My Entry in the Scary Story Slam

Last night, I went to the McNally Jackson Literary Halloween Party. McNally Jackson, an independent bookstore on Prince Street, used to be McNally Robinson but now it's McNally Jackson. Don't ask me. I just go to events there.

Stuart was signing a graphic novel he'd worked on, but also reading from his new book, which is not only unreleased, it isn't even written yet. This I have to see. But to see it, I was required to first eat a lot of candy and second sit through the Scary Story Slam, which was all over the map from genuinely creepy to WTF, Hello?

"You should tell a story," whispered Stuart.

"I don't have any creepy stories," I said. And then of course I thought of one at the very end after I saw that my creepy story was no less creepy than anyone else's, but it was too late to join the Scary Story Slam. Maybe next year. But I'll tell you now.

The year was 1983. The place: Washington, DC. 930 F Street NW. My sister and I, for reasons I no longer remember because we didn't know much about the UK Subs plus it was a weeknight and I should probably have been more interested in homework at this point, decided to go to the 930 Club to see the UK Subs perform. We walked up to the ticket window to discover that the early show was sold out. But there were still tickets for the later show.

"Should we go then?"

While we were waffling, a quartet of guys walked up. My sister knew them, though I'd never seen them before and no longer remember what they looked like. They asked us a question.

"Hey, you guys wanna go out in the alley and kill some rats?"

I imagine them winking when they said this, because it sounded like a euphemism. I don't know what we expected to find in the alley, but the last thing we expected was that they had been sincere.

In the alley behind the 930 Club (since moved), the guys each picked up bottles. Remember that this was before gentrification altered our urban centers, before cityscapes went from gritty to Gappy.

One guy found a large stick. He picked it up, and used it to poke a pile of trash.

The rats streamed out.

The guys threw bottles. At the rats. My sister and I stared, frozen, mouths open. A single bulb lit the alley, creating dramatic shadows as the rats fled.

We continued to stare as one rat was hit squarely. It wavered, then ran straight at us. Suddenly aware that there was a skanky trashpile rat bearing down on us, my sister and I both leapt into the air.

The rat stopped and died right under us. I still imagine the tangle of our legs as we both instinctively tried NOT to land on the rat, but gravity will not be ignored.

We fell down right on the dead rat.

We both scrambled right up and leapt away from it, staring back in curiosity and surprise.

Ewwwww, I thought. I felt itchy, gross, dirty. I was wearing a vintage plaid blue coat from Village Thrift. I'd never wear it again after that night.

I went straight to the Metro and went home to take a very long, hot shower. I don't know if I explained what had happened to my mother, or thought it best left unmentioned.

My sister shrugged and went to the late show of the UK Subs.

I Didn't Think Anyone Would Notice

Tim Leffel, writer of "The World's Cheapest Destinations" and editor of PerceptiveTravel.com, gave my 3-D children's atlas a plug on his blog. And Warren (for comic book fans, he needs no explanation) did last week. I am lucky to know so many supportive writers.

Up and Away

I forced my part-time assistant, Michael Kraiger, to read 40 issues of "Superman Adventures" to see what was appropriate to reprint in the Middle East.

He wandered into my office about an hour into the project.

"Is this offensive?"

In issue #11, Superman is lifting up a rescue boat to the burning oil rig so the workers can jump on. He speaks.

"You know what they say...if you can't bring Mohammed to the mountain..."

I stared blankly at Kraiger, having no idea if that was offensive. Clever use of the phrase but offensive? Maybe...maybe not...what's the worst that could happen if it IS offensive? Oh you know, angry people, me getting fired, my company getting in trouble.

"It's just in the lettering? Not in the art?" Where the hell did that phrase come from?

"Yeah."

"Send a note for the translator to change the words." Don't risk it. Take it out.

Unsolicited Advice

You know those frequent flyer miles you have that have been piling up?

A piece of unsolicited advice here. Quit hoarding and use 'em.

Why? Because they are becoming increasingly harder to use, less valuable, and it isn't going to get better for the consumer, only worse. US-airlines are in trouble, have been in trouble for some time, and as they run fewer flights and increase restrictions, it's becoming tougher to get free seats.

It's still possible to get the free seats at the moment, but you have to plan way ahead, or choose a destination that no one wants to go to or that has dozens of daily flights.

I still have over 130,000 Continental miles that I am sitting on, waiting for the day I can take another Round-the-World trip, so I am as guilty of hoarding as the next person. But I am also using miles at a rapid pace. Earlier this year, I was able to go to Bogota, Colombia on Continental miles over Spring Break (not a destination with a lot of demand) and in June, I went to Las Vegas (dozens of flights) with American, to access my Grand Canyon rafting trip. I've also booked a winter trip to Lima, Peru on my American miles. From there, I had to buy a LAN South America Airpass to get to La Paz, Bolivia and back via Lake Titicaca and Cuzco, but that was a great deal at $381. It cost more to fly directly from Lima to La Paz. A lot more.

