Christopher Moore's Blog

So, I found out that Dick Morris is going to be doing a signing at Books and Books here in Miami right before I am….

Hmmm, interesting double feature — like Hellraiser V: Sharp Pointy Things Stuck in Your Eyes, and Tickle Me Elmo: The Movie!.

Then Suetu writes me to tell me the Bill Clinton has an event in San Francisco the same day that I do. At least it won’t be at the same store.

Anyway, I’ll let you know how things go tonight. I don’t even know if Dick Morris is a conservative or a liberal. More a pragmatist, I think.

Chicago Institute of Art You were thinking maybe weapons of mass distraction pics? I don’t know how to zoom out from these. By the way, I don’t know these people in the picture, it was just a happy accident. I have a print of a picture called, “Thinking about Pollack” that a friend of mine painted, and I wanted to get a shot of someone doing just that.

Chicago

Well, I’m Miami, but Chicago the last two days – great city!

My first event was at Barbara’s in OakPark, where on one street you can see eight of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Prairie Style homes – including his own, personal residence. Thirty-eight Wright homes altogether, all from my favorite period of his work – great squatting monster houses with big overhangs and leaded glass windows that must have sent glass-cutters to the loony bin with their complex designs.

A smallish crowd at the event, but everyone there had read most all of the books, so it was like hanging with people you know, rather than talking to strangers. Face it, if you’ve read seven of my books, you’ve spent a lot of time in my head, and if you still like the ideas, then you’re probably the sort of person that I’d like too.

I went to the Chicago institute of Art yesterday. Exhibits span from the earliest Egyptian funereal objects to modern furniture design, and everything in between. A great collection with especially deep collections of Chinese art.

They had perhaps five Magritte’s, on of my favorite painters, as well as Miro I actually liked. (I know it sounds unsophisticated, but Miro’s stuff always looks empty to me. This one had some substance beyond the surrealistic symbols.)

After looking at all of the religious art from India and Indonesia and reading the captions, trying to absorb the passion that each of these ancient artists put into his work, I had to sit down and think. So I went into the café. There, about twenty feet away, sat an old woman, eating her lunch. I watched her eat, after having my head pried open by five-thousand years of spiritual art, and this is what I wrote in my notebook:

Eating Meatloaf and Asparagus at the Chicago Institute of Art

She eats slowly As if every bite contains nitroglycerine; Or is it all that time Spent sitting in front of paintings Absorbing cultures Has made her meatloaf Into Art? And now At age seventy-six Letting one more chance To obtain beauty Slip by Would kill her

To digest the whole of human culture In one afternoon And fear death by exploding meatloaf…

Her fear of irony Should be added to the collection Of religious artifacts

So there you go. Don’t be surprised if the meatloaf lady pops up in the next book. This answers the question: “Where do you get your ideas?”

The event in Skokie was very pleasant — perhaps 45 people, but all faithful readers, a couple of guys who drove in from Akron/Kent/Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio (towns in Ohio are pretty close together) for a second time, having driven to Chicago in a snow storm two years ago to hear me talk about Lamb in front of a Unity Church congregation. Diana from the board (AKA: SmartFunnyFem) also came back, after having been thrown by the wrong address on the Harper-Collins web site. There were also a bunch of booksellers from other stores who showed up to say hi, which always makes one feel good.

Besides an incident at a Borders, where an officious manager-type carded me before he would let me sign books – a first in fourteen years of doing this (I left at that point)—Chicago was a great experience.

It’s about 90 degrees in Miami with about ninety percent humidity. Ah, like autumn at home.

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Harper Collins published the wrong address for the book store in Chicago where my event was tonight — and so I cut and pasted the wrong address and sent it to you guys in my tour spam.

I’m so sorry. If anyone came out to go to the event and couldn’t find it, please e-mail me at BSFiends@aol.com.

Tomorrow night June 18th)I’m in Skokie, which isn’t that far from Chicago. Make up test?

Your frequent poster, I8tokyo, in the flesh, presenting an imaginary check to the AG. All the St. Louis and Kansas City pics are up now kids.

I should have known, when Rush Limbaugh was going off about abstenence on the radio of the car that picked me up at the hotel at 6:00am…

So then, as I was going through the metal detector, it beeped, so I gave them my belt.

Then, as I came through again, the fat fuck guard was crowding the exit, so I stepped to the side, so the zipper on the thigh of my cargos hit the detector, so it went off. Two strikes, you go to the feel-up zone.

So they wanded me, and it was okay, of course, the wand guy baffled how I’d set the thing off in the first place, and me not wanting to do the fat fuck explanation in front of the fat fuck, so I went and tried to put my suitcase back together. It took me 15 minutes to get it closed again (you pack pretty tightly to get through a month with one carry-on bag.). So in the process, my new flannel shirt was lost.

