Saturday, June 19, 2010
When I got to the Small Press Book Fair early (too early!) that morning (as in morning!), I found that I was assigned a table in a far corner of the hall, partially obscured by the stage. Okay. We work with what we are given. Five minutes after the doors opened, one of the organizers pointed out that a couple of the tables in the middle of the hall were empty and asked if I would like to move to one of them. Oh, go ahead and twist my arm.
I couldn’t help but wonder, though, what happened to the presses that bought the space but didn’t show up. Could they have gotten a better offer from a Medium Press Book Fair, or possibly a Small Press Book Fantastic?
I ended up being at a table opposite the literary magazine Descant. And, I thought, “Well, that’s just the kind of pessimistic attitude that drives people to despair and inaction. If they wanted to make the world a better place, they probably should have called the magazine Descan!”
Ahem.
One of the first people to stop at my table was an older gentleman who looked my books over and asked if I was Jewish. When I answered that I was, he launched into a story of his youth in the Ukraine. He had grown up on a farm, you see, and he wanted me to know that Ukrainian farmers had nothing against Jews. The anti-Jewish pogroms in his country? They were led by the folks who lived in Ukrainian cities. Oh. Okay. Umm…I thanked him for correcting the record for me.
I’m becoming such a whore. Or, maybe it was Canadian politeness. But, I’m pretty sure it was emerging whorishness.
I have taken to describing my Alternate Reality News Service books as “comic science fiction journalism.” While I get lots of interest at science fiction conventions, at the Small Press Book Fair the most common reaction was a blase, “Oh.” Oh. It was like they are exposed to comic science fiction journalism all the time. “Sure,” I could see them thinking, “but what have you got for me that’s different!”
For the last 90 minutes of the Small Press Book Fair I had to pee. I was tempted to use the water bottle that I had recently emptied, the water bottle that had been the cause of my problem in the first place. Unfortunately, it brought to mind bad 1970s wilderness survival movies, so I suppressed the urge. Well, that and the fact that the tables didn’t have cloths that entirely covered them in front. As tempting as it was, I may want to be asked back again.
That night, I travelled to my next event. I was exhausted, so I went straight to my motel room, although it would take me hours to get to sleep. It was hotter’n’a sauna in there. I hate the heat. If I’m going to wake up in a pool of sweat, I might as well sleep in the bathtub. So, I turned on the air conditioning. But, of course, I am allergic to air conditioning (or, perhaps, the dust that it stirs up); it made my nose run faster than Usain Bolt.
I swear, my body was created by the same committee that designed the camel.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Faery Fest is an annual medieval fair held in Guelph. Not the most obvious place for me to read, given that I write primarily science fiction, but I’m like Jim Carrey in that movie – you know, the one where he can’t say no to anything? Right. Being John Malkovich.
When I got to the site, I asked if the writers were billed above the puppet show. Oh, I’m so clever. I was told that the organizers had been extremely busy and, as a result, had neglected to give the writers billing at all. By my calculations, this makes me lower than Spinal Tap. Yep, I’m definitely in the pre-Tap phase of my writing career.
I wanted to get some photographs of a joust that took place at Faery Fest. You know: joust for laughs. Apparently, there were people on horses knocking each other about with lances and shields. Unfortunately, it was all over within minutes. “Surely, you joust!” I thought when I realized that it had ended before I had an opportunity to get a picture. Sadly, it was true. I am undaunted, however. Some day, I know, I will get such a photo. Joust you wait and see if I don’t!
There was – yes, actually, I could have continued with the jousting puns indefinitely. I thought I would save us both the embarrassment, but do I get any credit?
As I was saying, there was a guy at Faery Fest who sold pickles on a stick. He rolled a barrel through the grounds and sold his wares. Jessica, my contact at the event and the other person who read on the day I was there, and I had a good laugh about that.
“I’m sure I don’t want to see that man’s pickle,” I smirked.
“Oh, his pickles are long and thick,” Jessica laughed.
A couple of hours later, much to my dismay, I heard him talking to potential customers. Why dismay? 1) His double entendres were actually filthier than anything Jessica or I imagined. 2) He was saying them to women who seemed quite young.
Eww! Get a grip, dude! Sometimes a pickle is just a pickle, you know?
I was in our booth for the better part of five hours. One woman asked if my books were about the history of the Irish. When I tried to explain about the whole science fiction journalism thing, she put the book she was holding down and stated with finality, “I was looking for something about the history of the Irish.”
It almost made me nostalgic for the reactions of the people at the Small Press Book Fair.
Then, there was the guy who walked up to us and asked, “Do you have anything about 2012? You know, prophecies and mysticism?” We went back and forth about alien encounters and the end of the world for a couple of minutes before Jessica cut in, saying, “He writes fiction. Ira’s books are fiction.” The man nodded once to himself and left.
That was my weekend. I would have been discouraged if I hadn’t had so much fun.