"CERTAIN PEOPLE I KNOW"

Alrighty, kids, you've patiently awaited the scoop from premier The Fixx Reading Series night, and scoop you shall have! For starters, we had a wonderful, lively, fun and rather big crowd, filled with smiling faces, some familiar some new. We got off to a bit of a late start with everything coming in and getting beverages and settling in, which is completely fine by me. Delayed because the audience kept increasing? yes, please!

So, once we got started, it was beyond fun. Ben Tanzer brought the funny right off the bat with the sections he read from Lucky Man (which I've just started reading and I really like. Run, do not walk, and go pick up a copy for yourself), and read in this funny, cool, pause-explain-read-pause-laugh-read way that I just loved to bits.


The fabulous and lovely and hilarious Megan Stielstra was next up, complete with perfect music cues and laughs and a bit of interaction with an audience member or two. in her very natural, un-fussy, earthy way, she spun for us this wonderful yarn about religion, sky, family, masturbation and Casey Kasem that I, for one, will not soon forget. (I know I will forever think of a particular Madonna song in an entirely new light.) Hit her website, folks, and get your butts out there the next time she performs. Do it. For reals.

Last, but never least, Eric Spitznagel, came and had the audience howling with his tales of the porn industry from his book, Fast Forward. Clown porn, Kurosawa's Rashomon porn, mantras of the porn industry...? Yes, please. He even was kind enough to share a very funny story from his other book, The Hardest (Working) Man in Show Business, a story, I should add, involving Ron Jeremy and Chanukah. Sweet.

After, the Q&A proved highly entertaining and the audience has so many great questions. I do wonder what became of the young man in the orange hoodie who claimed to have a special name for a certain kind of woman, but we can only hope he'll stumble across this blog and leave us an explanation in the comments section.

As for me, I think I brought my own brand of snark and funny, got a few laughs of my own, and, most importantly, got everyone to cheer for the lit-folks I'd brought together for them. Not that they needed my encouragement-- Ben, Megan and Eric were all wonderful on their own.

(Snark, snark, snark...)

And that, kids, is all she wrote. The next reading is July 26th and it's there or square, loves.

"IF YOU HAVE FIVE SECONDS TO SPARE"

Random things:

1. You know, a few posts ago, Kapgar asked me, mostly jokingly, to clarify a bit when I said my Dad was on "the other side of the world". Turns out, he is, though not at an exact opposite location to Chicago. In discovering this, I found this website which is fun to play with. You set your location, then find out where you'd pop up if you were to dig a hole through the earth. I'd, uh, pop up just to the side of Australia if I dig from Chicago.

2. Paris Hilton might have to go back to jail. I am embarrassingly happy about this.

3. I still need one local author for the June 28th Fixx Reading Series night. I am taking nominations and suggestions. Aaaaaand, go.

4. I had a great long run and workout yesterday. I'm still running under my marathon pace, but I'm pacing okay considering I didn't really run all winter.

"WILLIAM, IT WAS REALLY NOTHING"

I'm such a clutz sometimes. This morning, in amazement that I was seeing such a huge dump of snow in mid-April, I fell over my cat, then, being flustered, went to take the trash out and forgot to disarm my alarm and scared the shit out of my neighbors when I opened my backdoor and set it (the security alarm) off, and so early. Good morning! WHOOP! WHOOP! WHOOP! It's seven am! Everyone up! WHOOP! WHOOP! WHOOP! Everyone look outside and see your goofy neighbor shrugging and waving meekly! WHOOP! WHOOP! Well, I guess I can take some solace in knowing I have neighbors who bother to look. That's a plus. Anyway, then I whacked my knee on the end table. Bang! Pow! Boom!

Anyway, I have a few little items to discuss.

The first item is that I have been invited to create an artistic rendidtion of my own arsehole (in honor of Kurt Vonnegut's depiction of his arsehole) with some terribly respectable authors, over on Spitzy's blogsite. I have many, may ideas of how I might do such a thing. I'll be doing this over the next several days, so I'll let you know how it goes. Clearly, this art must contain song lyrics. That's all I know. I have several ideas floating around... I wonder if he would accept a short arsehole series?

Secondly, I have a new piece going up on Six Sentences on May 2nd. I'll remind you. Fret not. I know you were frantic, trying to get your paper calendar and Blackberry to set reminders. I know. Shh. I'll take care of it.

And, I want to start doing a little every-other-week feature thing. I'm going to snatch up a writer, ask three very important questions of him/her and post it up. We'll all make new friends, expand our literary horizons, have fun pimping other writers' words, etc. It'll be fun. Want in on it? Just email me and we'll sort out the details, then I'll slap up the post. Voila. Super fun. No fuss.

Lastly, if you have thrown in a submission for my top secret little group fiction project, I'm nearly through all bazillion (yes, really a bazillion) submissions and will have my proverbial shit together on that shortly. Thank you all for your pateince when I got about seven or eight times more submissions than I planned to. Show on road shortly.

Anyway, I am staring at an important birthday square in the face today (a few days away still), and thinking a lot, and rather excitedly, about my life, and what a great adventure it has been thus far. Some of it has been stressful, most of it has been remarkably great, but it's all shaped me and made me who I am this minute. This second. Right now.

