Bret Easton Ellis Reading

There was a Bret Easton Ellis reading and book signing last night at the Elliot Bay Book Company and, after a leisurely meal at Oddfellows Cafe, which is next door, Jaime and I joined the crowd in the bookstore's basement. The host said it was the largest turnout they'd had for a reading in their new space, but most of the crowd didn't show up until right before the reading began, so we found seats in the second row (we were seated just beyond the guy in the lower left with the receding hairline).

BEE read briefly, then there was about a half an hour of Q&A (neither of us Q'ed). After the first rambling question, which began with "You probably don't remember me"* and just went on and on, BEE made a couple of artful attempts to re-state the question, surrendered to the apparent ridiculousness and wrapped up his answer with "... just (pause), get over it." That got the audience laughing, although the questions didn't get much better after that. The highlight of the night was the insight he gave into the tripartite inspirations for American Psycho**.

If you haven't been to a reading/signing, it is kind of a tense*** experience, in that there are always a few people in the audience that you can tell are creepily-earnest fans, which can be distracting. On the other hand, if you have any sort of nerdish tendencies it is a great place to go and show your girlfriend that compared to at least one demographic you are more like a post-coital Steve McQueen in terms of "cool".

After the reading and Q&A, there was the signing. There were Post-It notes available for you to put in the front of your book with your name spelled correctly, in case you wanted the book personalized. I opted out, but Jaime filled one out and stuck it to her book. When we went up to get our books signed, BEE directed the conversation at my companion, mostly.

When BEE asked her if she wanted the book personalized, she said "no, that's ok."

"Oh, I just saw the stickie in your hand," he said.

"Yeah," she replied, in her typical casual, affectless manner, "I just wanted to keep my options open."

To summarize, for those just joining us: life imitates art.

* I suspect people who say this frequently are, in fact, remembered less frequently by others - whether it's causative or correlated is another matter.

** Stated briefly: frustration with the realities of growing up (i.e. reaching late 20s), the unexpected results of following a bunch of Wall Street guys around and one particular person who, in a moment of revelation, seemed to BEE to be a serial killer. There's more to say about this, but I won't for now.

***In my experience; which is to say, in a life already pretty well-provisioned with tension.