On the eve of my first official day at Aqua Books as Events Coordinator, I thought I'd better post the wobbly pictures I took at Free Your Mind: Spousal Support, way back on February 18th. Or was it the 19th?
As you may recall, the 'angle' for this event was that our reading, only five days after Valentine's Day, featured four writers but two couples - specifically, two of Winnipeg's pre-eminent literary couples: David Elias / Brenda Sciberras and Warren Cariou / Alison Calder.
I even came up with some snappy copy to advertise the event ("Have a blah Valentine's Day? Don't know what to do with a mid-winter long weekend? Then join us at Aqua Books for an evening of writing...")...but then the MWG didn't include it in their weekly e-update.
Poet Brenda Sciberras at the podium.
And then Kelly and I were both as sick as dogs...but at least Kelly's sickness didn't make him say anything stupid.
(Well, there was that crack about Brenda Sciberras being a Maltese Princess...but that wasn't so much illness-induced as business-as-usual for Kelly.)
I completely blame my illness for the fact that I approached the quartet of readers for the evening and muttered something about "playing to the audience they had."
This, because it was evident that it wasn't going to be the fullest house we'd ever had.
Blame the holiday, blame the weather, heck, blame me...but I really can't explain why we have to shoehorn them into seats in the aisles for some events and at others have room for a tumbleweed or six.
But it was a lovely evening, redolent of popcorn and gasoline, roadkill and freaks. We had poetry, we had fiction, we had clever love poems cleverly addressed to people in the room and poisoned fictional relationships that only lived in the brain of their creators...until the upcoming book launches, that is.
Prof and writer Warren Cariou has his turn at the podium.
Finally, I will admit that it will be nice not to ever have to haul out Kelly's rag-tag collection of chairs again.
At the new Aqua, I'll have my pick of events rooms - a smaller room once used for karaoke (that has shiny gold wallpaper! GOLD!) and a large room with a stage in front and a serving kitchen in the back.
Also, a coat check room! Swoon!
Though I'm not assuming that any of our four readers checks this space - that would be plumb egotistical! - I'd like to thank them for reading while also simultaneously resisting the urge to apologize for the empty chairs.
Thanks! No, really...thanks!
And to all you rat bastards who didn't come to the perfectly lovely reading I organized...well, I already called you rat bastards.
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