Friday, September 26, 2008

How Eli Horowitz made me feel.

"Eli has a face cut from granite that could only be described as aged and haggard."


i pretty much looked at only him the entire he was on the "stage" at KU's Hall Center.

even though i think i would never tire of hearing Elliott speak.

even though Deb Olin Unferth looked nice and was really 'in her element'.

i think i felt empowered and at one point thought, McSweeney's would consider me, i should submit, and i can be a McSweeney's intern and live off orange rinds on the streets of San Francisco.

then i felt like Eli was weirded out by me, even though i barely spoke to him. or he 'sensed' that i was a douche bag.

this sounds like a bad review so far. it was a nice event. Eli was funny, modest, not haggard-looking. beautiful books were shown. some apple-juice-ginger-ale punch thingy was served. i don't think connections were made. i connected with the cashews in the nut mix by picking around all of the other nuts and only eating the cashews. Deb and Eli both graciously signed my copy of Deb's book. Eli signed by his name in the back and said he would have felt bad otherwise. literature was loved. a state of intoxication was arrived at by English department hotties.

i am starting to feel that i can do things in life, like, maybe get a short story published, but probably not by McSweeney's Quarterly. the good thing, maybe, was that Eli didn't make me feel anyway at all. he's a good dude -- so smart, ambitious, sexy -- doing his thing. i liked listening to him. i would do it again. i will buy the things he makes. i will do my thing.

my thing is smaller, maybe. flat; less shiny. maybe it has a nice color.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

i like the part about the cashew connection. i like this post.
fountainy especially.
sincerely,
ABBA

ChloƩ Cooper Jones said...

I love you.