aroundeuro2

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

"Be careful who you pretend to be"

Those words weren't written by me-- they are from the pen of, none other than, Kurt Vonnegut.

It's good advice isn't it? Let's pretend to be happy interested intelligent people. Because that's who we'll become. Provided our poor abused planet survives for us to be realized. But maybe the damage has already been done.

Hooray! Let's throw up our hands in blissful despair. Ha. I'm trying to be funny. It's not working. I've been sitting too many hours, looking too long at the screen. I apologize. :)

Here is an assignment of mine. It is supposed to be a reading review, but it somehow turned into story. Aren't those the breaks?

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Botchi is my friend. He is a short red-haired young man who especially enjoys the stories of Marikumi and penning “well girl, it’s called Solsbury Hill. It’s my anti-musical.”

The two of us get along because we’re neighbors and ride the bus together and enjoy things like hip hop shows and guerilla workshops.

Yesterday, I convince him we’ve got to check out this reading.

“It’s part of the Carol Connelly series,” I tell him. “Geoff from the Lit 6 Project will be reading! Yeah?" He's doing his characteristic shrug-and-nod. It means yes.

"And Heather Mcelhatton is the main event. She’ll be reading from her new book, Pretty Little Mistakes. It’s a choose your adventure, but for adults—how cool is that? ”

“Dang girl, I don’t see why not. Meet you at Coffman Union?” He asks.

“See you at six,” I say.

We get on the bus. Botchi had just come from his Japanese novels class, and I, from a steamy afternoon at the library computer lab.

Immediately we began chatting. Norwegian Wood! Real Karaoke People! We were excited, thinking we were well on our way to a books-filled evening at the Turf Club.

The Club, we thought, was a place where we could throw back a few and listen to authors read and tell us about the ways of the world.

It'd be dingy, dark, smoky.

Non-readers would sit in the back, all supercool and aloof. Heather would start reading. She'd ask the audience to choose their adventure. They'd perk up. They’d realize, right there, the power of the written word. They’d shake off their drunk and declare “That’s it! Hand me the Proust!”

I know, I know. The thing was supposed to be at the University Club. But somehow, our minds had replaced avenue with club.

So when we arrived at the Turf Club on University Ave., we looked inside—there were no signs of the reading we were supposedly five minutes late for. Only a couple drunks.

I tear off my backpack. “Botchi we can make it.” I say. “If we catch a bus, we’ll only miss the first reader.”

“Sure if you think so,” he smiled. “Girl, I like your style. It’s positive.”

We run for the twenty-one, pounding the windows as it pulled out. Meanwhile, I’m frantically calling around


TO BE CONTINUED... (after I listen to this podcast. just today, discovered npr's fleet of ear candy. good god, i'm in heaven! check 'em out.)

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