More Poetry and Performance

The days after Christmas have their own unique quality: people sit around reading all day, or get back online, or head down to Half Price Books to take advantage of the 20% off sale (sorry, it ended Friday). I think I got three books there and a much larger stack (mainly items like The Weimar Republic Sourcebook) at Moe's. The invitees to the Revenge of the Holiday Ham party have been eagerly checking out the photos, and Cesar tells me that the email response has been gratifying (it never, of course, occurs to anyone to put their remarks in the blog comments). Orion and Ms. Spots have eaten quite a few beet greens, although they prefer carrots and parsley.
Since, however, the holiday season continues, there have been further opportunities to go out and get into mischief. Cesar tried to get me to go to an afternoon poetry-reading party held by one of his associates, but I was a bit tired and unpoetic, so I passed on that one although I gather it went very well. We did go to a similar event at Eileen Malone's last night, though. Eileen and I know each other from the National Writers Union, and she and Cesar have been in the same poetry group for the past year or so. Eileen has a lot of experience hosting arts events and readings, and each year around this time she invites friends to a holiday party where people can present a little bit of their work after dinner. Like the Ham party, this wasn't limited to poetry, so we got to see some gorgeous underwater photography, hear about some publishing projects, and listen to piano and koto performances as well as hear readings. (Cesar read a couple of poems and I presented the beginning of one of my more embryonic novels.) It was a very enjoyable and varied collection of talents and endeavors.