The reading, that was...

Two hours in commuter gridlock 880 traffic to Berzerkeley.   Joanne & Donald waiting at Moe’s, having just arrived after a 45 minute walk from the vicinity of Shattuck & University where, for some mysterious reason, they had parked their car.   We strolled down Telegraph to a little Thai restaurant for beers & food & the latest news.   Then back to Moe’s though we were nearly a half-hour early.   Pamela & Joanne browsing amongst the books.   Donald & I talking to Owen & drinking beer.   A typically small audience trickled in, notable for the absence of “the eternal company”.   I guess the company ain’t that eternal.   About 12 or 14 listeners, certainly enough to bounce the truncated iambic off of.   Owen intros, Donald reads first.   I’m taken by the Canadian vowel sounds rounding off the sly Edward Gorey effect (as Pamela noted later) of the incandescent prose pieces of Blue Chips, then nailing the early rhythms that carry the poems in World at Large.   Altogether a great, solid reading.   Thanks Donald.   I stepped to the lectern & read, alternating between California Redemption Value & Drainpipe Sessions, tossing in a few loose poems just to keep it interesting (for me) as I could hear the miles of surging silence that ate up the lyric intentions that have relentlessly eclipsed anything as prosaic as reason.   Two perhaps interesting out-takes:   1. After reading Walk on the Wet Side I read it again in the voice of Ezra Pound, 2. The spontaneous applause after I read Liquid Sky.   It all went okay I thought, but who really knows, or cares.   Surprised to see Alasatair Johnston, Tinker Green, Christina Fisher & Cedar Sigo there.   We all hung around yakking afterwards, but Joanne & Donald wanted to get back to their “small coastal community in Northern California” rather than moving on to the traditional post-reading bar gathering.   Pamela & I drove them back to Shattuck & University so that they could retrieve their car, & we headed on through the night time traffic of 880 for the hour & a half trip to S.Cruz & a final beer & sleep.   I had dreams that were like random chapters lifted from an abridged version of The Golden Bough as interpreted by Iggy Pop & The Stooges.