Went to see Clive Barker at Dark Delicacies last night. Like the other event I went to at Dark Delicacies, this “signing” turned out to be literally just that — a signing. No reading. No Q&A. It was kind of fun just seeing Barker in the flesh, as it were, but otherwise it was pretty much a complete waste of time. (And given L.A. traffic, getting there and back took about two hours.) I don’t understand why anyone would purposely set up or attend an author event that didn’t include a reading and Q&A. If I knew ahead of time that the event was going to just consist of people arriving, standing in line, having their books signed, buying them, and leaving, I wouldn’t even bother to show up if Shakespeare was making a personal appearance. Though I guess some people get more excited than I do about having books signed. I think I had a book signed once and was like, “That was nice, I guess,” and haven’t bothered since.
Afterward, I stopped by a Subway and ordered a seafood & crab. The girl was like, “We don’t have any. Sorry.” As a hardcore seafood & crab partisan, I know that they often run out, particularly late at night, but this was like the third time in a row this had happened to me. An awful suspicion seized me. I scanned the menu in vain. I asked, “Are you just out, or do you not sell it anymore?” She said, “We don’t sell it anymore. At any Subway.” I asked, “Why not?” and she said, “Not enough people were buying it.” Having bought approximately 12 billion seafood & crab sandwiches since 1996, I said, “Well, I did my part,” and she laughed. She said, “Yeah, we had certain people who came in and all they ever ordered was seafood & crab. Since we stopped selling it, they’ve never come back.” I am likely to be one of those people. The taste of my substitute Italian BMT was bitter in my mouth. What a tragedy. I have no words for this, so I must turn to a bugger more eloquent than I, W.H. Auden.
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever; I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood,
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
…
Seafood & Crab, 2005, R.I.P.
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