Last Nite

Saturday evening, January 22, 2011, there occurred a launch party for Slake Issue 2 “Crossing Over.” Slake is a literary magazine but it’s as big as a book if not bigger, certainly bigger than my books tend to be because I am a very slow writer. And it has art and things inside of it, too.

The party was at a place called Track 16 at Bergamot Station in Santa Monica, which is partly part of Los Angeles. How you get there is you drive off the freeway and onto a brief, dark road that dead ends in a parking lot where you are surrounded by art galleries and other exotic plants.

I mention this mainly because I had to read in front of an estimated crowd of 700 citizens, only about thirty of whom could hear, through the inadequate PA system, over the clatter of hooves (many people were wearing horseshoes, I think this might be a new thing). There was free food, there was cheap food, there were free drinks, there were cheap drinks. Somebody played music over the PA system after several of us read what we had written in Issue 2 (“Crossing Over.”) People seemed to enjoy themselves but how can you really tell without a statistically significant poll?

There will be more events in connection with the launch of this new issue. I encourage you to attend.