VERMIN #18

Either the vermin are getting aggressive or the lights at the Mountain Bar are even stranger than I remember. Or maybe it's simply time for the Vermin on the Mount recap.

Here's Ron Currie, Jr. He's got Popeye arms and drinks like a sailor. Sadly, he's also a perfect gentleman. At least he was during his reading of his outstanding short story collection God Is Dead. In the distance looms the Temple of Hop Louie and the Dim Sum of Death.

This is Michael A. FitzGerald, the hardest working man of letters in Idaho, who came all the way from Boise to read from Radiant Days. I owe everyone who came out to Chinatown an apology for talking him out of reading the cunnilingus scene. If you read one book about a guy who becomes obsessed with a Hungarian prostitute this year, make it this one.

What can we say about Katherine Taylor's performance? She moved way too fast for my not-so-mega-pixel camera and her reading from Rules for Saying Goodbye had me wondering if there were similar rules for men and if there was any chance in hell I'd gotten any of them right.

Special thanks to Fred Savinon for the excellent poster. The next reading will feature the art of El Chikle.