I just did the dorkiest thing I've ever done, or at least one of them, and certainly the most fan-nish... I was at the Staples down the street buying envelopes and saw my one true love AUSTIN SCARLETT of Project Runway fame making photocopies, looking otherworldly and shimmery and luminescent, and so with a full and bursting heart I went to my office and got my book and stuck a card in it and came back and went up to him, very sweetly, and said I was his fan and that I wanted to give him my book as a present, and he seemed delighted and surprised or SO I WOULD LIKE TO THINK and said "this is yours?? you wrote this?" and i said "yes!" and then smiled AS IF I WERE A RAY OF SUNSHINE and waved and left so as not to be a complete lunatic, just a partial one, but one who is very well coifed. The end.
I should also mention that I am very very excited about the reading Tink and I are doing at the Glendale Borders opening extravaganza on Dec. 3 at 2pm. She is going to read from her new novel about GYPSIES and I of course will read about the CIRCUS and then Keith Bindlestiff of the Bindlestiff Family Cirkus will do marvelous and extraordinary things in between. And then after we will have friends to our house where we shall serve hot apple cider and cookies and other delights. I didn't think anyone would come to Glendale but it seems many of our friends are coming AS SHOULD YOU, so it should be a lovely lovely afternoon. We are also making flyers in a gorgeous attempt to lure our fellow Glendalians to this event, and to nefariously transform Glendale into a haven of circus gypsy bookishness.... I am also reading at the Lucky Cat on Friday December 1 as part of the Earshot Series, along with 4 other peoples.
Also, my reading in State College on Nov 10 went really well.. About 40 people came to my parents' house beforehand for the Mexican circus buffet my mom made, and it was realllly lovely, this assemblage of family and old friends and my parents' friends and my old Italian professor Dr. Triolo, who introduced me to Dante and the old Italian storytellers and poets in college and "almost made a medievalist" out of me, as he said at the party. Then we all went to the Barnes & Noble and I read and signed books and then we all had cheesecake and coffee. I think there were about 50 people there.. And my cousin Frankie, who is 12 or 13 I forget, got a copy and is going to write a book report on it for her class. Ha! Then we came back to NYC and that Sunday I read for Bill Cobb at KGB since he couldn't make it, and that was a packed, overflowing room but I wasn't very nervous since I was reading from his book and not mine. And my mom and sister and Joi and Rob and Bonnie came, and Rob and Bonnie won a free Broadway play and then we all had dinnnna.
Then Tuesday was my NYC reading at Barnes & Noble Astor Place, and I took the day off work and spent the day with my mama and my friends Massie and Barb washing celery and icing cupcakes and making many many whores derves and then, with my friend Joi, getting my hair done by Lana.. and at the actual reading the very very cool events peoples took me aside into this hallway and so I could hear the crowd getting bigger and bigger but I couldn't see them.. and I could see the store people bringing out more and more chairs, and by the time the woman went out and introduced me and I walked out, I could not believe it .. The chairs were all full and went back to the magazine racks, and then there was a small crowd of people standing... and not only were there like 500000 people but I knew about 90% of them and that was one crazy wedding-ish mix of family and friends of all stripes and coworkers and book people and my therapist and my agent and my boss and paramours past and current..
I was so nervous and overwhelmed and amazed but I read, and during the first passage I read I kept looking up into the crowd, I wasn't paying any attention to what I was reading, and at one point I looked down and focused and could have SWORN I was reading the same page I'd just read.. I had this whole mini panic attack and I almost stopped reading, and I looked out at the crowd and I thought they were all staring at me like "THAT IS SO SAD SHE IS SO NERVOUS SHE IS JUST READING THE SAME PASSAGE OVER AND OVER" but then I calmed down and kept reading and tried to be a little more focused and supposedly did okay.. The party after was so fun, but just this big blur since there were so many people to talk to and I wanted everyone to feel happy and comfortable but there were just too many people that night and I didn't get to talk to lot of them.. It was really fun, tho, and the show Molly Crabapple put together and performed in with Keith Bindlestiff and Amber Ray and Scarlett Sinclair was awesome, and the NYC Blues Devils were awesome, and Nell at Otto's Shrunken Head made everything easy and smooth and fun. So, it was all pretty great tho not unTRAUMATIC. But it does make every reading I have to do in the next few months seem easy in comparison, and in fact makes everything else I ever have to do seem easy by comparison except GET OLD AND DIE but that is another story. The end.
