This is why I love Preston and Steve

I suggest if you want to laugh, you go to Preston and Steve's site and search for "poop goes in the potty."

smash's best week ever part one

Because Rachel is awesome and inspiring, i myself am starting a best week ever thread.

so last week was probably the most wonderful one i've had in quite a while. though it started out a little slow, by the end of the week i was happily surprised with the turnout.

so monday, tuesday and wednesday were average in terms of fun. monday i watched the most horrifying movie ever and it made me never want to have sex. ever.

tuesday and wednesday i got to hang out with my favorites, sharon and chris.

but the week really picked up on thursday, when i got to see Salman Rushdie deliver a powerful, inspiring reading at the philly free library.


there was a decent turonout for the man, but not as many fans as i would have expected were there. usually when the reader is popular, they sell tickets for the auditorium and they simulcast in the lobby, but he didn't sell enough tickets for all that, only enough for the auditorium. this is not to say that he wasn't hugely appreciated. he came out to a round of applause that was genuine, and long enough that he had to tell us to stop.

he began with a reading from his new book, The Enchantress of Florence, and i simply loved the section he chose. the title character was witty and endearing, and i was in love with her almost immediately. the excerpt had many of my favorite things: love, tattoos, toilet humor, a garden, and Dracula.

that's right. i did say Dracula. i knew from some of the elements in the reading (Wallachia, Janissaries) that his story probably took place during the time that Vlad Tepes III was in power, and i wondered if Rushdie would tie him into the novel somehow. and he did. in fact, one of my favorite parts of the night was during question and answer section, when someone asked what it was like to research history for this book. Rushdie responded that he knew a lot about the time, but that he still had to research the characters, who actually lived. he then quite excitedly added that when he realized that he was writing in the same period that Dracula lived, he was ecstatic that he could include him in his book. and that, my friends, is one of the many reasons that i love rushdie.

during question and answer segement, i was quite pleased with his responses. they were all humorous, especially his tale about writing a song for U2.

humor aside, i think my favorite part of the night was when Rushdie warned us to not forget that stories are fictitious. he reminded us that there are no such things as flying carpets and genies that grant wishes, and that we too often as readers forget this. he told us something that i never knew, and that i will try to remind myself as often as possible - that the introduction we use to fairy tales, "Once upon a time, in a land far far away," is a rough translation of the sanscrit, "It was so, it was not so, in a time long forgotten." much more fitting, if you ask me.

oh, and another highlight of the night? when i found out that Rushdie was a mud angel after the 1966 flood of the River Arno in Florence. since one of my favorite books ever is The Sixteen Pleasures, this tidbit made me a little melty inside.

for more of the best moments of the night , hop over to lines that rock.

It's not that I want to have babies

necessarily, but if I were going to have babies, I would want all 86 of them to be from this man:
Then perhaps my babies would be genui like him. And if I am going to have his babies, tonight is my opportunity, because he's reading at the Free Library in Philly. And I am unbelievably stoked because Ondaatje is the author of one of my favorite novels ever, In the Skin of a Lion. Oh please, that doll scene? Heaven. First Lucille, now Ondaatje. France accepted me. Can things get any better?

This weekend

I was in Philadelphia. I was bored and being me, so I decided to start rapping "Ice Ice Baby" to Jason because it was in my head. And I saw a man. He was very tall, very muscled, very tattoed, and he looked like he may have spent some time in prison. My first instinct was to distance myself a little but then I saw the shirt he was wearing:



Then I wanted to hug him.

Tonight

I'm going to see Lucille Clifton give a reading in Philly, and I absolutely cannot wait! When I first looked at today's date I was disappointed for two reasons:

1. May 1st means National Poetry Month is no more. I rocked it, though. Thirty poems in my file for the month. Some complete, some completely lacking and undone. I only cheated three times - one haiku, one found poem from Michel Faber's The Courage Consort (how could I not? all the lines were amazing), and one revision from last May. I don't know how I'm going to not write a poem every day.

2. May 1st means today is the anniversary of my brother's death. Which means that my parents are, probably as I write this, visiting his grave. Which also means that, although I wasn't yet a fetus when he died, I still feel mildly guilty for being excited about

a. Lucille Clifton tonight and

b. setting up an appointment to have Mike E Cheese finish my tattoo!

I also cannot wait to see Rachel and Donna tomorrow! It has been far too long and that makes me sad. I know they are small fluctuations but I hope these happy-disappointed-excited-sad mood swings subsist soon. If this turns into all of May, that will not be fun.