Recap of Last Night's Reading

When I said "I'll be reading from my novel. It's a thriller," there was some eye-rolling, but thankfully the groans were barely audible.

Whoever said know thyself should have followed it up with "know thy audience." The literary crowd that attended the Open Mic last night was there to hear their classmates and fellow English majors recite their villanelles, sestinas, triptychs, their flash fiction written for senior seminar, etc. They weren't there to hear an excerpt from Chapter One of a paranormal thriller written by the weird older dude that graduated from college eight years ago and who shouldn't have been anywhere near a campus, let alone hanging out in the student lounge.

Thankfully, I wasn't the only alum there, and the event turned into a reunion of sorts. I hung with some old friends I haven't seen in awhile, including John Slinka who also very recently entered the blogosphere.

There were a lot of good readings from the students last night, and it's great to see how the arts have taken root at Widener and grown substantially since I was an undergrad there who spent way too much of his free time reading Ayn Rand and arguing with everyone.

Widener Open Mic Night

For anyone that's interested and local, tonight I'll be attending Widener University's open mic night, which starts at 7:00 PM EST. Against my better judgment, I will be doing a reading of The Unearthed. I say against my better judgment because it's just the sort of story I would have thumbed my nose at as an undergrad English major, because it wasn't "literary" enough. Oh how the not-so-mighty have fallen.

So if you're in the area, stop by. There's a free bookmark for everyone who shows up.

Off topic, but does the word "mic" look strange to anybody else? I used the term in several places in The Unearthed, but I spelled it "mike" because that looked better to me.

Phil Stiefel Makes A Great Pizza

Back in March of 2008, a good friend of mine, Phil Stiefel, opened up his own Fox's Pizza Den in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. I'm happy to report that he and his wife are doing very well for themselves and are just about to pass the dreaded one-year mark for restaurants.

Phil had the misfortune of sharing a room with me my senior year of college at Widener University. So naturally, he was forced to endure my wretched guitar-playing, drunken ramblings about the state of literature, and my annoying habit of forcing everyone to listen to Bruce Springsteen.

But Phil took it all in stride and managed to survive our one-year co-tenancy mostly unscathed.

The wife and I stopped by Phil's restaurant last Saturday for lunch. We ordered the garlic bread with cheese and the Big Daddy pizza, which is a rectangular behemoth, dimensions of 24" by 12". So it amounted to a lot of bread and cheese, and more bread, and more cheese. Hey, we were hungry.

The food was delicious, and we shared a couple hours of good times with Phil and his wife. They even let me wear the head gear of the Fox's Pizza Den mascot (yes, that's me in the pic with Phil). I only wish Kennett Square were closer to us, because then we'd swing by once a week or more. I'd put on another twenty pounds I don't need, but it'd be worth it to hang with Phil and eat his pizza. As an added bonus, my wife would get to hear for the umpteenth time about how Phil got me to stop chasing cars in the Widener student parking lot with my shirt off in the middle of February, after I'd had a few too many to drink.