After the reading, we had a party at the home of University of Arkansas Press Director Larry Malley and his wife Maggie including champagne, delicious Irish whiskey and cake! 
...home of University of Arkansas Press which contains this sign, telling you where you are... 
...as well as the many smart, nice people who work there. Further smart nice people are to be found at the University of Arkansas Press warehouse, where Kyle is pictured, marveling at the superbly organized and neatly towering boxes of well-made books: 
Larry Malley took us all over the land of the razorbacks... 
...including to the Petra Cafe where we had delicious Middle Eastern food for lunch, maybe the best I've ever had anywhere. Who knew? They thanked us for eating locally... 
...and they are very welcome. Tonight, we are reading at Nightbird Books at 7 with Miroslav Penkov. It was hailing a minute ago, but it's stopped now, so there's no reason not to come. See you there!
...and which is full of art and comfy furniture... 
Sadie Rogers sang some beautiful songs... 
...Matt Kerstein of Brighton MA played a solo show, and I read an excerpt from Live Nude Girl, plus--in the collaborative spirit--three poems I co-wrote with Elisa Gabbert. The chair I sat in while I read--story-time style--is pictured here, in the mirror to my left: 
Lots of thanks to Eric for coordinating and to Collaboraction for hosting!
...and Jacob Knabb, managing and fiction editor of Another Chicago Magazine. They hosted me, Brandi Homan, and Lina-Ramona Vitkauskas to record us reading our work from the latest issue of ACM, whose theme is American Values. I also did a tiny reading and some Q&A about Live Nude Girl. 
And now I am more of a fan than ever of Vocalo. Be sure to check them and their mission out here. Thanks to Jacob and Jesse for having us, and to Lina and Brandi for being kickass co-readers. 
...constructed with care by one Kyle Minor. He chose, as you can see, to cut it in half. Well played, Kyle; nicely done.
All the food was fantastic, but the highlight was a cute, round cream-of-wheat/coconut-cream baked dessert known as shweji, which is pictured (with Caryn chopping it into shareable pieces) here, and which I will have to attempt to recreate when I am not on tour and have more time for cookery (that is if I can figure out how the heck to make it--anyone?): 
...GW student and Rome Review editor. Thanks so much, Greg, and to Dan Gutstein for reading with us! And extra thanks to Dan for quoting Frank O'Hara saying "It is even in/prose, I am a real poet" during the Q&A. 
Luckily, we were not there long. My Rose Metal Press partner and all around amazing friend Abby Beckel came to pick us up and take us to Canton to meet Lauren Silberman and Matt Moffatt for lunch at Helen's Garden where I had one of the best sandwiches of my life, which supplanted the previous Best Sandwich Ever contender that I got in Chinatown in NYC and ate on the Fung Wah back in January 2007. Has it ever occurred to you to almond-encrust a tomato? Because that is what the Helen's Garden people do: 
Next we headed over to Hampden... 
...before our reading in the 510 reading series at Minas Gallery. Michael Kimball and Jen Michalski were gracious and attentive hosts, the audience was standing-room only...
...and our co-readers Rahne Alexander, Shane Jones, and Blake Butler were uniformly entertaining to listen to. Be sure to check out all their books/projects. 
Tao let us do a tiny reading in his apartment as part of our day-long series of mini-readings all over NYC before our EARSHOT appearance on Friday. Thanks, Tao! 
...we can make it anywhere. 
(more to come on that when there's a little more time), including in the very special fourth anniversary EARSHOT reading series, this morning, we have to leave on yet another Chinatown bus from here to Baltimore. We're reading at Minas Gallery there tonight at 5:00 with three other brilliant readers. Be there!
The audience gathered up in the front of the store and listened to our stories over the howling wind: 
Peter at Freebird made everybody feel at home with wine and tea and stories about Oprah, and after we wrapped up there, we walked up the block to the B61, a bar named after the buses that go by. One of my old friends, a painter I used to pose for years ago in Boston (and who you can read about in the "Do You Want Me to Seduce You?" chapter of Live Nude Girl), the talented Jeremy Hoffeld came all the way from Washington Heights. Not only did he listen to us read; he also let me try on his very intense and stylish glasses: 
The bar happened to have a Magic Eight ball that patrons could use to answer their deepest and most existential questions. "Will Kathy's book sell a million copies?" Jeremy asked the Eight Ball. "Yes, definitely," said the Eight Ball. "Will it happen after she's dead?" he asked. "Reply hazy, try again," said the Eight Ball, but we left it there. 
Thanks Eight Ball, thanks Jeremy, and thanks to everyone for coming to the reading! I'm about to go to yoga with my host-with-the-most, Brendan, because I'm still feeling squished from the Fung Wah, but Kyle and I are going to read tonight at Rose Live Music in Brooklyn at 8 in the pm along with three other readers. A $5 cover gets you in and gets you a drink--that's value.
He lives on the fifth floor, so while that was brutal in terms of getting my eight-days'-worth of luggage up the stairs (thanks, Brendan!), it offers spectacular views from every single window: 
And here, just because it grossed me out/cracked me up, is a sign advertising "100 % Beefy Satisfaction x2"--that's 200 %, mind you--at said McDonald's: 
And here is Kyle's lunch, which, you will note, involves both a quesadilla and nacho cheese Doritos, because this is a great country and, like I said, we are living the dream: 
Hope to see you tonight at Freebird Books! Rockstar!
But it was warm (metaphorically at least) and cozy at Ben and Mary and Kitty's house: 
And at Ada Books they offered quite a spread--bread, cheese, grapes, cookies--thanks, guys! 
And here is the crowd, who bundled up in their hippest sweaters and ventured out through the pouring snow to hear Brian Evenson: 
Tomorrow, we'll get up early, drive to Boston, return the rental Prius (because we love the earth like that) to the Enterprise in Cambridge, take the redline to South Station, get on the Fung Wah bus to Manhattan, then take the subway to Brooklyn-- easy peazy one two threesie. See you tomorrow night at 7:30 at Freebird Books where we'll be reading with Rebecca Barry!
...and I'm pretty sure this restfulness is a testament to the comfort and hospitality of the White Horse, and not just the several or so beers Kyle and I downed at the Governor Bradford after our reading. Before we read, we were interviewed for the "Art Talk" radio program on WOMR, hosted by the generous and enthusiastic Chris Busa, pictured here with me and a couple of other fans at the Provincetown Art Association Museum:
Provincetown shrinks way down in population during the off-season, so our crowd was not terribly crowded. But the room we read in at PAAM was acoustically awesome and the walls were covered in black and white photographs, including this one of my all-time favorite poet and mysterious disapearee Weldon Kees, who I think loved Provincetown the way I love it: 
Did you know that before they rocked Plymouth, the Pilgrims landed at Provincetown? They did! And Provincetown has the monument to prove it: 
Did you also know that I used to live in Provincetown, courtesy of the Fine Arts Work Center, where Martin was a fiction fellow? I did! And it's been wonderful to be back, if only for 24 hours. Look at this... 
...and this...
The quality of the loneliness in Provincetown is ever-present, but superior to the loneliness of the Pacific Northwest, though I'm not entirely sure why. Maybe it's because, geographically, though it is at the very end of the land...
...it is also at the forefront of the country in the Eastern time zone, and even though you are isolated, you are also by default kind of avant-garde? 
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