Then the cattle call to Southwest, where I was able to read an interview with Chuck Palahniuk in the in flight, him talking about having 1100 people at his signing in Las Vegas (and much as I enjoy Chuck’s books, I imagined him blowing a porcupine in front of 1100 people) — then, a fifty-dollar cab ride to the hotel, who lost my reservation, then put me in a smoking room that smells like an ashtray, then the phone didn’t work, then the internet, then — and I’m not kidding — the elevator.

So, all that stuff settled, I decided to catch a nap, and the sky opened up. Within 20 minutes the street in front of the hotel was running with two feet of water, and the thunder was going off like artillery.

Four in the afternoon and in a holding pattern now, waiting to see what the weather does before the signing tonight at (again, I’m not kidding) Rainy Day Books.

And just so this doesn’t turn completely into a travel whine — I’m a little worried about Kurt, the Klingon assassin who is following me through the Midwest. I hope he’s okay. It was really raining.

Oh yeah, on the bright side, there’s a Snicker’s Bar the size of a skateboard in the mini-bar, and only $9.00. Choco-nougat disco party tonight in the smoking room!

And everyone in St. Louis was very pleasant, even the assistant principal, who I admit, brought out some pre-set predjudices in my nature that I need to look at at some point.

Until I get a chance to get all the pictures up and blog you guys, here’s a shot of me sweating on Lib from the board last night in St. Louis.

Okay, I’ve ranted about no gravity and twenty-minute-long fight scenes that get boring, but I had to see Riddick because I loved Pitch Black.

If you like seeing ass-kicked, gravelly-voiced bad-asses. and aren’t particularly interested in continutity of plot, Riddick is your man. Also helps if you like the color pewter (is pewter a color?). Everything except Vin Diesle is pewter in this movie, which is okay, because it helps to pick him out of the background, sort of like that little girl in the red coat in Schindler’s List, except, you know, that Vin could probably kick her ass, but otherwise, pretty pewter.

People applauded when it was over. That’s a first this year. (And they weren’t applauding because it was over.)

No love story to mess up the action, gravity applies, Vin does not, will not, absolutely refuses to eat a lozenge to smooth out his throat, therefore he paralelles Olivier in his perfomance (and there is no doubt that Vin could also kick Olivier’s ass, even if Sir Lawrence was all Gothed-out in Hamlet-wear and brow-furrowing like a mother-fucker[and alive’ target=’_blank’>. Riddick trumps Heathcliff every time. Two kinds of heroic silence: brooding, and plotting your violent death. Riddick does not brood.)

Okay, maybe I’m over-reacting after Van Helsing, and The Day AFter Tomorrow but if you liked Pitch Black and T2, you’ll like Riddick.

My only complaint is that the fight scenes are shot a little tight, so at times you have to just take it on faith that Vin is the one who is kicking ass. (Spoiler: He is.)

I should be looking for flights so I don’t have to spend 18 hours to get home at the end of the month, but instead I’m going to share the high ponits of the last couple of days with you guys.

Well, for one, I wasted a good amount of time waiting for the fuckers to show up to drive a stake through Ronnie’s heart, but evidently they forgot. Have these people never been to a movie? Evil will rise again, as surely as the pyscho-killer is never dead on the first shot, as sure as the Terminator is not going to fall to a butt-load of cop gunfire, as sure as the day will follow the night, evil will rise again. You fools!

But, that said, I still think Patti Davis is kind of hot and if I were not blessed to be involved with an extraordinary woman, I would have offered to do her right there in front of the honor guard. You know, not to take advantage of her grief — jeeze, I’d have bought her some drinks first. I can’t believe you guys would even think that.

So, I went to see Patton Oswald at Cobb’s comedy club last night. He’s the sort of small, oval guy from King of Queens, and perhaps the most cynical and bitter little guy I’ve ever witnessed — so, of course, the show was great. Except for the forty minutes or so that he absolutely savaged two bachorette parties that made the mistake of identifying themselves. I mean savaged, which got a little uncomfortable when they started sniveling and stuff. It was kind of fun to watch. The high points of the show were the list of things he would vote for before voting for George Bush, which included: four years of unlubricated anal rape, shitting your pants with rotten south of the border tequila shit every time you blink your eyes for four years, or, you know, John Kerry. He also did a great riff on the reason to vote for George Bush, which was because it would be the quickest way to bring about the Apocalypse, and if you died in the Apocalpyse, you would have all kinds of bragging rights in Heaven over all then people who had died in bus accidents or from heart attacks. Couple of the particularly compelling signs of the apocalypse that Patton described were that menstrual blood would erupt from the earth and form the image of Avril Lavigne’s face in the sky, and the words from the screenplay for Good Will Hunting would turn into razors, fly off the page, and flay the flesh from your bones.

