29. A long story written } with teeth.

While swimming Thursday afternoon I met three booksellers, members of the ABA and attendees at the Winter Institute. I tread water while these women from Illinois, all owners of independent bookstores, asked me about Color Plates. Thus began (for me) two days in the mighty Crystal City of being introduced to booksellers. A few hours later I joined Meg Taylor (from SPD) and Abby Beckel in a ballroom occupied by authors signing their new books for booksellers. We did our best to politely ingratiate ourselves with the crowd. The crowd was kind to us. We took a few books. I did meet Tim Wynne-Jones and he was eager—eager!—to speak with me about Nightfall and the Bay of Fundy. Afterward, a quiet Chinese dinner with Meg and Abby.

Written on a plaque in the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History: “…using its front teeth and claws, this palcocaster dug its burrow in soft sediment. After its death, sediment filled the hole and preserved the beaver’s skeleton.” Behind the glass a corkscrew of stone—a petrified tunnel—that culminated in a burrow full of its maker’s fossilized bones. I found this affecting. I spent half of Friday in the museum, and most of that time among the bones of prehistoric mammals. I was similarly affected by a phrase that finished the Museum’s narrative on the evolution of horses: “…merely the current stage in a long and complex evolutionary history.”

All this and reading Andrew George’s translation of The Epic of Gilgamesh—now my favorite of the translations I’ve read—put me in a peculiar frame of mind for my second night of the ABA’s Winter Institute, where I was scheduled to autograph copies of Color Plates for booksellers. I had no idea what to expect and was surprised when people eagerly came up to me, already excited about CP, and in some instances urging me to come read at their store. We ran out of copies before we ran out of interest. Much of this excitement was due to a presentation Meg gave Friday morning—while I was sitting in the shadow of an Irish Elk, wondering (as I often do) about its antlers.

Ralph Nader sat next to us and signed copies of his book. He and I did briefly touch on the subject of our (essentially) two-party system, but he was preoccupied by a sour stomach. Bad cream, he thought. Ginger ale and cheese, he thought, would settle things nicely. I’m wasn’t so sure. Ginger ale, yeah, but cheese? He also praised a set of legal books, designed to help non-lawyers navigate the law. You know, write your own will. The three of us were invited by the publisher to join Mr. Nader for dinner, but he and his publisher left a couple hours before we could, so—a missed opportunity. Mr. Nader seemed exactly as he seems on television, etc.

Saturday, today, I went back to the Natural History Museum. I considered my many other options, but realized I wanted to be there, and in those thoughts. I was particularly interested in the “mammal-like” reptiles. Dimetrodon! My brother! I dwelled a long while beneath the prehistoric whales—the subject of one of my better elementary school papers. (I fondly recall an afternoon spent in the Boston Aquarium library, photocopying papers on the subject.) I confirmed that I like crinoids. I will write a slim volume about crinoids.

Perhaps in a few years I’ll be autographing copies of my crinoids monograph for booksellers attending the Winter Institute. Perhaps in a few million years someone will put my bones in a museum.

28. SPD will feature } me.

Thursday will find me on the train to DC again, but not for a reading—Small Press Distribution (SPD) has asked me to represent them as their “featured author” at the American Booksellers Association Winter Institute. I’m still trying to get my head around what that is, but I gather copies of Color Plates will be put into the hands of hundreds of Independent bookstore owners, and I’ll get the chance to meet them all.

Friday appears to be small press day at the Winter Institute. I’ll be autographing Color Plates in a room with just three other authors: Sharyn Wolf, Alexander Maksik, and Ralph Nader.

Also in attendance at the Winter Institute will be Tim Wynne-Jones, who—if it’s the same Tim Wynne-Jones—wrote several radio scripts in the ‘70s and ‘80s for Nightfall and Vanishing Point, including one of the most mysterious and beautiful episodes of Nightfall, “The Road Ends at the Sea,” set in a lighthouse on the black rocks of the Bay of Fundy.

27. In the pages of } Paul Hannigan.

Spent the last three days in Brunswick, GA. with the papers of the poet Paul Hannigan. The second such trip. I had the feeling that I was seeing the future.

