Ftrain, by Paul Ford

Yesterday was too many snacks and not enough food. Sadly the best thing in the bodega, when it's late, is often the low-cal chips; everything (everything) else is filled with salt, or sugar, or just poisonous. Given that I didn't have dinner until eleven I made acceptable choices.

At my first reading from my secret diet blog I had one beer. Maybe 75 or 100 people, none of them besides the organizer known to me. The audience almost universally slends. I was third up; it went well. I was only eight minutes or so with introduction and chatter. These events always go too long so you do everyone a favor by going as short as possible. There's a reason the headliner was maximum seventeen minutes in vaudeville, whereas everyone else was a few minutes, on and off, act after act. I've got my whole system set up so that I can cut a piece down to two minutes if I need to. Special code that puts the minutes elapsed in the right-hand column of my reading copy.

I had nothing to promote so I suggested that the audience was now more obligated to buy the books of the other writers.

It was strange to stand up and read from this website. This is the single-most personal thing I've ever done in a life of doing very personal things. The body from which the voice emerges is a fundamental aspect of the narrative and thus now available for judging. I can't ask for sympathy nor can I ask or even appear to be asking for their approval. I am on stage, delivering my findings. It's up to them. I'm sure some people thought cruel things about fatties while I spoke. Which only validates the project and makes the whole thing funnier.

I told them I'd lost 40 lbs. and they clapped for 20 seconds, and I read my bit. I need to work on aspects of my delivery. The swing from funny to serious is hard for some folks and you don't want the audience to split into people who get it and don't. You want them all together, watching you.

A witch/fairy/model who used to be on SeaQuest and Cleopatra 2525 appeared and read her poems about vampires. She lit a candle and cursed anyone who would dim the lights. It was awesome. Later a nerdy (but emphatically not nerdcore) rapper appeared and snuffed it out.

In the past I would have wanted to make it a social event, look around for affirmation. I just watched and decided against ranking my act against the other acts. It doesn't work that way.

I wonder if the organizer knew exactly how well he had invoked vaudeville, about two blocks from some of the great houses of the early variety age (although things had moved uptown by the time of the Automat).

I love writing about things, building websites, and reading out loud in that order.

Weight: 321.25 lbs