almost home
June 15th, 2012 | Uncategorized
I just finished my teaching stint at the U of Chicago. Here are some of my wonderful students working on their minicomics at the end of the quarter.
I schlepped myself back home to VT last Saturday, but am out on the road briefly. I did a reading in Portsmouth NH last night, and tonight I will be in Western MA!
If you’re in the environs of South Hadley, come hear me read from my new book Are You My Mother? at The Odyssey Bookshop at 7pm.
And tomorrow, Saturday, 6/16 I will be in BTV! At the Amy Tarrant Gallery at the Flynn, 6pm.
Tuesday the 19th I’ll be at the Galaxy in Hardwick, 7pm.
And Tuesday the 26th all be at Bear Pond! Montpelier! 7pm.
20 Responses to “almost home”
A.B. at the Galaxy? Why, she’s our own Captain Janeway! And, just like Janeway, she will get home! 🙂
It is heartening to know that you are out there inspiring the comic-makers of tomorrow. 🙂 And welcome home!
We’re excited to have Alison here in the Amy E. Tarrant Gallery at the Flynn Center tomorrow evening, Saturday, June 16th! A reading and book signing, a nibble of cheese and cash bar will be open. Please join us from 6-8 PM.
This is a FREE event – no tickets required!
http://www.flynntix.org/Productions/Details.aspx?perfNo=8340&perfCodePrefix=FSL12A
May I show off outrageously for a moment?
One of the top wirewalkers in the world completed an amazing stunt tonight. Nik Wallenda crossed Niagra Falls on a wire. Naturally, this spawned a media frenzy. Local news folk scrambled to find a wire walker to interview. Since any wirewalker with the slightest talent was up at Niagra Falls cheering Nik on, the best local news in Philadelphia could do was me.
http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/video?id=8703125
They made me look like a big twitchy geek, but I forgive them because they also made my biceps look like Popeye after a spinach bender.
June 16th, Bloomsday ! Alison will know the date, I had missed it except BBC Radio 4 is broadcasting (almost) the whole of Joyce’s Ulysses throughout the day today in seven parts. It may be on I-Player later if you’re out of the reach of Radio 4 live.
Here’s the webpage for the BBC Ulysses, with podcasts – don’t know if they work outside the UK. Two weeks to download them.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01jl7l9
Tapes running…
Pam, thanks for the link! I once listened to Ulysses read out loud on Books on Tape, read by one of my favorite Irish actors. It was irresistible!
Welcome almost home, Alison! Time to get started on the book about the James family.
I miss the days when the entire “Ulysses” was read here on the Upper West Side at the now-defunct Bloomsday bookstore. At the time I had a semi-full-time office job, and for several years I would take off 16 June and 17 June and start my day at 8 AM at Bloomsday Books. I went back and forth to my apartment over the next hours: the reading usually finished in the mid-afternoon of day number 2. To be honest I didn’t skip evening sleep, so there are parts of the book that I never heard being read live. But it was still wonderful!
Now we have just very abbreviated readings. I will be listening to WBAI this evening starting at 7 PM, having gotten tired of the steep ticket charge and the obnoxious ‘wait until the end of the reading to be allowed to go back to your seat if you left to go to the bathroom’ policies of Symphonuy Space.
God is a shout in the street.
Denizens of NYC and environs can get their Bloomsday fix tonight at Symphony Space, W.95th St and Broadway, starting at 7PM, running until midnight (probably later). This year’s Bloomsday on Broadway will be the Sirens episode, complete with music. The performance will also be streamed live on Symphony Space’s website. Call 212-864-5400 or visit the website for more info:
http://www.symphonyspace.org/event/7093-31st-annual-bloomsday-on-broadway
And that’ll teach you to put up a new, breathlessly awaited blogpost on Bloomsday!
Well I had an early night, unusually for me, and fell asleep with the radio on, playing the seventh and final instalment of the Bloomsday readings. It was the Molly Bloom monologue, and I had some very un-lesbian dreams as a result. Oooer missus.
Leslea Newman, Sally Bellerose and I tried to go see you in South Hadley, but we didn’t know that we had to sign up in advance to get in, so getting there at 5:45 turned out to be too late. We were sorry to miss seeing you, but glad for the big crowd and the bright, cool summer evening.
… A transgendered man proposed to his partner at the White House LGBT Pride reception this past week. Hurray for the lovely couple! 🙂
Hey, how come the blog/Safari have forgotten I’m Andrew B? I haven’t erased my cookies lately or anything else like that. Obviously not a big deal, but if there is an answer I’m curious about it.
I can’t look at the picture at the top of this post without hearing a loud male voice in my head — my father’s voice, as a matter of fact. I AM NOT PAYING UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO TUITION SO THAT YOU CAN SIT AROUND DRAWING COMICS. IF YOU WANT TO DRAW COMICS YOU CAN GO STARVE IN A GARRET. TRY NOT TO CATCH CONSUMPTION WHILE YOU’RE AT IT. (Actually my father is not so stuck in the nineteenth century. But you get the idea.)
