At the local...

Yesterday's reading at Sunny's Bar in Red Hook, Brooklyn, was a triumphant success. There wasn't an empty seat in the house, despite the glorious Sunday afternoon fall weather. Three of us read as part of the Sundays at Sunny's reading series, which has now been going on for six years. It was a wonderful, receptive crowd, with many friends from the neighborhood in attendance, but also a whole host of folks from farther afield.

Here David Rothenberg reads a wonderfully entertaining passage from Thousand Mile Song, in which he describes playing clarinet duets with whales. He then played a recording of this amazing interspecies musical experience. It was a rare treat. (His book comes with a CD). That's David, farthest to the left of the three people behind the bar.

I read three passages from Guantánamo. The first was my description of the rodeo-like décima poetry competitions held in Las Tunas, in which improvisational poetic artistry mingles with ten-gallon fashions and macho braggadocio; the second an account of contraband cheese-selling strategy beside the highway ("Like a matador with a cape, my friend pivoted with the cheese to give it maximum exposure as the car passed, but the vehicle did not slow."); and the third a story about discovering that a portion of popcorn I purchased in Trinidad was wrapped up in pages torn from a Cuban edition of the Communist Manifesto.

Book Court books takes care of selling books at the event, and I'm proud to report that they were left wishing they had brought along more copies of Walking to Guantánamo, because they quickly sold out.