A Series of Fortunate Events
any guy who can joke about syphillis in a room full of little kids and still get lots of laughter gets my vote. for what i'm not sure, but i heart daniel handler. the book signing for a series of unfortunate events: the end (book the thirteenth) was freakin awesome. whoever planned it sure knows how to properly put together a book signing.
upon entering seattle town hall, i quickly grab a seat as close to the front as possible. i'm slightly bummed because they're not as close as i would have liked. but whatev. i put my stuff down, and then go back out to explore around. they had set up all these really cool booths, one where you could get a tattoo (count olaf has a creepy tattoo on his ankle which the baudelaire orphans use to id him), get your fortune told (like at the carnivorous carnival), play games to win prizes, and the best part was they had a set up of the drawing of the wedding play from book one where you could put your faces in for count olaf, violet or klaus. i donated a dollar to the seattle public library and got my picture taken. it looks awesome btw.
there were a bunch of better seats that were "reserved for town hall members" that were totally empty. finally, at about 5:50, they released those seats to anyone. so me and the family next to me quickly bum rush it to get the nicer seats. as a result, me and the family get 3rd row center. which is super duper.
This is eight row left, so you can imagine how much closer 3rd row is. plus, there was this thingy to the left of me so my view of the stage was basically unblocked, except for a couple of photogs but they moved around so it wasn't so bad.
while waiting for a looong time (i had gotten to town hall at 4:50 so i could get good seats, doors opened at 5, supposed to start at 6 but it didn't), i got into a convo with the mom next to me. turns out her dad and DH's dad are best friends, and DH sang at her wedding! how cool is that. unfortch they weren't really good friends and as a result she still had to wait in line like the rest of us. the girl behind me was dressed like lemony snicket because she had done a book report on the vile village earlier and she had come to the signing straight from school, so it was pretty coinky dinky that she as meeting DH dressed as LS.
finally after a 20 minute delay, they finally start! here are some pics of the performance (more on my flickr, although 90% of them are of daniel handler playing the accordion, and then 9% is of him signing books or walking around and then 1% is of stephen merritt, the other performer in the gothic archies):
Stephen Merritt, of the great band The Magnetic Fields
Convo that occured when I met him:
Me: which TMF cd would you recommend?
SM: 69 love songs, of course.
Me: [pause] is it your favorite?
SM: yup. it's the most expensive.
Me: oh, um. okay. thanks. [walks awkwardly away]
Daniel Handler is a good accordion player as well as a good singer.
Signing books. He reminds me of Dan Ackryod. It was pretty funny because DH gets really excited and bipolar when he signs books, because occasionally he would start yelling (kind of jokingly) at whoever he was signing the book for. As the night wore on, you could tell he was getting tired because the yells were less and less frequent.
While in line, I met two girls named Stephanie and Emily. They were really cool, both in middle school. It's weird talking to kids who are so much younger than I, but it brought back good memories and they were really sweet and weird. ^_^
Normally, when I go to signings, I'm nervous as heck. This was no exception. Usually when I get to the front of the line, I get all awkward and words fall out of my mouth in random patterns and I usually say something stupid or it's just awkward.
I don't know if it was because I was tired, or because he was tired, or because of something entirely unrelated, but this signing i thought I didn't make myself look like an idiot. Here's how it went:
Me: Hi. Nice to meet you.
DH: Hi. How are you?
Me: Good. How are you?
DH: I'm doing great. [squints at my sweatshirt] What does that say?
Me: (I'm kinda weirded out, b/c I thought 1) Volcom was a pretty well-known brand, and 2) Stephen made a comment about my shirt too) Oh it says Volcom. It's a skateboarding/snowboarding brand.
DH: Oh. Do you skateboard?
Me: No. I am a poser.
DH: Uh, I see (I have a feeling he doesn't know the word poser).
Me: You should see what you friend had to say about that [pulls out the CD jacket that Stephen had signed earlier]. Well, I don't know if he is your friend or not.
DH: Yeah, I would call him my friend.
Me: Well, yeah, then look at what your friend wrote.
DH: [reading out loud] To Jennifer: Skateboarding is dangerous and horrible. Stop! Try chess. Have you tried chess?
Me: No, but I figured that I've never skateboarded either, so that makes us even.
DH: I guess that makes sense. Hey Jennifer, I wish you could see my living room.
Me: (um, what?) Really?
DH: Yeah. Oh wait, you can! (turns out the center picture in the CD jacket was taken in his living room)
Me: Woah that's really your living room?
DH: Yup.
Me: That's a pretty red. I like it.
DH: Glad you like my living room.
THE END. (and that is probably why it took him forever to get through the book signing, although i'm sure everyone everyone in line appreciates it. i also appreciate that he didn't yell at me with the ferocity that he did to some of the other people)
le'sigh. what a fun evening.
<3 jen