Almost literarily...

The mercury's risen again, and this time it looks like it's there to stay. The trees on Broadway appear to agree with my assessment, and have burst into bloom in most agreeable fashion. Likewise, the pavement cafes are back in force, the girls are wearing a lot less in the way of clothing, and everything's right with the world, or so it feels.

It's been a good week. Term is creeping towards its conclusion in about three weeks' time, so I have a fair amount of work to get completed, but it's still possible to smell the roses. A bunch of us took one of next year's J-history PhD people out on the lash to persuade him to come to Columbia, fairly successfully, I think. I also got an e-mail from Prof. Shirane thanking me with my help in the recruiting process for the J-lit side - which is fair enough, as I think the role I played in persuading me to come to Columbia was instrumental. Although unfortunately I can't claim expenses for the dinner I treated myself to to sweeten the deal.

On Friday night, something a little different, a literary reading at a bar in the East Village by the name of KGB. I'm not really the sort to go to readings, but it was K's idea, and I thought I'd give it a try. The bar itself is decorated entirely in red, with old-school Soviet era propaganda on the walls, some of which K (who minored in Russian) was kind enough to translate for me. Before the event began, we grabbed some fish and chips at an English-run place called A Salt and Battery (ho ho. Yes, I am so classy, taking my girlfriend to a chippy on a date).

There were three readings, by amateur authors looking for a relatively non-hostile audience. And in all honesty, they weren't bad at all - basically some good stuff, though with the kind of flaws one would expect from the amateur - about one third too much description, at times somewhat forced humour, and so on. But definitely with some merit to them.

Except for the last guy. And boy, he was terrible. He read what he described as "some of my poems" in an absurdly affected pseudo sing-song voice, way too close to the mike and generally making a right prat of himself. The stuff was trash - clumsy, unnecessarily crude, one-dimensional, obvious and banal in the extreme. I wouldn't have minded, except he obviously thought he was hot shit, writing in the evening's guest book "remember the name!" and making a big thing about how he was submitting spec scripts to The Office and My Name is Earl. The only laughs he got were ones of embarrassment. Apparently he has a day job in the city's fish market - and I have a suspicion he'll be wiping herring guts off his apron for a long time to come.