Terese and Chris,

I would love to be able to hear you both...

...not to mention being able to sit in the Fontana Room, with its stained glass windows, original wall friezes, exquisite chandelier and grand piano

It will be a marvellous evening, and I'm envious of those who'll be there. Enjoy yourselves!

Jayne

Jayne,

I'd give a lot to have you sitting in the Fontana Room with us and lining up your own reading there as well, not to mention performing at the Open mic! I'm sure Chris would too. Thank you for your kind thoughts!

Terese

With thanks for the supportive comments from far-flung friends, and special thanks to Mike for expanding our publicity outreach by tweeting about this reading, this is the bump-up I promised. The day is upon us. Terese and I will be reading tomorrow afternoon -- Sunday, March 25 -- at 1:00. It will be great to see you there, or to know that you're thinking about us.

Let us know how it went.

Susan

Thanks for asking, Susan. In my clear-eyed, objective opinion, Terese and I rocked the house.

Orwn Acra was in the audience. He has co-featured with Terese at Carmine Street Metrics, and no doubt wanted to make sure I was up to the task. Daniel Brown was there, too. (The good poet, not the bad Vatican conspiracy novelist.) I don't believe he's a member here, but I'm sure a number of us admire his poems and have met him at various readings and conferences.

The Montauk Club is located in a brownstone just off Flatbush Ave. Stained glass windows and other touches of elegance. The grandfather clock just outside the reading room is such an attractive piece that Terese and I didn't even mind being interrupted by its loud chiming. It goes off every 15 minutes, so some of the open mic readers, doing just 5 minutes apiece, didn't have to deal with it. But with our 20-minute sets, we were sitting ducks.

It sounds like a lot of fun. Congratulations!

John

I just made a longish post here and then it got lost...back later!

Thanks for the report, Chris! I have no doubt that you guys rocked the house.

Looking forward to Terese's debrief as well.

Thanks,
Nausheen

We rocked the Palazzo! How often can one say that?

With its impressive soaring ceilings and the finest of hand-carved architectural details and workmanship inside and out, the Montauk Club (completed 1891) is a fairy-tale Venetian Gothic edifice in every way. The upper floors with the fabulous pink exterior walls are now private apartments. (To die for, I'll bet.)

The magnificent antique grandfather clock could not get the better of Chris, and he sailed right through the chimes when suddenly interrupted mid-poem. I lucked out: the chimes hit when I was mid-comment, so I waited them out. When they hit a second time (presumably mng 15 minutes later), I knew I was running out of time, so they do have an actual function. We might even say a traditional function, though poetry readings might not have occurred to Mr. Francis Kimball himself. Of course, when you're reading to a crowd, it's kind of hard to believe 15 minutes went by so fast (you still have more time though).

Besides the estimable Dan and Walter, about 20 friends and colleagues showed up, including seven who came out for Tex-Mex after the reading. It was great to see them and one of my friends took photos, but I haven't rec'd them yet. I will post them on fb for friends, and I don't (yet) know if she wants them on a public site. I saw them on her cell phone and they looked good.

Chris was as funny and scandalous as ever (that will never change!) and in addition did a charming lyrical poem about catalpa trees that I loved. (They're a fave of mine too, Chris!) I thought I’d go with the flow and did satirical or subversively ironic poems as well, and we both had a blast! The crowd had smiles on their faces and, as in almost all Open mics, the poems varied and some were very striking. Host, poet, and general Renaissance man Harvey Soss volunteered his talents with a wrench on some repair the building needed (!), and consequently his generous nature in rescuing the edifice resulted in a slightly late start, but we were all busy with friends so we hardly noticed. The reading continued longer than it would have otherwise, and it was all Palazzo-perfecto!

Terese et al., you make it sound like I would have enjoyed every feature: the marquee readers, the reading opportunity, and the venue -- hubba hubba, clock and bongs. As I let you know privately, at the time of the event, I was Amtraking back toward New York from a family event in eastern Maryland, which was very nice too. Let's annex that venue you used, by any feasible means.