For the second straight year I visited the Decatur Book Festival. http://www.decaturbookfestival.com/2008/index.php
At first thought it sounds like something I should love. Books, food, the energy of Decatur, and great authors coming to ME!
However, this year I did not enjoy it as much as last year.
I'm sure it was mostly me, as this year, there were plenty of authors I wanted to hear/see but none I HAD to see.
Last year I got my wish of hearing Sherman Alexie perform (and yes, that is the best word for him) and afterwards he signed my copy of The Business of Fancydancing. (which I've owned for several years. I think it is important that I've owned it for a long time and didn't buy it that day. This proves I'm sooo hardcore!) Anyway, we chatted for a minute and I got a picture taken with him.
This was pure joy as he seems to be in town for something the day after I leave usually.
This year just didn't have the same energy and had too damn many children. I think it is part that Decatur is changing but mostly that the damn economy is so bad that a lot of people stayed home. That and that the roads in ATL were awful this weekend so if you lived anywhere near Decatur, you pretty much couldn't go anywhere else, so might as well do the cheap thing of taking the family to the street carnival.
Cause that's what it was. It was not literary! It was face painting and rocking chair sales and 4.50 root beer floats with awesome ice cream but root beer that was gone in 2 sips.
But the main problem was that the authors felt rushed. There was some bad scheduling which along with the street carnival atmosphere created this bad vibe. All of the authors had to worry about time and limit themselves in what they could cover to leave time for questions. Usually there was only enough time for 3-4 questions. It was all very odd.
Besides too many kids there were just too many meandering stupid people! I heard two authors speak on what it is like to marry someone from a very different culture and live there and raise a family. One woman is living in Japan with her Japanese family,including her mother-in-law. The other lived in New Zealand with her Maori husband for almost 20 years. Both spoke eloquently on what it is like and the hardships, the rewards, how you don't think like an American anymore, etc. I'm trying to keep the interesting things they said in my head but I keep going back to the retarded comment about raising your kids in a foreign culture one woman asked. She said: "Do your kids know what it is like to be American? I mean, do they do normal American kid stuff and eat normal American stuff like Spaghetti and Meatballs?" UGH.
I did get to hear a living legend though which was the highlight of my day. Amiri Baraka, formerly LeRoy Jones, the former Poet-Laureate of New Jersey, spoke yesterday and he was captivating.http://amiribaraka.com/ He's mainly the reason I started this damn blog that I'm not sure if I want anyone to read yet.
He urged people to get out there and get their voices heard and be truthful. Too many people are waiting to be "discovered" and when they are they are immediately consumed by the commercial capitalist world of publishing. I've always NOT written because a) I was afraid I'd be mediocre and b) intellectually lazy. Baraka helped me see how weak and awful those two things are. He urged us to publish, no matter what, even if it means we do it on the internet and print out at Kinkos--just be authentic.
So, I was grossly unhappy that his time was cut short, I guess due to poor planning, but I am very happy I heard him and have been inspired. We'll see how this stuff all turns out I guess.
