybe even entirely, ooops?) to blame. I had lined up a projector (thank you, Adaptive Path, generous company where I rent out a desk!), but since neither Lisa nor I need audio for our presentations, I didn’t worry about getting that special wire that enables my computer to talk to the speaker system. So the nice people at Cody’s wound up propping a mic up to the lame built-in speakers on my Mac, which produced barely audible results. Also for some strange and really unexplainable reason the piece they showed super, super dark (way more so than I’ve seen it in any other venue), so you could barely see what was happening. The overall experience was a strain on the eyes and ears, so much so that it bordered on performance art. Maybe I’m supposed to be craning and squinting and not really knowing what’s going on?
Also missing from the reading was Chris Adrian, the third author who was supposed to speak, who I guess was in “New York”?
My dad volunteered that my performance started out “flat” but then picked up by the time we got to the Q and A. Which kind of bummed me out, because sometimes — for instance those first few moments right after a difficult reading, though really they’re all difficult for me, but still — you (or maybe just I) don’t really want to hear constructive criticism. Or, you know, honesty. All I want is mindless, uncritical parental gushing! And candy! And balloons! And confetti! And my own baby tiger! Ugh, I am an infant.
I took another look at my receipt from Harry Denton’s last night, and realized that I tipsily tipped 20% on top of the built-in 20% tip, which filled me with much self-sadness and the urge to self-punch. But I guess I learned a valuable lesson about not using my credit card while drinking. And it only cost $30! Take that, Learning Annex!
another reading down
Sunday, oct. 15, 2006 | 0 comments
I just got home from my reading and I’m already halfway between tipsy and hungover. I think it went well, in spite of my supremely unpleasant nervousness (lots of heavy breathing and Hot Face, and not the sexy kind), which poisoned every last moment of the three hours leading up to the event (though usually it consumes three whole days, so things are looking up). I woke up convinced that since all the other readings have gone okay, this one was doomed to disaster just, you know, based on the numbers. But it was good! All four of my parents were there, and my godmother, plus all kinds of friends. And afterward, I got to go to Harry Denton’s for drink drinking and view viewing along with some of my all-time favorite URLs, including: Stephen, Jennifer, Maggie, Bryan, Lisa, Liz, Heidi, and Marco (plus an URLless, or simply URLunknown Jonathan and Andy). And now I’m tired, tired, tired and looking forward to going to bed so very much. I’m going to sleep the stuffing out of that bed.
it works!
Saturday, oct. 14, 2006 | 0 comments
Just so you know: if you sit on a split-log bench in the middle of the wildnerness and get globs of snotty-looking pine sap all over the seat of your new and cute pair of ass-accomodating jeans, all you have to do is ask the internet and it will tell you that scrubbing the spots with rubbing alcohol will fix you right up. And it will!
Also my new Desperate Housewives recap is live (7,498 words and 11 hours to complete, so no speed gained this week, sigh), which means you now can relive episode 3 in crabby, microscopic detail. Isn’t the internet amazing?
reading reminder
Thursday, oct. 12, 2006 | 0 comments
Remember how I’m going to be reading it up this Sunday? At 6pm? Yes, at Cody’s Books on Stockton in San Francisco (just up from Market, just down from Union Square). Little Lisa Brown (the lovely lady behind the must-have “Baby Be of Use” series of board-books for small children, including Baby Mix Me a Drink and Baby, Make Me Breakfast) will also be reading, along with Chris Adrian, author of The Children’s Hospital, which is truly beautiful. There will also be slides, short movies, sip-ables…seriously, this night is going to light up your blog.
the new vernacular of bible thumping
Thursday, oct. 12, 2006 | 0 comments
A man on the street, very dapperly togged (a three-piece suit, silk tie, hat) and holding a lovingly assembled sign (very Russian constructivist) about Jesus and sin and hellfire. “Sex in marriage only!” he yells, as expected. “Between a virgin man and a virgin woman!” Right, sure, okay. But then: “No sloppy seconds!” No: sloppy seconds? Sloppy seconds. Sloppy seconds!