So it was pretty light-hearted and everyone seemed to enjoy the show, except for the dozen or so bachlorette party people, who I believe all threw themself under a cable car outside the club.

Then we went thrift-store shopping. By we, I mean my friend Jill Knight and her girlfriend Joanna. (I’ve written songs with Jill, check out her music at JillKnight.com.) Jill lives in the city, so she decided to take us down this alley in the Mission District which is lined with colorful murals done by local artists and art students. It was also lined by human excrement and populated by people buying and selling crack. “See that,” Jill said. “That was a crack deal back there!” Like she was pointing out a crested mallard on a bird-watching tour. (The crack-head is often found in alleyways and on streetcorners, where he will be stuffing vials into his socks and wondering if he can sell his last two teeth to someone for a modest rock.) Joanna and I had the full-blown willies by the time we got back out on a decent-sized street again.

“Why did you take us down there?” Joanna asked. “I thought you guys would enjoy the art,” Jill said, oblivious. Picture Jill the real embodiment of Peppermint Patty. It works, even for her. “You didn’t need to show me the crack house at pooh corner too,” I exhorted.

We laughed and laughed, then I mourned not being able to buy a twelve-foot tall paper mache’ parrot to hang in my kitchen from the next thrift store we visited. (Problem, it is, living on an island some times.)

So, other than that, not so much. I turned on C-span late one night to see Jon Stewart giving the commencement speech at William and Mary. As usual, he was great. The high point? “Most of you will probably not be fortunate enough to wander around in an alcoholic haze until you’re forty, then decide to become president.”

I actually applauded in my hotel room.

I’m off to St. Louis in the morning. Meanwhile, I’ll be out there, looking out for you guys, eating nine dollar M&Ms out of the mini-bar, with warm thoughts of all of you (because they won’t melt in the presence of warm thoughts, that’s why).

In San Francisco for a couple of days researching the new book. I’m reluctant to say much about that, as I don’t want to give away anything that might not actually end up in the book, as at this point, it’s all fair game.

This is an astoundingly beautiful city. This morning I rode the cable car up California street from Market Street to Van Ness, which takes you right over Nob Hill through China Town and North Beach. There was an amazing view at every intersection, and the Bay Bridge peaking over your shoulder the whole way.

Like many cities, there are neighborhoods here where you don’t want to be when the sun goes down, and some seem scarier to me than they probably actually are because I’m not accustomed to city life, but there is no end to the goofy shit this city has to offer. Yesterday I saw a guy talking to an orange. Later I went into Sharper Image where three old Chinese ladies were sitting in a row of multi-colored massage chairs, eyes closed, looking at once like three Buddahs blissed out under the vibrating Bodhi tree — well, except for the handbags they had clutched white-knuckled to their chests. I watched a homeless couple have a huge arguement in the park, with him dragging her off a bench to come lay on the ground with him (evidently it was a good spot, although I couldn’t tell you why) then her stomping off, then him following her, making all kinds of apologetic gestures (I was too far away to hear them) and I wondered, “Is it a domestic dispute if there is no domicile? And if things get better, and they get a place with a couch, will she make him sleep on it?

Then there was this store in the Mission district next to 826 Valencia, which is Dave Eggers’ Pirate Supply store, which features dead animal art. I particularly liked the dead mice dressed in tutus. I think this place is going to make it into the book. Three doors down from there is Borderlands, a Sci-Fi bookstore. I stopped in to say hi to Ripley the hairless cat, but she was hiding because they had put drops in her ears and she felt betrayed, so I said hi to Carry, the events dirctor at Borderlands who is more talkative than Ripley and has more hair. I’m not sure how her ears are doing, but she always carries a number of large, edged weapons, so if you need a CD opened or something, Carry is your woman.

I bought a sweatshirt at a thrift store for six bucks (because I’m climatized to Hawaii and I’m freezing my ass off here, that’s why) then took the 47 bus out of the Mission District before it got dark. One of the problems with everyone dressing like gang-bangers is that everyone dresses like gang-bangers. I’m not going to do a survey to find out if they need to bust a nine in my old white ass in order to get their gang ink. KnowwhatI’msayin?

There’s a restaurant by my hotel that serves Chinese food, has high-speed wireless internet, and will go get you movie tickets at the cineplex next door while you eat. And check it out, $15.95, movie included. I saw The Day After Tomorrow, which was pretty far fetch because the Dick Cheney character actually admits that he made a mistake at the end, and Harry Potter and Prisoner of Akaban, which was fun. I’m not the Harry Potter fan that a lot of you guys are, but I would like to have my house decorated in Hogwarts Modern. The movie looked really, really cool. This is the first one I’ve seen on the big screen and I have to admit that it made a difference. That said, it’s sort of long and scary for little kids. I’m not sure I’d take a little kid to see it.

I’m in the city for five more days. I’ll report in soon.