During the first half of THIN AIR, I usually make it to three quarters of my yah-yah-yah list.

But then, as the days pass, I start to get tired.

Events during the day, events at night...and I ruefully eye the filling sink, the un-shuffled laundry in the washer, mostly in passing. My daughter waves to me from the dining room table, where her dad is feeding her dinner.

This year, I made it to more Mainstages than ever before, but by Friday morning, I was tired, so I didn't make it to ANY of the Friday daytime events I'd circled. And the only reason I made Friday night's After Words event was because I was wearing my working-at-Aqua-Books hat...

But watching George Elliot Clarke read and talk at such length, with such great gory pleasure, about his I&I verse-novel, was rejuvenating.

His face nearly split open as he recited and he seemed eager to lose himself in the work, to inhabit the psyche of his 15 year-old self.

(GEC explained that he was reading through his teenage journals before donating them to a university library and he was compelled by a line here, a line there, so he copied them into his journal...and then a narrative appeared.)

(He also said this one was written for fun; the gory pleasure of sex & violence, music everywhere, the loose incredible energy of youth.)

It took THIN AIR staff nearly an hour to pry GEC away from the people who stayed to chat and get their books signed, an hour they clearly would have loved to spend sleeping, but it was a good way to spend my mid-fest slump.

(I should also note that Kelly Hughes, the owner of Aqua Books, sent me upstairs after he'd intro-ed GEC out of the kindness of his heart. He'd had me come in to mind the store while he played host, after all...)