Last Friday night had the reading in Birmingham. It went well, was a lot of fun. Thanks to Todd Dills for having me and Blake and all the other readers. Todd seems like a cool guy. I bought his book
Sons of the Rapture, which I'm looking forward to reading. The book is beautiful,
and from
Featherproof Books, and that makes me excited thinking about how Blake's book will look.
Birmingham is an interesting town. It's impressive, in its size and development, for a city that's only 130 years old. The downtown area's clean, and dotted with turn-of-the-20th-century--along with more modern--skyscrapers. It was strange how deserted the downtown was, though. It reminded me of Macon--and it's probably like many American cities--in that, most likely, downtown is hopping during the work hours of the work week, as it's completely business-oriented. But after 5PM and on the weekends, it's a ghost town. I'll pat myself on the back for that metaphor. After the reading, Sarah, Blake and I hadn't eaten anything, and we had to drive out to the suburbs to find an open restaurant. But the reading itself took place at
Green Cup Books, this great used bookstore in downtown Birmingham. They had an area for bands to play, and an upstairs, where the reading took place. They were selling beer. I wish, if we hadn't been so tired, we could've stayed for longer and checked out the bands and maybe bought a book.
Sarah and I stayed at the Redmont Hotel, an old place that's been renovated, so it was very nice. We saw the Civil Rights Instute exhibit, and walked through the park so sadly made famous by the video footage of firehoses knocking down protesters and police dogs attacking teenagers during the 60s. The park now has a civil rights walk, with plaques and statues commemorating all those who died, were beaten, and struggled through that era. It was surreal to be there. While we were walking there from the hotel we passed about seven thousand barbershops. Two men were talking in front of one, and one man who was clearly waxing political, as we approched pointed at us and said "These white folks ain't going to help. Well, who knows, maybe
those white folks would help. But most white folks ain't." Sarah and I smiled and kind of laughed, and the other man--who was listening to the guy who said this--smiled kind of apologetically at us and laughed too. So, obviously, although there are no longer signs on businesses telling certain people they cannot patronize the establishment--and although recent political strides would make it seem that we're on the road towards reconciliation and greater equality--it's not true for
everyone. Of course, you'd probably have to be an idiot to think that we actually all are equal.
Anyway, on the way back to Atlanta we stopped at Golden Rule BBQ, where there were many Auburn and Bama fans shouting at the television. Two guys sitting behind us, one of them wearig a GA Dawgs hat, were harrassing our waitress. They kept saying, "Smile, baby. Come over here and talk to us."
