BOOG CITY Readings, New York

I found this on David A. Kirschenbaum's blog (he's Boog City publisher & events organizer in New York). It's pretty funny, & a pretty close description of events, during & after a reading I did with Clare Latremouille & Stephen Brockwell at his series on January 7th, 2004. You can check out the original at the link below:

http://boogcity.blogspot.com/2004_01_01_boogcity_archive.html

The Reading and After

Hosted the 6th reading so far in my out-of-town small press series this past Thursday. The good folks from above/ground press came down from ottawa, canada. They just turned 10, and in that time editor/publisher has put out 400 or so publications, an astonishing figure. It was a small turnout, 20 people, including performers, gallery owners, and me, but it felt great, real warm, filled with good readings and sweet music from major matt mason usa. The end of the gallery where we normally read was filled with a new exhibit, a menagerie of metal animals all over the floor, which were real solid and beautiful. And the other end of the gallery had a new exhibit of small paintings, including works by Edward Hopper among others.

After our canadian trio, aaron kiely, nathaniel siegel, and me went to chelsea commons, our usual after reading hangout (although after the cy press reading we didn't go there because one of the people attending talked shit about it and had us go somewhere else, and then she wound up going home. Awwww.). Nathaniel offered to treat me, which was swell because i'm broke, and i had their caesar salad, which is always good. We drank and ate for a while, with rob mclennan acting the benevolent fool, and I discovered all three of them had kids of varying ages.

And they wanted to see the Chelsea Hotel, which was only a few blocks away, so we walked over and into their lobby. They admired and took pictures of the art, which had changed since the last time i was there. And as they looked around two men around my age walked in, and i noticed that one of them was ethan hawke, who had moved into the hotel after uma thurman threw him out for cheating on her. I couldn't yell that he was there, but said something once he was by us a bit, but they didn't see him. Then Aaron and I went outside to get some air, and there was a hot, thin black-haired girl and a guy with her. Aaron had picked up his guitar,
after having left it at the gallery a month ago for the night, a typical aaron move, and now this girl started talking to him because of it. Wound up her and the guy were the band The Kills, basically think Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs 18 months ago. So the Canadians joined us outside and a guy leaves the hotel walking his dog, bumping into rob, and who was it, yes friends, ethan hawke, again.

so the moral of the story is come to our first thursdays non-ny small press series and meet kinda famous people who cheat on their wives.

another thing to mention, at the reading i traded books for cds with major matt mason usa, & listened to him (& little else) for a full two weeks afterward.

david, i must say, was a very good & kind host. cudos to him in that new york city.

rob mclennan