Fine Tuning
November 30, 2005 @ 4:17 pm
I’ve been slacking on posting something here, but will resume shortly. In the mean time, Kareem’s added some furniture to this wing of the Velvet, including the most current reviews in the Lauditorium section (many of the Dermaphoria reviews contain spoilers, so tread carefully), a link to the mp3 file of my reading at Pete’s Candy Store in Brooklyn last month and the latest foreign cover for the Handbook- Poland, this time, as well as a new interview with Professor Barnhardt’s Journal- those last three in the Miscellanea section, and probably a couple of other things I’m forgetting at the moment. Thanks, Kareem.
If my watch is set correctly, Chris should be decompressing in his hotel room, right now. Last time he was up, I happened to know the person working the desk at his hotel. I sweet talked her into writing, “If you want to live, call 911″ on a piece of scrap paper and leaving it in his bathtub before he arrived. Morbid fun, all around.
Hope to see you at City Lights, tomorrow.
-Craig
Dispatches from the Road: City Lights
November 13, 2005 @ 1:47 am
If there’s a literary equal to CBGB’s, then it’s gotta be City Lights in San Francisco. I was stunned to find out Chris and I were booked there so, I’m in punk rock, pound the pavement, flyer slappin’ mode, ditching all pretense of modesty in order to get the place packed. City Lights is touting the evening thusly, so those of you in the Bay Area, feel free to print and pimp to your heart’s content. If you feel like doing some damage to the coffee house and club bulletin boards, the utility poles and contruction sites in your ‘hood, be my guest. If your employers are all that uptight about you burning through toner in the name of literature, then shoot a note to the Street Team list and I’ll ask the Cage to print out a stack and mail ‘em your way.
If you’ve got blogs and journals or other linkage to folks in this area, let ‘em know. I’ve got another book to write, so it’s gonna get real quiet after December.
Viva la Velvet,
Craig
Dispatches from the Road: Arizona to LA
November 12, 2005 @ 2:58 am
So Chris and I stopped for a quick pint before the reading, but were still unsure of our bearings. We asked the bartender for directions and he said, “Poisoned Pen? Yeah, I know it…” and pointed us in the right direction. The place clearly had a local reputation and, once inside, we knew why. The store had a daunting collection of new and signed rare mystery titles, and after the reading, Chris and I were photographed to join the growing portrait collage of crime fiction luminaries, among whom it’s an honor to be included.
The reading was full, in a place where neither of us had ever been, and aside from shaking hands with some of the more active members of the Velvet, the high point came when a chap produced road-beaten copies of the paperback Handbook and the hardcover Hell’s Half Acre, asking us for signatures on two of his few possessions he’d salvaged prior to evacuating New Orleans. I trust I hid the lump in my throat, to some degree.
I had a brief stop in Irvine, at the Men of Mystery Conference, which was a daylong orgy of readers and writers, the high point of which I’ll cover in another post, in favor of getting caught up, here.
Book Soop was off the hook, with a standing room only crowd, most of whom were total strangers. Chris and I signed, and signed, and signed, and at this point we were both a bit road-dogged, so we weren’t at our most lucid. I know there were other high points, and post them as my hindsight kicks in. By the time I got home, I was dead. I barely managed a night of sleep followed by a furious, eight-hour day at the Cage, packing up street team materials before doing enough laundry to last me for the remainder of the trip.
We hit Portland, last night. The Cage saw fit to check us into a hotel which outswanked our other lodgings by a long shot. When I arrived, Chris had already checked in and hit the streets. He was kind enough to leave the complimentary teddy bear on my bed, because that’s the thoughtful sort of chap Chris is. I hung out, cut through my copy of DpH, trying to come up with a new string of narrative to read, with the company of a cup of coffee and Winnie-the-Poe at my side. Again, the room was full of the faithful, and while the post-reading drinking was fairly reserved, it did run late.
Forwarning to everyone attending the forthcoming Seattle and San Francisco events: We read, then we ask if there’s any questions, and we hear crickets and tumbleweeds. We know you have questions, trust us, we know. So, there will be a mandatory Q&A following the Seattle and SF readings. If nobody from the audience has questions for us, then we’ll have questions for the audience, and you’ll know we’re talking to you when we shine the MagLites on you, in front of everyone. We’ve got a four-hour train ride and a bottle of whiskey, so believe me, we’ll come up with some good questions.
See you in the Grunge capital.
-Craig