Ann Arbor Book Festival

I volunteered last year at the Street Fair for the Ann Arbor Book Festival. It rained all day, and I have never been so wet outside of a bathing suit in my entire life (well, except maybe for that time on the Snake River Falls ride at Cedar Point).

This year I did NOT volunteer, and it was gorgeous and sunny. I hope there's not some sort of karmic connection there. Not volunteering also gave me more time to enjoy the activities. At the Emerging Genres panel discussion, I appreciated author Ander Monson's (long hair, beard, in photo above) self-deprecating humor. He has published a book of essays called Neck Deep and Other Predicaments. He writes short essays because it's an appropriate medium for the mundane things that happen in his life. "Memoirs," he said, "are for authors who have really bad stuff happen to them. Nothing really that bad has happened to me. Well, except for that time that I got arrested." Ander might want to also try blogging.

There was an "open mic" for story and poetry reading in the Literacy Pavilion, and Kathlynn Sullivan (photo at right) from Ann Arbor Open school was among the brave students to read a sample of her work. She did a great job, and I enjoyed her poem. On the other hand, I didn't particularly enjoy the work of Kevin Pilkington, in the Poetry Pavilion sponsored by WEMU radio. I found his poetry to be hard-hearted, and one piece vaguely misogynistic.

As usual at this sort of event, CTN was there videotaping comments. A different twist was that radio personality Lucy Ann Lance was in the booth, asking folks to name the favorite book they've read this year. Young Jarvis seemed a little daunted, whether by the camera or Lucy Ann's vibrant personality, it was hard to tell. His favorite book was Artemis Fowl. (My favorite book this year, by the way, was John Adams by David McCullough.)

I don't know about you, but I've been in a near constant state of irritation since January 20, 2001. And the dismissal of the U.S. attorneys (including Michigan's Margaret Chiara) has really pushed me over the edge. So I've been considering becoming more politically active, maybe joining the local Democratic Party. But in Ann Arbor, being a member of the Democratic Party is kind of like having AAA car insurance– everybody does it. So I stopped by the ACLU booth and joined up. Josh Kay, the Grand Poobah for the ACLU's Washtenaw Branch, said the magic words, "you can staff our booth at Art Fair, and get into some really interesting arguments." Sounds like fun to me!