On the way home, at a restaurant in the Newark airport, I wrote a letter to a friend and felt as I was writing that the tone wasn’t mine at all but Hannigan’s.

26. Color Plates loves } Worse Than Myself

I don’t know what it means to be on the Small Press Distribution (SPD) bestseller list, but Color Plates is on that list. In September, the month the book was published, CP was no. 7, just below the Starcherone Books title Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls by Alissa Nutting; CP moved up to no. 2 for the October / November list. The result of that activity: CP is no. 26 on SPD’s 50 bestselling titles in 2010. Right now, SPD is promoting their top 50 with the “Kiss-Off 2010 Sale”—use the code “kissoff” and your copy of CP will be shipped to you for 30% of the cover price, which is, uh, $11.16 + tax and shipping.

Brian J. Showers informed me that he and I were among the Speculative Fiction Junkie’s “top 5 reads of 2010”—I for Worse Than Myself and Brian for The Bleeding Horse & Other Ghost Stories. I recently came across a review of Datlow's first best of for Night Shade, that dwells enthusiastically on “The Man From the Peak,” a story from that collection. Thoughtful reviews take time to write. I do appreciate the effort.

At about this time in 2008, I was in a branch library in Harrisburg, PA, revising and writing the stories for Worse Than Myself. At that library, in a box marked $1 CDs, I made some finds: Mono’s Walking cloud and deep red sky, Flag fluttered and the sun shined, a beautifully designed Gregor Samsa EP, a Naxos recording of Gorecki’s Symphony No. 3, paired with “Three Olden Style Pieces” (which are excellent), Albedo 3.9 by Vangelis, and set fire to flames’ signs reign rebuilder. That library also had a heap of 331/3 book/CD sets. I read Chris Ott’s book about and listened to Unknown Pleasures. Joy Division doesn’t mean much to me, but at that moment, it was absolutely the right record.

24. The script (a fragment). } A Black Masque

A few posts back I wrote about a script handed to me by an actress who’d been bloodied at an audition (?). After I finally read it (as I obliquely implied I had in post 21), I found myself troubled by it. Perhaps I wouldn’t have been so had it not been for my encounter with it. That is to say, if I’d come across it in a book, it might have seemed weird and no more, but the deliberate (?) way it was given me, and where and when… it has haunted me. Regrettably, I haven’t the time to transcribe it all for you, and I’m pretty sure such a transcription is an infringement on the author’s copyright—who is the author? Can anyone tell me from reading the following? Anyway, what follows is a bit of the beginning. See what you make of it and if anyone knows who wrote it, please post a comment or email me and let me know.

Of MASQUES for ARISTOCRATS & the like. The first is
BLACK.
To be Personated during the Twelfth Night.

The persons of the play.

Uncle HOFFMANN, both himself and otherwise
POLO, Hoffmann’s nephew
BIRD, Hoffmann’s niece
OLIROOMIM, a demon
PARTYGOERS / DEMONS

“First, for the scene, was drawn a Landscape”: a blank landscape, a blue screen. In front of the screen stands HOFFMANN who holds a box.

HOFF: …sends a package paid for with peculiar
postage. Needless to say it’s from away.
“My dear loves Polo and Bird forgive me
too much time has passed. Enclosed, the Black Mask.
Hang the angled mask, nail and copper wire,
hanged on your feature, face screwed in to it.

POLO is alone when he opens the package. He stares into it. Awkward and silent minutes pass, POLO crouched on the stage, staring into an open cardboard box. Gradually—so gradually as to be barely perceivable—a light within the box grows. Correspondent to the light in the box is an image projected onto the pale blue screen, at first blurry, then more clear, and more clear: it is a mask carved from obsidian.

At last, POLO moves. As he leans forward to reach into the box, BIRD enters stage right. (POLO and BIRD are dressed in the same black tights and black, form-fitting shirts, but there is nothing androgynous about either.) POLO mimes the removal of a mask, mimes putting it on his face. BIRD, lit up gaudy, is delighted and aroused.

There is no mask. The “mask” is an outline made by lights carefully projected onto POLO’s face. He leaps to his feet, the image of the mask projected on the blue screen disappears and a curtain, painted to look like the inside of a well-appointed city apartment drops behind POLO and BIRD.

