plans & peacocks
Nov. 16th, 2007 12:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ellenkushnerThe Voracious Reader is a wonderful bookstore run by wonderful people, full of wonderful books! A good time was had by all. I do love kids. While I was waiting to begin my reading (with the great Metropolitan Klezmer finishing their last hot tune), a little girl in the front row leaned forward and told me, "I went to the eye doctor today. I'm going to get glasses." She's going to get red ones, like Delia's, so that's good. I think she's about the age I was when I got my first pair. I told her the best part was, she'll see the leaves on the tallest trees. I remember that.
The commuter train was very crowded going up; a kid about 5 sat across from us, and did his best not to kick me. He was processing the fact that he'd seen a man get very angry on the subway, and kept asking his mother about it - approaching the event from lots of different angles with great curiosity and intelligence. His very sensible mother kept reinforcing the lesson that first you think with your head, then you speak, and then you act. But our favorite line of his, which Delia scribbled down, bless her, was:
I have a head for two things: thinking [wait for it!] and head-butting. (He is, however, trying to get over the head-butting. Or so he claims.)
We were carrying the peacock puppet up to the bookstore, and when Delia took it out to work on it he was fascinated. He's never seen an actual peacock, but we talked about it, and then he pulled his yellow nylon jacket up behind himself to make a fanned tail. "You're a peacock!" I said, and he looked at me and asked, "How do I talk?"
I don't know his name and I'll never see him again . . . but he'll be Something.
Tomorrow I sign books at the NCTE at the (bleaghhh!) Javits Center at 1 p.m., and Saturday there's an author's lunch; then I pick up the rental car and we drive up to Northampton to sleep before my show at the National Yiddish Book Center on Sunday at 2 p.m. I'll be joined onstage by Brian Bender of Little Shop of Horas - please come if you're near Amherst!
The commuter train was very crowded going up; a kid about 5 sat across from us, and did his best not to kick me. He was processing the fact that he'd seen a man get very angry on the subway, and kept asking his mother about it - approaching the event from lots of different angles with great curiosity and intelligence. His very sensible mother kept reinforcing the lesson that first you think with your head, then you speak, and then you act. But our favorite line of his, which Delia scribbled down, bless her, was:
I have a head for two things: thinking [wait for it!] and head-butting. (He is, however, trying to get over the head-butting. Or so he claims.)
We were carrying the peacock puppet up to the bookstore, and when Delia took it out to work on it he was fascinated. He's never seen an actual peacock, but we talked about it, and then he pulled his yellow nylon jacket up behind himself to make a fanned tail. "You're a peacock!" I said, and he looked at me and asked, "How do I talk?"
I don't know his name and I'll never see him again . . . but he'll be Something.
Tomorrow I sign books at the NCTE at the (bleaghhh!) Javits Center at 1 p.m., and Saturday there's an author's lunch; then I pick up the rental car and we drive up to Northampton to sleep before my show at the National Yiddish Book Center on Sunday at 2 p.m. I'll be joined onstage by Brian Bender of Little Shop of Horas - please come if you're near Amherst!
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Date: 2007-11-16 06:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-16 12:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-16 03:14 pm (UTC)Oh, my, yes. That is the precise memory that I have from the first time I put my glasses on.
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Date: 2007-11-16 03:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-17 03:53 am (UTC)said,
"(Ellen Kushner would be my evil twin, only she's a girl, we're not related, and I strongly suspect that if either of the two of us is evil, then it's me.)
Which also, tickles me...
Hope you and Delia are doing well. Sounds like it. We should do a Peacock Mask for you as well....
As for those kiddies, I always remind my Bubble Faeries (http://oddiments.com/Photo-Gallery/album20) whom work for us at the Maryland Renaissance Festival (http://www.rennfest.com/), (Delightful young ladies, we hire up a crop of them every few years, raise 'em to maturity to send them off to art/film/etc. school) to always be careful of your interactions with kids at the festival. For you may not remember every kid you meet, but you may be the one thing that kid remembers from their trip.
Leaves on the trees
Date: 2007-11-17 02:23 pm (UTC)And heartfelt thanks to Ellen and Delia and the amazing Metropolitan Klezmer for an absolutely magical event at our store!
Francine
The Voracious Reader ... for young people with an appetite for books
www.thevoraciousreader.com
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Date: 2007-11-17 11:37 pm (UTC)The answer to how peacocks talk involves loud and human-sounding screams, which are particularly disconcerting in the middle of the night in a strange city. The main London youth hostel (http://www.travelstay.com/pages/YHALondon-HollandHouse.htm) is in the middle of Holland Park, and the peacocks cry at midnight. And 1 am. And random other times throughout the night. Also a STRONG memory.