Thursday, September 24, 2009

38 minutes of my life

So happy to see Reb Livingston and Dave Housley at Mason today, paneling for a session about local lit journals. They did a fine job, despite the lack of structure and a shy crowd--20+ of us in a venue that seats 100+. Well, they were shy as a crowd, but swarmed Dave and Reb after, which was kinda weird. Wonder what they wanted?

A friend said to me about Dave: "He's good looking."
A different friend said to me about Reb: "Oh wow, she publishes non-linear poems? I'm home."

Up top on the plaza, Richard Peabody was selling Gargoyle and Paycock Press publications from a table. He always recognizes me, but never knows who I am. That must bug him. Especially when I wave and smile like a nutjob.

When Dave's "Ryan Secrest is Famous" story made the top 10 of StorySouth's Million Writers list, I taught it to my class. But it was months after I connected with Dave and the Barrelhouse editorial pod (at their conference they traveled together, I assume so they could sing barbershop songs when needed), that I realized he'd written that very cool story. Similar experience with Paula Bomer--we were net friends for a while before we realized that we had been reading each other's stuff for years. Paula's great, she still reads print. She's Amish. Her specialty is Amish erotica.

So the Barrelhouse Mixtape podcast marks my first willing listen to a podcast. I'd been ignoring the announcements fairly successfully until today when Dave described what was covered, and I suddenly thought, oh hey--THIS IS RELEVANT TO MY INTERESTS. It's quite good, and as promised, in the style of This American Life, right down to the swallowing sounds from the host. Adam Robinson sounds exactly as I thought he would. Michael Kimball does not (I thought he'd sound more like a cartoon bear). And Mike Ingram? He just sounds troubled. Dave.

2 comments:

Dji said...

It takes a community to erect a barn.

Ryan W. Bradley said...

"Paula's great, she still reads print. She's Amish. Her specialty is Amish erotica."

that would pretty much be the awesomest bio line of all time