BIRD: Oh Polo what a weird wonder our uncle
sent! Ha! So often is Hoffmann off, man!
It fits just right for tonight’s revelry!
POLO turns, faces BIRD.
BIRD: Oh!
POLO: (to audience) When do guests arrive for our holiday
masque? Are decorations hung? Light strands strung?

Lights woven into the curtain illuminate. A doorbell rings. PARTYGOERS enter stage right and left, all elaborately dressed and with masks—cheap plastic “Lone Ranger” masks, but in many colors and gold and silver. A soundtrack of glasses and wine corks and laughter, mixed with the susurus of the PARTYGOERS clothes. All dance waltzes around POLO and BIRD, though there is no music, only drums that keep the 3/4 time.

25. Readings } Two more.

During the open mic last night—there was a big turnout at Real Art Ways that included lots of new faces—a member of the audience caught my eye. She looked exactly like a student of mine who was killed shortly after her graduation last year. I know I’ve mentioned this student several times before, and I realize I also wrote about a woman who looked like my former student before—I wondered, in fact, if she might not be the same look-a-like I saw on the train. No reason why she couldn’t be. I hoped she’d read so I’d then have a reason to speak with her. She didn’t read. And when the open was over, she was gone.

Not only was she gone, but her seat was occupied by someone completely different, a young man who read a poem about “Her castle,” punctuating each line by clearing his throat.

Aside from this mildly off-putting visit, last night was terrific. I was honored by good people. The food was extravagant—baked brie! caviar! dried sausage! cheese! wine!—and I was pleased to celebrate both Color Plates and the two year anniversary of Inescapable Rhythms. A few of us gathered by the fire at Andrea’s, talked about publishing, listened to records (real records, including Paul McCartney’s excellent Ram “…but I leave my pajamas to Billy Budapest / and I don’t get the gist of your letter”).

When I was younger, I thought it would be so wonderful to join the gatherings of the great writers and artists; turns out it is pretty wonderful.

Saturday morning I’ll head to Norwich, where I’ll read with the venerable John Cotter as part of the Otis Library Holiday Book Fair, which may mean any gains I make selling Color Plates will be spent buying books. I feel I haven’t enough Penguin Classics (Dear Steve Reads, I disagree with you on Oh! so many things but greatly enjoy your “Penguins on Parade” series. I’m currently reading Bernal Diaz’ The Conquest of New Spain—a wonderful book. What’s your take?).

Sunday, John and I will share a podium at Bank Square Books. The reading begins at noon. I hear tell that this is the book store where Julia Roberts once made the staff extremely nervous by enjoying a rapidly melting snow cone over their recently received and autographed hardback copies of  The Bonfire of the Vanities.

24. Readings } Real Art Ways

Above, a photo from an Inescapable Rhythms reading held during the summer before it was moved to Real Art Ways. In the photo, I’m having a conversation with poet (and sometimes poet-collaborator) Kristin Kostick. After a brief humanitarian stint in Baltimore, she’s supposedly returned to Hartford, coincidentally in time for my featured reading on Wednesday.

Hosted by Andrea Henchey, Inescapable Rhythms (the series’ name in honor of hometown hero Wallace Stevens) is a once-monthly poetry reading, usually including both a guest reader and an open mic. Guests have included Jennifer Karmin, Deborah Poe, Matthew Klane, and Ken Cormier, to name but a very few, and not to exclude C.S. Carrier, a reluctant local poet whose book and blog y’all should check out. The readings happen on the second Wednesday of every month, and seem to happen no matter what: we’ve read by candlelight when the power was out (a most silent and beautiful experience), we’ve read when only three or four of us have shown up, and we’ve even read when Andrea has had to telekinetically lead us from the west coast.

As is customary, the reading will begin close to 7pm. We tend to gather a little bit beforehand, to buy each other drinks and to catch each other up and sometimes, just occasionally, to finish a poem to be read that night. Kostick, Henchey, and Carrier will all read, for sure, and they’re excellent readers. I’ll read poetry and some little stories from Color Plates. There’s a narrative to my reading, too—a thread to trail through the maze.

Come. Not just for me, indeed, not for me, but because it’s better than online, it’s better than TV, it’s never dull, the poets are mostly kind, and we listen.