I should also mention that I am very very excited about the reading Tink and I are doing at the Glendale Borders opening extravaganza on Dec. 3 at 2pm. She is going to read from her new novel about GYPSIES and I of course will read about the CIRCUS and then Keith Bindlestiff of the Bindlestiff Family Cirkus will do marvelous and extraordinary things in between. And then after we will have friends to our house where we shall serve hot apple cider and cookies and other delights. I didn't think anyone would come to Glendale but it seems many of our friends are coming AS SHOULD YOU, so it should be a lovely lovely afternoon. We are also making flyers in a gorgeous attempt to lure our fellow Glendalians to this event, and to nefariously transform Glendale into a haven of circus gypsy bookishness.... I am also reading at the Lucky Cat on Friday December 1 as part of the Earshot Series, along with 4 other peoples.
Also, my reading in State College on Nov 10 went really well.. About 40 people came to my parents' house beforehand for the Mexican circus buffet my mom made, and it was realllly lovely, this assemblage of family and old friends and my parents' friends and my old Italian professor Dr. Triolo, who introduced me to Dante and the old Italian storytellers and poets in college and "almost made a medievalist" out of me, as he said at the party. Then we all went to the Barnes & Noble and I read and signed books and then we all had cheesecake and coffee. I think there were about 50 people there.. And my cousin Frankie, who is 12 or 13 I forget, got a copy and is going to write a book report on it for her class. Ha! Then we came back to NYC and that Sunday I read for Bill Cobb at KGB since he couldn't make it, and that was a packed, overflowing room but I wasn't very nervous since I was reading from his book and not mine. And my mom and sister and Joi and Rob and Bonnie came, and Rob and Bonnie won a free Broadway play and then we all had dinnnna.
Then Tuesday was my NYC reading at Barnes & Noble Astor Place, and I took the day off work and spent the day with my mama and my friends Massie and Barb washing celery and icing cupcakes and making many many whores derves and then, with my friend Joi, getting my hair done by Lana.. and at the actual reading the very very cool events peoples took me aside into this hallway and so I could hear the crowd getting bigger and bigger but I couldn't see them.. and I could see the store people bringing out more and more chairs, and by the time the woman went out and introduced me and I walked out, I could not believe it .. The chairs were all full and went back to the magazine racks, and then there was a small crowd of people standing... and not only were there like 500000 people but I knew about 90% of them and that was one crazy wedding-ish mix of family and friends of all stripes and coworkers and book people and my therapist and my agent and my boss and paramours past and current..
I was so nervous and overwhelmed and amazed but I read, and during the first passage I read I kept looking up into the crowd, I wasn't paying any attention to what I was reading, and at one point I looked down and focused and could have SWORN I was reading the same page I'd just read.. I had this whole mini panic attack and I almost stopped reading, and I looked out at the crowd and I thought they were all staring at me like "THAT IS SO SAD SHE IS SO NERVOUS SHE IS JUST READING THE SAME PASSAGE OVER AND OVER" but then I calmed down and kept reading and tried to be a little more focused and supposedly did okay.. The party after was so fun, but just this big blur since there were so many people to talk to and I wanted everyone to feel happy and comfortable but there were just too many people that night and I didn't get to talk to lot of them.. It was really fun, tho, and the show Molly Crabapple put together and performed in with Keith Bindlestiff and Amber Ray and Scarlett Sinclair was awesome, and the NYC Blues Devils were awesome, and Nell at Otto's Shrunken Head made everything easy and smooth and fun. So, it was all pretty great tho not unTRAUMATIC. But it does make every reading I have to do in the next few months seem easy in comparison, and in fact makes everything else I ever have to do seem easy by comparison except GET OLD AND DIE but that is another story. The end.
posted by Carolyn Turgeon at
1:47 PM
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