And, I can dig that.

"THE MORE YOU IGNORE ME, THE CLOSER I GET"

Bocci balls, you guys. Read this! I, of course, got permission from the source of this email to post it and will allow your comments fuel the result.

Dear Ms. Guth,

I am a really big fan of yours. I have read Three Fallen Women three times and every time I have read it, I get more and more out of it. Your writing is brilliant, incredible and has even been haunting at times.

My purpose for writing is two-fold. First I am curious if you are aware of any sort of fan club for you and your writing? I found many places on the web that had very positive things written about you, but nothing official so I wonder if you have a fan club offline or something? Secondly, if not, I wonder if you would consider starting one, or really, letting me start one. I am sure you would have many members. I will not start it if you are uncomfortable, but I think it would be really cool and lots of people would join it and you could maybe be involved a little so you'd feel comfortable with what was happening with it.

The email goes on, but that is really the crux of it. Initially, I laughed at the thought of this. Then, I thought well, it couldn't hurt. Then, I laughed again. Then, I emailed back and forth with this fellow and got his permission to post part of the email here so we can suss it all out in the comment section.

I think my only hang-up is something in the vein of a fear that having a fan club might make me look... uh... what's the word I want? It might make me look ridiculous? Which is silly because plenty of authors have fan clubs and they don't look ridiculous and I am really very touched to have such wonderful readers and should probably let them run with their whims. Anyway, what gives? What do you think? Let's work this out. How should I handle this? At this moment, I am on the fence.

"READER MEET AUTHOR"

Now that was a great reading! I just love The Book Cellar so much.


Seriously, what a good time tonight. It was very casual and low-key and just plain fun. And what a supportive bookstore and audience, really. You feel that sort of thing, you really do. You know when the bookstore staff is behind you, you know when your audience is behind you. You just do. And tonight, they were and it was wonderful.

We were kickin' it alphabetically, so I was first up.



I read the opening strings section and the Carmen overdose/explanation of rain's function section, which I enjoy reading, but especially enjoyed tonight, as it was raining like mad as I read.

Then, Rick Karlin read from his book Show Biz Kids...


...as I sat on the front row howling with laughter because not only is the book funny, but he's funny, and the combination was perfect. (Seriously, this book is so funny. I bought it immediately after and got him to sign my copy. So excited to read this.)

Then, Elaine Soloway read from her beautiful and touching Division Street Princess. I tried to be discreet, but I sat there with welled-up eyes the entire time she read. I love this book so much. So much, in fact, that even though I have already read it, I bought a second copy because I wanted her to autograph it for me.



So many people came out, too! Leah was there. Irish Ho was there with my new (but good) friend, artist Andrej "It smells like Europe, so I buy it" Didenko (I have one of his beautiful paintings right in front of me as I type this) and his partner, John. Sparkypoo was there (a big thanks to her for taking pics tonight!), with Princess Speedy and Xegbd. And, to my complete surprise and delight, Therapy Doc was there! And that only covers who I knew! I met so many fun folks who were good enough to come out in the crummy weather. So nice. So nice.

I stopped for a feta-hummus-sprouts-tomato-olive-balsamic pita and a margarita and bobbed my head to a little Joy Division as I nibbled. And, now, at long last, I am home with one very snuggly kitty and ready to for bed.



But, before I turn in, I have a favor to ask. I know this fella who had surgery today and his Ma is worried to bits about him. So, just for a sec, everyone shoot a happy, healthy thought towards southern California. Thanks.

"GOLDEN LIGHTS, DISPLAYING YOUR NAME"

Just a little business to deal with first:

I hope to see your smiling face at a reading this month. You know butts in seats make me glad, after all.

THIS THURSDAY, March 8th:
Bookslut Reading Series 7:30pm
(with Joanna Scott and Binnie Kirschenbaum)
Stop Smiling Storefront
1371 North Milwaukee Ave.
Chicago, IL

March 21st:
The Book Cellar 7pm
(with my BFF Elaine Soloway and Rick Karlin)
4736-38 N. Lincoln Ave.
Chicago, IL

March 28th-April 1st:
New Orleans/Tennessee Williams Literary Festival
New Orleans, LA
*I'll be speaking on a panel, "Orpheus Ascending: First Books, New Voices" with Jennifer Paddock, John Pritchard, and Sidney Thompson on Saturday 3/31 at 10am, will be giving at reading on 4/1, and will moderate the "Writing Outside the Box: Outrageous Fiction" panel featuring Ace Atkins, John Pritchard, and Sydney Thompson.

Great, now that we have that worked out, I have absolutely nothing to update you about. I worked, I read, I slept, I ate, I played hide and seek with Yiddishe Katze, I went to the museum and geeked about the Gregor Mendel mess, cleaned a little, lined up the next round of projects, ya ya ya.

Anyway, who's coming out to a reading this month, eh? You know, at one of my readings, a couple hooked up and is still living living happily ever after. I'm just saying. You might meet your future Pooh-Bear, or a new BFF. C'mon. Wouldn't hurt to get out a little.