Tattered Cover, Denver
June 6th, 2007 | Uncategorized
I had a really nice time reading at the Tattered Cover tonight. 80 people showed up. This is me with one of my doppelgängers. Her name is Hill, God Destroyer. And here’s Ellen Orleans, a blog regular who’s visiting me in my hotel room as I type this. She says it’s not rude to blog when you have a guest because we live in a postmodern multi-time zone interdimensional age.
Oh, and here’s another blog denizen from last week at Book Expo America. I was signing books at the Houghton Mifflin Booth and this lovely woman introduced herself to me as the Buttock Champion of the World.
21 Responses to “Tattered Cover, Denver”
good you explained that title
*waves to ellen
Hi there, I just heard about this technology: http://www.longpen.com/lp-welcome.html invented by Margaret Atwood, apparently, to allow authors to do a lot of book signings without the hassle of travel. You’d miss out on meeting a lot of people, but it might be something to think about.
Oh, yay. Thanks for posting that. I’m going to make it my Christmas card. Ok, just kidding. Chanukah card.
Thanks sooo much for coming. I’m glad you had a good time too.
I love that bookstore, it’s one of the best things about Denver.
Wow…seems like total fun, a great adventure, meeting all of those fascinating women…and the buttock champion of the world no less! cool.
Now that we know what she looks like she better travel incognito…or she’ll have to watch out for dykes trying to seduce her for her much coveted dtwof swag collection!
I’m curious — really curious — about what it’s like for Alison to meet some us in the flesh after getting to know us from the blog.
somehow, in my mind’s eye, most people I envision from their voice or writing are young, white, of average build and attractive unless they identify themselves differently. those who identify themselves middle aged are white, and attractive to my mind’s eye. if I know they’re black and wear dreads and have grey in their hair or are plump and wear scarves because chemo stole their hair they’re still pleasing to the eye, right?
I don’t envision anyone on this blog having skin blemishes or crooked teeth!
now, I don’t know y’all — but everyone here is beautiful to me! and don’t have any character flaws.
During last night’s talk, Alison showed the photos she took of herself to use as models for the characters in Fun Home.
I think we’ve discussed the photos before on this blog, but looking at the juxtaposition between, for instance, Alison in her father’s pose and the final illustration of her father, I felt a collapsing of boundaries.
Same for the photo of Alison in her early forties posing as Alison as a 9-year-old. People, time, and place merging. In some ways, eerie, in others, existential connection?
I swear, there could be a book about the making of Fun Home, but that might get just a little too circular and mind-blowing.
Hey Alison,
I thought you were coming to SF tonight, but your appearance calender says you are in SF june 8th??????? Am I insane??
I am sooooooo jealous! I wanted to be there so badly but had to fly back to Oregon. Alison, glad Denver was so good to you! We ought to have a doppelgänger picture post somewhere here. My goodness that young woman looks like you Alison. And I hope you’re having fun meeting so many of us from the blog. How cool is that?
Hi Tera (and others with the same question),
Alison will be in SF tonight, June 6th. I’m sorry for the confusion about the appearances page… the date comes BEFORE every bolded city name. I’m told that the script runs together on some browsers, which is an issue I have tried in vain to address!
I love the doppelgängers. Can you imagine the fun being in a room of Alison doppelgängers?
A staged production of Fun Home, acted out by doppelgängers. I, for one, would pay to see that.
Unless I’m mis-recognizing her, “Hill, God Destroyer,” is a librarian (Alison has said she has something of a librarian fetish).
I didn’t introduce myself as a blog person (or in any other way) because, well, I haven’t been around here much lately and the signing was clearly designed to get people through as quickly as possible. The store was about to close.
If there are other people out there who have doubts about going to a book reading, like I did, I recommend you go to one if you get the opportunity. I’d always assumed that they are a type of gimick. I mean it sounds stupid: a room full of people perfectly capable of reading themselves being read to by a jet-lagged introvert who would much rather be working alone on a new project. I also worried that only books bought that day would be permitted to get signed. But Alison was very present, articulate, and interesting. We actually had to read the captions (she read the narration which was not on the screen). It makes me think of what they said about Johnny Carson and some other performers, that they are very introverted but are able and willing to engage with an audience, and very well. The reading and q&a lasted about an hour. I brought books I already owned and she signed them. (I bought them from that very store and I brought the receipts to prove it in case there were any rules but there was no questioning at all.)
Also in case anyone else has been wondering if she does imitations of people’s voices, it didn’t appear to me she was (part of the narration done by her “Grammy”).
She looked less gaunt than in the blog, in my opinion and her hair was much much cooler in 3D, too. 🙂
Thank you for coming to Denver, Alison! Loved it.
I also totally loved the reading last night – I am from the San Francisco Bay area but am in Denver for, of all things, a library conference. I was sorry that more of my colleagues weren’t there but there was an awards ceremony or something going on (you can see I have my priorities straight!).
Ok sort of a tangent here, having to do with readings and memoirs. A few weeks ago I went to a reading by Catherine Friend, who wrote “Hit by a Farm” about her and her partner Melissa’s farming adventures in SE Minnesota. She just published her first adult novel (she also writes kids’ books) called “The Spanish Pearl.” She was a great reader, giving one enough to get interested in the book, but without giving too much away. I got her novel from the library and it looks totally fun–it’s about a lesbian who is mysteriously transported to Spain in 1085!
So going further out on my tangent, in her memoir, Catherine mentions another lesbian farmer in the area, Mary Doerr, who raises goats. By complete coincidence, in a local publication, we had read about Mary and that she has a farm stay retreat. For our big summer vacation, my partner and I spent three nights on the farm over Memorial Day. It was a complete blast! Goats are playful, we milked them and made cheese from the milk. During our stay, we were talking about Catherine and it turns out Mary was at the reading, but none of us recognized each other! Just follow this link for more info about the retreat:
http://www.bbonline.com/mn/dancing/index.html
Thanks for indulging my very errant comments, but I thought this was a crowd who’d want to know about a B and B on a goat farm…..and more good books!
Katie-
Perhaps if BOTH the date and city were bolded, it might make it clearer that they are together the heading for the details that follow? Sorry if you may have already tried this
Or bold the date, and not the city, since that the first line. I’ve found it hard to read the tour dates on both my Mac and my work PC. I had the Denver date written down wrong initially.
Update: With a quick bit of sage advice from Nichael, I think that the problem on the tour page should be solved. I’m tempted to start lobbying that schools replace instruction in cursive with classes in HTML!
Hi Katie,
I have a mac and use Firefox.
Prior to today the appearances page was difficult to read because all of the entries were running together but now it’s all better. and yeah, html might be more useful than cursive, except for things like book signings…
thanks.
thanks for sharing your summary of the Tattered Cover reading. almost like being there, without the plane ticket. well, it would’ve been nice to see those photos that became Fun Home.
now I’m wondering if eris and Hill, God Destroyer, are the same person. and what other names she might have.
a tip for book signing attenders: it is NOT a good idea to attempt an intimate conversation with Alison after she’s done an hourlong reading/QA + booksigning. even if you came from another state for the reading. I tried it and fortunately, someone rescued Alison when she started looking desperate. I still feel chagrined that I exercised such bad judgement!
this was during the tour that left Alison feeling like and e-mail that’d been opened in 3 different midwestern cities. http://dykestowatchoutfor.com/women-and-children-first-chicago
Haha. No, I’m not Eris. I’ve commented on this blog occasionally, but under the name “hillrepute.” And (to quote Parker Posey in “Party Girl”) I’m not a librarian, I’m just a clerk.