Moonstone, Toast, and Chip

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Spring is apparently when things turn literary. April 1, Samuel R. Delany turned 75 and The New York Review of Science Fiction Reading Series held a reading and celebration in NYC. Alas, that same day I returned from a jaunt to Kitty Hawk and was too tired to make the 200-mile round trip drive so I missed it. Then, yesterday, Asimov's Science Fiction held a party celebrating its 40th anniversary. Again, for complicated reasons of plot, I didn't feel up for a drive that long.

So I made up for missing both events by going to the Moonstone Arts Center event held at Toast, a coffeehouse in the "Gayborhood" where Delany lives, to hear Chip (the name that his friends like to drop casually that he's known by) reading his latest essay.

Larry Robin put together both the event and a celebratory chapbook containing poems in Chip's honor by such luminaries as Lamont B. Steptoe and Gregory Frost. It's a lovely chapbook, which I was glad to have, Toast is an extremely pleasant place to spend a few hours, particularly with young bohemians coursing through the streets outside on a pleasant spring night, and of course Chip is famed for being an engaging speaker. The crowd was on the louche side (one young woman wore a shirt with the slogan Thank God for Abortion and another wore one emblazoned with I'm a Magical Motherfucker) and all either friends or people I wouldn't mind having for friends.

So, yes, it was an evening well wasted. If you haven't been to a literary event recently, I encourage you to do so at the very next opportunity.


Above: Chip is looking more and more like an Old Testament prophet with every passing year. And I would be remiss if I didn't mention that Darrell Schweitzer contributed a limerick to the chapbook.

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