November 2

Philly

There were lamps everywhere. I have never, ever seen so many lamps. There were cornrows of lamps. A person could get lost amidst the catacomb of lamps. They hung from the ceiling, they stood person-high on the floor, they were stacked on tables, and hung on the walls. And, as you can imagine, there was absolutely every size and shape of lamp--long stems, short stems, glass flutes, bejeweled bowls, wrought iron--and soft light shown from each one. It sort of made me think of heaven, or maybe just an old church.

I wandered to the back of the store (a long, long way) and caught the conversation of two guys standing in a behind-the-show-floor-workshop. I couldn't really see them; I could only hear them. "Éand the fuckin' guy, he had this fuckin' smirk on his faceÉ.he wasn't dead at all!"

The other guy snorted and shuffled his feet on the concrete floor. I imagined two Mike Ditkas, and, as the denizens of the lamp store that looked like heaven, I wondered how they managed not to break everything. I kept wandering, circling through the entire store, not wanting to leave such a lovely place. I casually checked the price of a four-foot tall floor lamp with a little purple glass shade. It was $450.00. I checked another and it was $10,000. Suddenly heaven had a very scary price attached to it and seemed far more like a field of land minds than a divine refuge.

A man strode by, noticed me checking prices, and said hi. Obviously a keeper of the lamp store. I approached him.

"This is one the most beautiful stores I've ever been in."

"Really," he grinned and came out from behind the counter.

"I've never seen so many lamps in my life. Where do you get them all? Is there some sort of underground lamp world?"

"Well, yeah, sort of...there's sort of a lamp world."

"How do keep from breaking all of them?"

"What? What do you mean?"

"Do you break a lot of your lamps by accident?"

He just kind of looked at me funny and acted like I was speaking another language. Maybe I was. Maybe in the lamp world, breakage is a taboo you just don't bring up. I smiled and said "well then, I'll always remember your store as one of the high points of my trip to Philly." He seemed to understand and appreciate this comment and wished me well as I stepped out to the street.

At FeeWee's in Philly, I was reminded again of what a curious dance it can be surmising if someone is a nanoer or not. Bob Fleming was the first one at FeeWee's on Friday. It being my first night on the road and my nano spidey senses not yet honed, Bob left the cafe before I mustered the courage to walk up and ask "Are you a nanowrimoer?"

But talking to the woman behind the FeeWee counter, she said Bob had asked if any nanoers were there. She said she had had no idea what he was talking about. But it was not too late. Sprinting to the door, I yelled after Bob who was almost half a block away. A nanoer saved.

As our writing session came to a close that night, Chrissy Bushyager reported that her male protagonist was blubbering on the floor, had been there for at least 500 words, and she was at a loss as to how to get him in an up-right and saltwater-free state.

Jerry Carafelli, the one pinching his brow, shook his head somberly when I asked what his novel was about.

Nancy, the forth Philly wrimo to show that night, wrote in long hand. All of her letters look like little "Os." Her novel will be one long " oooooooooooooooo."