Saturday, October 29, 2005

Happy Ending!

Very belated on this. Wednesday night was the Happy Ending Reading at the Hideout, which went quite a bit better than it seemed as we approached seven pm and no one was there and I became certain that everyone on the face of the earth had suddenly become a White Sox fan. It was the fourth game of the World Series and I guess they hadn’t been in it for like eleventy-hundred years, so it was one of those things that I guess was just up to the gods. (And frankly, why else do you suppose neither team managed to score anything until well after our reading was over?) As it turned out, some of those fans were among our evening’s talent, and a good thirty or forty people, baseball fans among them as well, showed up to hear them as well. In spite of my epic awkwardness at being a host (I’m no Amanda Stern!), everyone did a typically wonderful reading, and the risks were all impressive. Elizabeth Berg started us off with a silent version of “If I Were Pitching in The World Series” and got several people in the crowd to help her out, including my husband in the important role of “Catcher”. She then proceeded to take breaks to answer her cell phone, apply lipstick, and take out an umbrella when it started to rain. Oh and she also murdered a fan. Joe Meno drew detailed pictures of Medusa and Harry Hamlin from “The Clash of the Titans” (on notebook paper, of course) and recreated a scene from the movie in which Harry Hamlin kills Medusa by looking at his reflection in his shield so he doesn’t turn to stone. Amy Krouse Rosenthal took five risks, including cutting the tag off a pillow, runnng with scizzors (in disobeyance of her mother), admittting out loud that she hopes to make the Times bestseller list, singing a goodnight song (which was quite touching) and playing Truth or Dare with the audience. Ben was the only one to (dare to – hee) ask a question, which was “Do you and your husband talk about poop?” Later, I took this as an opportunity to redeem myself and told the crowd that in the spirit of the evening, I would confess that it was my husband who asked the question about poop, and if I were to answer the question myself, honestly, the answer would be yes. (Longtime bert readers, you of course already knew that.) Finally, sundayrunners, who were awesome, brought in one of their girlfriends to sing lead for the last song, and they totally rocked the house with their cover of “Don’t Stop Believin’”. We raised a little over two hundred bucks for Community Labor United for Katrina relief, so I’m calling it a success. A thousand thank yous to the talent and to everyone who came.

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