Sherman Alexie
I saw Sherman Alexie last night. I read his story "The Toughest Indian in the World" 5 or 6 years ago and loved it. I bought the story collection by the same name and then One Stick Song, a collection of prose and poetry, equal parts sardonic wit, self-deprecation, pain, and reverence. I had a little crush on him for a while. Anyone seen Smoke Signals? Renny came with me to the reading, even though she didn't know who he was.
Anyway, he was reading at the Roxie to benefit Modern Times Bookstore (and to sell books of course -- his new novel is called Flight.) He got on stage and started talking about earlier in his book tour when he was flying to Norfolk, VA and he hit some bad turbulence and the woman across the aisle was wearing red cowboy boots and they were scared and held hands, and then they were embarrassed, and it's actually pretty funny. He's got this whole stand-up comedy routine going, about his trip to Norfolk, with tangents about how funny white liberals are, and how so many writers are gay, etc., etc. And it was all quite funny (other than the brief tirade about how we should vote to win this election, fuck Obama, and also an uninspired bit about vegans). After about 30 minutes of this, I realized he wasn't going to read from his book at all. After nearly an hour, he gets to the part where he comes back to his Norfolk hotel room after a walk and there are 9 voicemails on his cell phone and 8 of them are from friends and family who know he's reading at a college in Virginia but can't remember which one, and the 9th is from his wife saying turn on the news and he finds out that 200 mi away in Blacksburg, 33 people are dead. Early on in Flight, the protagonist, a teenage boy, shoots up a bank full of people. So when Alexie got to his reading at Norfolk he started telling a story about how he was on the plane and the woman across the aisle was wearing red cowboy boots and there was turbulence...
He ended the whole thing by saying (something like) "we are all always reaching across the aisle to hold hands because there is always turbulance and it is always bad." I can't decide. Is that cheezy? Or touching? Or maybe even a little manipulative? All of the above?
Oddly, I think what I admired most about him at that point was his self-confidence -- his ability to stick it out and do stand-up comedy for an hour before he got to his final, serious punch-line, knowing that the whole time we must have been wondering when he was going to cut the jokes and read from his damn book.
Anyway, he was reading at the Roxie to benefit Modern Times Bookstore (and to sell books of course -- his new novel is called Flight.) He got on stage and started talking about earlier in his book tour when he was flying to Norfolk, VA and he hit some bad turbulence and the woman across the aisle was wearing red cowboy boots and they were scared and held hands, and then they were embarrassed, and it's actually pretty funny. He's got this whole stand-up comedy routine going, about his trip to Norfolk, with tangents about how funny white liberals are, and how so many writers are gay, etc., etc. And it was all quite funny (other than the brief tirade about how we should vote to win this election, fuck Obama, and also an uninspired bit about vegans). After about 30 minutes of this, I realized he wasn't going to read from his book at all. After nearly an hour, he gets to the part where he comes back to his Norfolk hotel room after a walk and there are 9 voicemails on his cell phone and 8 of them are from friends and family who know he's reading at a college in Virginia but can't remember which one, and the 9th is from his wife saying turn on the news and he finds out that 200 mi away in Blacksburg, 33 people are dead. Early on in Flight, the protagonist, a teenage boy, shoots up a bank full of people. So when Alexie got to his reading at Norfolk he started telling a story about how he was on the plane and the woman across the aisle was wearing red cowboy boots and there was turbulence...
He ended the whole thing by saying (something like) "we are all always reaching across the aisle to hold hands because there is always turbulance and it is always bad." I can't decide. Is that cheezy? Or touching? Or maybe even a little manipulative? All of the above?
Oddly, I think what I admired most about him at that point was his self-confidence -- his ability to stick it out and do stand-up comedy for an hour before he got to his final, serious punch-line, knowing that the whole time we must have been wondering when he was going to cut the jokes and read from his damn book.