Tuesday, September 28, 2004
Decent reading Sunday. Ara is a software Oulipean, Brent a meta-rhetorician, and Julien's longest and best poem was read from memory. Intimate, but as the number of persons present who were not readers, hosts, or significant others of either, it beat similar events at the same venue. Ara was nice enough to give me one of the 300 copies of an early Aram Saroyan book, from Telegraph in about 1970, that he'd been given by the author to sell in support of his (Ara's) press. It's the one-word material (not here with me as I write.)
Unfortunately, I lost track of the crew between going off for dinner with Bree and trying to meet up at The Mountain (newish bar in Chinatown). Either they were still eating somewhere, or (less likely) they'd been and gone by the time we'd gotten there. I don't think in terms of having relevant cell-phone numbers (or, in fact, the phone) unless I'm out of L.A. The odd bit: Peeked into some nearby restaurants to look for them, but found instead Paul Vangelisti and what I assume were Otis MFA students, dining with Ben Marcus, who looks like his photos and had just read at The Mountain Bar. (Doubly odd, b/c I haven't seen any of that crowd in months, and ran into Mark Sarlerno getting coffee about 4 days back.) Why Otis, which is out by the airport, hosts a reading series an hour's drive away is a mystery; how I dropped off the list of those notified, a bigger one. I think I may have missed a Robert Crosson memorial reading a few mos. ago, among other things. Must rectify.
Unfortunately, I lost track of the crew between going off for dinner with Bree and trying to meet up at The Mountain (newish bar in Chinatown). Either they were still eating somewhere, or (less likely) they'd been and gone by the time we'd gotten there. I don't think in terms of having relevant cell-phone numbers (or, in fact, the phone) unless I'm out of L.A. The odd bit: Peeked into some nearby restaurants to look for them, but found instead Paul Vangelisti and what I assume were Otis MFA students, dining with Ben Marcus, who looks like his photos and had just read at The Mountain Bar. (Doubly odd, b/c I haven't seen any of that crowd in months, and ran into Mark Sarlerno getting coffee about 4 days back.) Why Otis, which is out by the airport, hosts a reading series an hour's drive away is a mystery; how I dropped off the list of those notified, a bigger one. I think I may have missed a Robert Crosson memorial reading a few mos. ago, among other things. Must rectify.