Alison, I hope you enjoyed teaching and you said lots of gnostic, nonsensical but profound-sounding things that left the students hoping that someday they’d be as smart as you. I expect you’ll be happy to be in Vermont when the heat wave they’re forecasting rolls in later this week.
Susan Stinson, 12, not only that, but they were charging five bucks a head. And if I had wanted to get my copy of Indelible signed, I would have had to buy another copy of AYMM from the Odyssey. I was unable to go anyway because of a family commitment, but the Odyssey bookshop has earned no good will from me. I would have no compunctions about thumbing through their books and then ordering the books from Amazon, which is normally anathema to me. I might even make sure to have some greasy schmutz on my fingers.
oh, man.
I am SO SORRY to everyone who wanted to come to the Odyssey event and couldn’t. THis happened at a bunch of bookstores on my tour, and I didn’t have any way of knowing about it beforehand. I know the bookstores are struggling and need income, but I hate that people have to shell out to come to a READING.
I know, everything is changing and if we want local bookstores we have to wrap our minds around a different business model. But I wish I had been able to arrange for everyone to have seats who wanted them.
I was lucky enought to make it to the Odyssey, but a couple of points:
Unless they changed things at the last minute, I believe the waiting list was only for a seat. That is, they had about 90 seats, all of which were “reserved” beforehand. They kept a waiting list, and began filling any vacant seats about ten before the talk started. But others were free to remain on a Standing Room Only basis. (I got there early, and happened to be #1 on the waiting list and was lucky enough to get a seat. But once the talk started there seemed to be lots of folks standing around. So I’m pretty sure latecomers still could have at least got in.)
re: The $5
Strictly speaking, the advertised entry price was “Buy a copy of RUMM, or a $5 ticket”. However, the $5 could be applied towards merchandise –i.e. it wasn’t just an “admission price”. (I have to say, I don’t think this is completely out-of-line; independent bookstores are having a hard time, and this seems like a reasonable way for them to recoup their expenses.)
Yep, I want independent bookstores to survive and am trying to, as Alison said, wrap my mind around different business models. I also think that the big crowds for Alison’s readings are a lovely, lovely thing.
I was (obviously) in a bit of a silly mood last night. I was also unable to go to the Odyssey reading for other reasons, so my comments were based on the stated policies on their web site; perhaps they’re more flexible in practice. Couple replies, more seriously:
Of course I don’t blame Alison or any other author for bookstore policies. As for the stores, it will be tough to tell in advance how large a space is needed. If they do rent a theatre, then they have to charge and hope enough people show up to make their money back.
According to the web site, the ticket became a gift certificate after the reading. But the reading was scheduled to close the store that night and I get to the Hadley area maybe once a year. So for me, in practice, it was a five dollar ticket, period. For anybody, if you wanted to use the gift certificate, then you had to commit to a return visit.
The stated policy was that if you wanted Alison to sign anything other than AYMM, you had to buy a copy of AYMM from the Odyssey — not just another book, or another book by Alison. That seems arrogant, given that signing is a transaction between author and customer. (If Alison has gotten popular enough to have a problem with speculators asking her to sign everything in sight so they can put it on eBay, that’s a different issue. I hope she has that problem.)
What really bothered me about this was the arrogance and palpable distrust toward me as a customer. The Odyssey was making sure they got theirs up front before I got anything. Hence my joke about Amazon: if you’re going to treat me like I’m untrustworthy, I’ll be untrustworthy. Independent bookstores need to play to their strengths. Their ability to build a loyal customer base is a much greater strength than their access to some kind of bricks and mortar building where they can occasionally host popular authors.
Ok, could say more, but this has already gone on more than long enough.
Andrew B #18:
— According to the web site, the ticket became a gift certificate after the reading. But the reading was scheduled to close the store that night and I get to the Hadley area maybe once a year. So for me, in practice, it was a five dollar ticket, period. For anybody, if you wanted to use the gift certificate, then you had to commit to a return visit.
To follow this up a bit more:
The “front desk” of the store was open –and handling sales– for at least an hour after the reading ending.
Again, these events are not cost-free, even when held in-store. The store had at least five staff-members on hand until after all the audience cleared out –they were all very nice people, but I assume they weren’t hanging around just to do me a favor. Likewise, I don’t know (and I certainly don’t want to know) if there is a cost attached to bringing the authors in. But, at the risk of repeating myself, it seems reasonable that the store should be able to take some reasonable steps to ensure that they can recoup their expenses (and, yes, maybe even show a small profit).
—Ok, could say more, but this has already gone on more than long enough.
Ditto me as well.
Coincidentally…