Post Date: April 9, 2006 – 11:00 AM
“something is coming… I’ve been sensing it’s slow approach.” (original title)
I look for interesting things to do… I try sometimes to find things that I say I want to do more of, then… oh my, I actually get off my lazy ass and do them. This happens more rarely than I’d like to admit. However, I am about to share one such experience which I believe is significant. In what manner exactly I do not know yet, but I feel it may come in the form of an epiphany.
On Sundays I most often go out for my morning coffee, partly due to my addiction to picking up the latest Gambit. Even if I don’t read it I MUST have one. (I don’t know how it became an addiction, but it is one) Author Andrei Codrescu contributes an editorial each week, The PennyPost. For some time now I’ve felt akin to his thought processes, I am usually provoked and often amused.
One Saturday two or more months ago I talked myself into attending his book signing at the Garden District Book Shop. I like that shop, I evidently like him because I find myself thumbing through to the PennyPost every Sunday over coffee, and I needed to do something out of my ordinary.
I arrived early to walk around a bit and even purchase the book. (which I knew I would enjoy b/c it’s a collection of his writings through many years since moving to and falling in love with New Orleans)
They were setting up chairs outside the store when I walked up. Inside on a sofa was a man casually dressed in black, that’s him I thought and immediately became nervous. On the backside of the first overly stuffed bookshelf (if you’ve never been in The Garden District Book Shop… it’s small and every shelf and open space is filled or stacked with something bound. It’s wonderful.) I came to was an older book of Andrei’s. All alone, not with any of it’s siblings or the stacks of fresh new ones at the desk… ‘Messiah’… of course I picked it up and read a bit… as I read I heard his voice, thickly accented (Transylvania), speaking kindly with other more excited and friendly voices that came and went. I wanted to go and speak with him but as I am regretfully shy and my brain shuts down when I am impressed with someone, I don’t come off very cool at all. So I stayed put, and turned to the inner leaf of the cover, as soon as I spotted one of the main character’s names is Andrea I stopped deciding, no need, the book was to be mine, fate. At the counter while purchasing both books the woman mentioned ‘Messiah’ and I replied (smiling) that I was sure I would enjoy it, as I was in it.
Her face lit up upon seeing the name on the bank card I was handing to her and she exclaimed that I must go and introduce myself. She got his attention and I had no choice but to push my unnecessary nervousness aside and do what I had wanted to since entering the store. Say hello like a normal human being.
It was awkward, but I explained I thought it fate I was really there to find this book instead, as my name was also Andrea. He looked at me for a moment almost smiling then said that I was not unlike this character and that I may enjoy the book as it is filled with our current cyber world, old religions, fundamentalists, freaks, the media and the end of the world (as the book culminates on New Year’s Eve 1999) and yet it still seems eerily familiar with things happening today. I believe he even alluded to a bit of lesbianism. I do not know if that was meant to entice or warn me, (though I think he found pleasure in revealing it) but he was very kind and magnetic as he signed my books and we spoke briefly of what I do for a living and a dear friend of his that does his website.
“For Andrea, My Andrea’s namesake, in a world very much like ours!”
I’ve been reading it today… it’s an egotistical pleasure that my character is so eerily cool. hehehe.
Anyway… There were multiple unrelated things that together, led me directly to this book. Things that began more than a year ago. I wonder what’s in store for me (and my character).
I believe the word epiphany actually will be an accurate description. Why?
Hmm? I’ve had special affection for the word ever since it came from a friend’s lips many years ago, and it finds me occasionally still, a reminder, a hint, of something yet to come…
The most recent: I’ve been taking random photographs of bathroom graffiti lately, not sure why… except that the last time I was at Molly’s on Decatur and went to the bathroom I grabbed for the toilet paper and saw written in handwriting that appealed to me, the word itself… all alone, no explanation. It meant something because I’d noticed it the first time one, probably more, years ago. I always forget it’s there, so when I see it I am startled and affected strangely each time. Now I have a photo of it.
p.s.
Andrei Codrescu is/was a regular at Molly’s, has an affection for the place. I don’t imagine he wrote it, but it’s interesting how connected random things can be.
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(additional entry: July 7, 2009)
I found one of the, I believe three, photos I’ve taken of this particular piece of bathroom grafitti over the past several years. This photo is the most recent, taken May 2009. The word is no longer alone there, and it’s bold tipped magic marker ink has faded to where it’s almost gone… No one has written over it though. I have to believe, because of this, there are others out there who like it being there…
epiphany (Molly's, Decatur St., May 2009)
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