October 30, 2009

How to Be Inappropriate Book Party, October 23

Just a quick note about this event (& the book, by local prof Daniel Nester) at Valentines. Since there was pizza, lots of drinking & Karaoke that night, my notes dissolved in beer -- but I did get a few pictures. Noteworthy stage performances, in addition to Nester reading mercifully short segments from the book (we all were impatient to sing), were Tony-the-Intern doing "I Am the Walrus," & Katie Vermilyea giving it her best shot in Pat Benatar boots -- with lace stockings! Of course, I was fantastic doing "Wild Thing" & "I Wanna Be Sedated," both with key lyric changes -- hey, you had to be there, & you missed it.

I read How to Be Inappropriate (from Soft Skull Press & currently available at the Book House) mostly during commercials while watching the baseball league championship series. The book has the expected inappropriate topics like farting & a "study" of ExtenZe (if you don't know, Google it), but is really a clever marketing device to get undergraduates to buy the book for the 2 really fine, thoughtful (& largely appropriate) memoirs clustered towards the end of the book. "Goodbye to All Them" is the story of the author's leaving New York & the poetry scene & finding a home in Albany. "Garden Path Paragraphs" takes us through the complex issues involving him & his wife trying to conceive a child (NO, he did not need instructions on how to do it), the eventual birth of their daughter & the beginning of finding what "Fathering" means. In fact, Miriam was there this night at Valentine's briefly but we never did find out what song she would've performed if she had the chance. Perhaps the theme song from "Sponge Bob Square Pants"?

No comments: