Andre Rodrigues was the only one to show up at Chris Ewart's hometown launch with an actual lamp-shade on his head-- more of a torchiere bowl, and he looked, as Paul pointed out, like a member of Devo, only rounder, softer, and altogether more Andre. Paul and I met Chris Blais sprinting down Kensington Road, as it was 7:30, the scheduled start-time for Ewie's reading, but we reminded Chris Blais that Chris Ewart was likely still at home doing some sit-ups without a shirt on and still needed to choose his reading for the evening. In other words, our Ewie is ALWAYS late, and we fully expected him to be late for his own launch. I'll give him credit, he was there, as were about 50 of his friends and fans, but everyone was outside laughing and enjoying the sun.
We filed in to Pages soon enough. Chris's reading was terrific. His performance of the different characters' chapters was funny and sweet. I've heard Chris read from this project quite a lot in the past few years, and it was kind of thrilling to hear and know and feel that it is complete. It's gelled, and that's some yummy jello! I shivered a little at how good it is.
Miss Lamp is on my bedside table and I've been reading myself to sleep with it so that my dreams are sweet and quirky and funny. I have to admit, I never got the "Banana Tray Hair" image until Chris's launch reading. I always imagined it was a tray that bananas might be sold on by the bunch, like a styrofoam tray that you get meat on. I've never seen bananas sold this way, but it was all that I could conjure up. But finally, now that the book is done, the image is clear to me! Thank you, Chris, for reading the passage that includes the line "Her hair is yellow like the banana tray in front of her checkout and she has all the shape of a swizzle stick"-- gears moved, clicked, and all of a sudden I got it!
Well, it wouldn't be Chris if we didn't go to the Kensington Pub, and we did, so it was. And it wouldn't be Chris if somehow he wasn't late for some part of the evening, and he was, because although he'd booked the upstairs in anticipation of us all streaming out, he sold, I believe, over 50 books and sat signing them at Pages for far longer than he thought he would, so when we got there, the pub was full of a bunch of unlucky people who didn't even know about
Miss Lamp. Yet.
And in conclusion, to tie this little report together, I'll let you know that once again we convinced Sandy Lam to do her Bill Cosby impression, the one where she talks about Jello Pudding Pops and also what the jazz is all about, but Aaron Smelski had to do it too to convince her to do it. They were probably banana-flavoured Jello Pudding Pops.
Go
here to order your very own copy of
Miss Lamp!
Congratulations to Brea Burton on the successful defense of her Master's Thesis! A few of us got together yesterday to help Brea celebrate. In these photos you'll see Brea holding her bottle of Jim Beam and her "I'm-too-drunk-to-drive-please-don't-tow-my-car" parking pass as we leave the University, sunburnt and still thirsty. The rest of the photos are at the Kensington Pub, where someone appears to be double-fisting drinks in the shadows while Brea drunk dials all the out-of-towners. Ahem. One of my favourite photos is the sunray pointing to what Brea got-- a "Number One." She's Number One! She's Number One!
