I got to Modern Times a little late and Dodie was already reading at the podium. She shot me a wink-smile-hello that made my whole night. The author was wearing a clingy pink floral dress and black tights. At the podium next to her were a dozen pale pink roses, edged in a darker shade of pink, and at the food table in the back, bottles of pink French lemonade, pink napkins and pink paul frank monkey face plates. She was reading from some hallucinations, I think (my copy of the book is, as always, separated from me right now and so I can’t quote) then that great piece on nerds – how they’re far more subversive than any fashionable underground art crowd. It’s a sweet and funny tribute to geek dancing, out of shape bodies, freedom: nerd sex (is enthusiastic and grateful.)

She took a break so that those of us who arrived late could sit down, and I got a chair in the front row, which must have been the poet’s corner because there were Cedar Sigo, Julia Bloch and Stephanie Mazow. I think the only other poets in attendance were Kevin Killian and Eleni Stecopoulos. But it was a full room, lots of attractive hip young people who, I thought to myself, must write fiction or just love Dodie’s non-fiction/fiction/poetry or who are poets I don’t know yet.

After we were seated, she read from the online diary she kept for Democracy: The Last Campaign, a web project that documented the Bush / Gore presidential campaign in 2000. You can find the diary if you click around the above link and through the pop-ups, it’s a good place to wander around for a while even if you get lost. So it was very much like an edited blog, therefore a total pleasure to hear. Can you imagine if Dodie kept a regular blog? I’d have a way worse problem than my current addiction to That TV Show on DVD. The diary was also timely and creepy as we head into a democratic convention already electric with the post September 11 homeland security pageant that IS the new black of American political anything. It was also funny and charming, like when she writes about Libby Dole: “Laura Bush seems like a nice middle class lady. I miss Libby Dole, her vulgarity, her pizzazz, her bright yellow suit. I predict that this evening when she appears, we’ll be greeted with a toned-down Libby, a Libby so bland she might as well be a Democrat. “ And then it was over, Dodie was done reading far before I reached my ability-to-listen-limit. My fault for being late.

The book itself looks really good. That hot pink and yellow cover design, so reminiscent of the 80’s, is paired with a heavy matte paper that is its ideal compliment. The publishers of Suspect Thoughts couldn’t be, really, any nicer. I had thought to head over to New Langton for the Book Arts reading and show but was tired and took myself home. Anybody have a report on that event for me?

June 30, 2004 * 4:31 pm

June 30, 2004 * 10:53 am

June 29, 2004 * 5:01 pm

June 29, 2004 * 4:57 pm

Bay Area Poetry Marathon installment 2: report

June 29, 2004 * 4:05 pm

June 29, 2004 * 11:56 am

June 28, 2004 * 4:35 pm

June 28, 2004 * 2:29 pm

June 28, 2004 * 12:45 pm

June 28, 2004 * 12:42 pm

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