So why do I think you should use your miles if I myself am hoarding? I predict higher minimums for each destination, fewer seats, and additional fees being added on, which will eventually make using miles no deal at all. It's not even a prediction, really, at this point. It's a given. I'm not saying anything that isn't already on paper. If you are planning on traveling on miles next year, go ahead and book now, so that you don't get hit by any of the new fees or rules that traditionally happen at the end of the year.

I'm still hoarding my RTW ticket, true. But I am also keeping an eye on continuing to accumulate in that account. Because my assumption is that by the time I'm ready to use that ticket, it's going to take a lot more miles to do it than it does now.

Scraps of Monday

Today, I went into a trimmings store in the Garment District, and discovered an entire section dedicated to elastic bra straps. No kidding.

They have to sell bra straps somewhere, I guess.

Plus, I finished some overdue homework for the book review section of the writing workshop I am in. Is it cheating that I reviewed a graphic novel? One about travel?

And in the magazine workshop, the Times editor/teacher okayed me to write about cultural misunderstandings that occur in the production of comic books. Now I just have to do that without getting into trouble with my employers or with certain regions of the world.

Finally, the same teacher had us review an idea memo for a story that the Times had published about gray squirrels pushing out red squirrels in the UK. I doodled out my own illustration, and was disappointed when I heard that they'd just gone with a simple red squirrel photo.

From the Archives

Warren has been talking about Daniel J over on his site. He's linked to an embedded video there from Daniel's "white" period (something about angels and devils). I know this time as 1988-89, but who knows, maybe it continued for years afterwards.

Sorry if my mp4s don't play nicely with your PCs, and sorry 'bout the quality. I copied this off a 21-year-old VHS tape onto a tiny digital video tape and then brought it into my computer, and didn't make it bigger on purpose so that when this gets swiped and put up on YouTube, I'll still have the better material.

I don't have a good way yet of digitizing old footage. Anyway, I have the originals backed up onto Betacam. Maybe one day, I'll come across a way to import it from there.

Here's a little song for you to start your day with. If I weren't so lazy, I'd digitize my version of "D0n't Play Cards With Satan," but I have to go write an overdue **&%^% stupid book review for *&^%$% stupid book review class, which is part of a writing workshop I am taking.

Skirt Class: Part Two

I love sewing class.

Which is weird. I never was that excited about that sort of thing before. But Denise and I are already planning on taking the dress class and the apron class. And Roberta has agreed to go to knitting school with us. We're going to knit scarves.

If I can get Michael Kraiger to go to knitting school with us, then I'll know I have arrived.

In Class #2 at Flirt Brooklyn's Gowanus studio today, we pinned our patterns down to our fabric, lining things up neatly on the fold. We cut the patterns, then snipped the spots where the darts would go and marked the far end of them. We wrote "FRONT" and "BACK" on the pieces on tape. We snipped the centers, removed the patterns, and then moved to the machines.

On the machines, we reinforced the curve shapes at the top of the skirts, sewed the darts, sewed the left sides together and zip-zag stitched the edges. We ironed the edges flat and sewed in our zippers.

Which worked just fine. We were both pretty zonked though when we left, but not too tired to eat lunch and look at the Flirt boutique a few blocks away.

One more class left next Saturday. Then maybe it's time to make another skirt on my own, to try to remember all the steps.

Remnant of the Past

When I first moved to JC in 1988, a six-year crusade was just beginning.

The ornate Loew's Theater, a luxurious "movie palace" built in 1929, was scheduled for demolition. A grassroots citizen movement saved the cinema, which was renovated for years, long after I left JC for the East Village. (Meanwhile, the Majestic Theater around the corner from me downtown was lost. Now it's condos.)

By the time I returned to JC in...well, it's complicated because I kept leaving again but let's say 2002, the Loew's Theater was used for movies, concerts, and events. Lots of time it just sits there, out of place amidst the butt-ugly urban transit center known as Journal Square.

I'd never been there before last night, but the Landmark Loew's Theater is incredible. It made me want to be able to brag like my friend Pete can, about seeing Star Wars there as a kid. I wished I'd been part of the movement to help save it.

Remember When It All Sucked?

New York has really changed over the last decade, but lately, it seems like old Manhattan is starting to peek through as the city frays around the edges. It feels like there are more homeless begging for change on the subway, more kids busking, and a little more hustling going around us. Maybe this is just an illusion that comes along with a downturn in the economy.

Old New York burst through in front of me on Broadway today. Pedestrians were waiting for the walk signal, pushing inch by inch into the street as they impatiently waited for the signal to change. One middle-aged businessman made a break for it, briskly walking across the street against traffic, and then he sped up as a bike messenger bore down on him.

"RUN, YOU F*CKING FAGGOT!" The bike messenger was definitely not a recent transplant from the 'burbs.

The Atlas is Here

There's even a photo of the author (that's me) and a penguin on page 2.