Busy busy busy and quite a few funny stories to post once I’ve had a chance to gather everything up. We’ve got some marijuana-toting grandmas at, I kid you not, a place called “Puffers Pond,” the hilarity of listening to drunk poets, and much, much more. Like the part about five…yes, five…guys trying to pick me up over the course of this week. Are things that bad in Amherst, fellas?
Anyway, that’s enough for now.
Well, maybe not.
I do want to post a brief bit about Barry Hannah. I listened to him read two stories Wednesday night, then participated in a Q&A session Thursday morning. If you haven’t read his stories, read them. If you can ever attend a reading, do it. The Q&A itself made this trip worthwhile, for many reasons, with the most important being his thoughts on writing, living, goals, and defining success. He’s a great teacher and a one-of-a-kind storyteller. And probably one of the funniest people I’ve ever heard speak. I wish I could write up his 2-3 minute riff on wanting to join Mel Gibson in “Braveheart,” wearing a kilt and face paint, running down a hill to bury a sword in an Englishman (”We just don’t get to do that enough anymore,” he said). Or about how he’d love to condense Shakespeare — “I wish Hamlet would just kill himself and stop all that talking.”
One more thing: The “You” in the title is not meant to be You, the reader. You guys aren’t forgiven. You have a long way to go. It’s a church reference…sometimes that’s what these Q&A’s feel like.
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