5 Things That Make Kansas City (Missouri) Awesome

This year's Winter Institute took place in Kansas City, MO, a place I've never had reason to believe I'd visit.  Spending a few days there reminded me of what non-destination cities have on Miami; with so much to recommend it, The Magic City doesn't try all that had to impress.  When you've got hundreds of cities above you on the "must list" of places to visit, you work a little harder to move up that list.

In the few days I was there, this is Kansas City, putting in work.


5: Rainy Day Books

Rainy Day Books is in Fairway, a suburb of Kansas.  It's gorgeous inside; beautifully displayed, full, and well-mapped.  The staff knows what they're doing.  And what's a place to visit without a decent bookstore?

4 is for $4 Guinness

I don't know from whence you're reading but to a guy living in Miami, paying less than $6 for a beer is a revelation.  Most times, it's $7-$8 ($9 or $10 if you're stupid enough to go to a club).  At $4, I almost expected to see a wee shot glass.

I won't say every bartender knew how to pour it perfectly, but the search for a perfect Guinness pour is a rant for another time.


3: Cab Scholars

A cab ride in Kansas City is like a free history lecture.  You want to know which mob boss rode FBI bullets to the great beyond in front of what building?  You want to know where Lewis and Clark bought slaves for their journey?  You want to know not just the historic landmarks and the lay of the land, but how the landmarks became historic and why the land is laid out the way it is?  Take a cab.


2: This is Not the Library

It's the garage next to the Central Library, called the Community Bookshelf.  It's a solid indication of how Kansas City celebrates literacy and the arts.  Fountains, sculptures, galleries, bookstores; it's all happening.

With all the snow when we visited, tracks told us which books people posed in front of the most.  Least surprising?  Gabriel Garcia Marquez got no love.

1: Burnt Ends

You know the edge of the meat that got crisped up on the grill and captured all the flavor?  Smoky and delicious, charry-chewy on the outside and juicy-tender on the inside, Burnt Ends have all of that, and nothing else.  One bite and I wanted to move to Kansas City.

World Book Night 2012: A Raging Success

April 23rd is the day Shakespeare was born, and the day he died.  Cervantes also died on April 23rd, and UNESCO marks it as World Book Day.  This year, volunteers in the UK, Ireland, the US, and Germany spent the day giving books away.  I don't know how others fared, but Becky and I had a hell of a time.

In the United States, 53% of males and 39% of females are re-incarcerated after they're released from prison.  The recidivism rate for inmates who read in prison drops to 20% (couple that with a GED, and only 4-5% of inmates return, but our fucked up prison system is a post for another time).  So Becky decided to drop a box of Jeannette Walls' The Glass Castle at a women's detention center in downtown Miami.  

It was all razor wire and defeat, smaller and dingier than it looks from the highway (you drive past it all the time on I-95), but that's no reason not to deliver books with a smile.

You Should Read Jenny Lawson

BUY THIS NOW.

“Because you are defined not by life's imperfect moments, but by your reaction to them. And because there is joy in embracing - rather than running from - the utter absurdity of life.” 

― Jenny Lawson, Let's Pretend This Never Happened

When I wrote about all the books Becky and I were giving away at our wedding, I compared Chelsea Handler to David Sedaris.  For months now, I've intended to write all about the sexist literati who heap accolades on Sedaris while dismissing Handler as a vulgar TV star with some hit memoirs.  I put it off because my heart wasn't in it.  As promising a start as My Horizontal Life was, Are You There Vodka?  It's Me, Chelsea didn't measure up.  And I still haven't read Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang past that first tear-inducing (from laughs!) story.

My heart is behind Jenny Lawson.

You Should Read Carol Anshaw

Reading Carol Anshaw's "Carry the One" made me an instant fan.  Here's why:

Whatever element causes romance to flare was simply not present in the air between them.  This was a huge relief to Alice.  Romance no longer looked like so much fun, more like a repetitive stress injury - beginning with Maude, but now also including all the failed and pathetic attempts to replicate that constellation of emotions with someone else.  She could measure this past effort in all the underwear she had left behind in apartments, all the bottles of pricey wine she had brought to dinner, all the recitations of bad childhoods and adult disappointments she had earnestly listened to.  Sometimes she made lists in her head, little catalogs of experience.  The first list was, of course, all the women she had by now slept with.  Taken individually, they seemed, at their various times, to hold the possibility of lasting love.  As opposed to now, so far down the line, when they could only be looked at in accumulation, as one then another fool's errand.  An offshoot list to this was the figure for how far she had gone for sex.  (Thirteen hours on a flight from Chicago to Tokyo then back to Chicago the next day has held the top spot for quite a while; she might never better this.)  Books she had read to get into somebody or other's bed (The Four-Gated City.  The Fountainhead.  Linda Goodman's Love Signs.  Women Who Run with the Wolves.)  Terrible music she had listened to because it was someone's idea of a mood enhancer.  (Hall & Oates.  Holly Near.  George Winston.  The Carpenters.  Celine Dion.)  Topics in which she had feigned interest during the short term (Juice fasts.  Rugby.  Celtic Dancing.  Bikram Yoga).  The longest list was the kinds of tea she had drunk in moments structured around the pretense that tea drinking was the reason for being in this or that cafe (Pergolesi, Kopi, Cafe Boost.) or kitchen, or side by side on this or that futon or sofa or daybed, sipping.  (Earl Grey.  Lapsang Suchoung.  Gunpowder.  Rooibos.  Sleepytime.  Morning Thunder.  Seren-i-tea.  Every possible pepperment and berry.  Plain Lipton.)  There was a stretch of time when tea became fetishized for her for being so linked with sex and romance, so reliable a harbinger of one or the other.
     She could scare herself with the renewable ingenuousness implied by this catalog.  Still, the alternative - the development of an acidic cynicism - seemed worse.  

Anyone who writes like that, you should read.  Pulling it out of context like this might lessen it's impact, but I hope not.  Anshaw articulates the character's struggle to fight the ennui of beginning another relationship, in such a specific voice, and blends it perfectly into the run of Alice's thoughts before and after this passage.  It's masterful work.  I don't know how someone creates an actual novel without a narrative thread, how an author manages to create plot out of distinct pieces spaced so far apart, but it's something you should experience.

I can't wait to catch up on Anshaw's other books.

Here's more love for her over at The Heat Lightning.

The Girl with the Pigeon Tattoo: Meet Cloudette

In case you didn't know, there's something in publishing called a "book trailer."  It's like a movie trailer, except for a book.  Genius, right?  Readers don't need them and booksellers actively hate them.  Still, when moving 5,000 copies constitutes a hit, it never hurts to try to reach outside your core demographic for new readers.

But Hollywood has been making trailers for ninety-nine years; publishing has only made the effort since 2005.  The result is that very, very few trailers make one say, "Wow, I really need to buy that book."  I've enjoyed three book trailers in my life: Carolyn Parkhurst's The Nobodies Album (see the trailer in which authors are funny; now buy the book), Gary Shteyngart's Super Sad True Love Story (trailer here, rife with cameos; now buy the book), and Kristen Schaal & Rich Blomquist's The Sexy Book of Sexy Sex (trailer with actual comic actors who are also the authors; now buy the book).  Caroyln Parkhurst made me laugh out loud but the book came out two years ago and I haven't read it, Gary Shteyngart amused me but I already owned Super Sad True Love Story before I saw it, and I'll never read The Sexy Book of Sexy Sex - way to go, trailer-makers!

And remember, those links represent the cream of the crop.  If book trailers are movies, you just watched The Godfather, Casablanca, and Citizen Kane.  Except, you know, funny.  Most book trailers look like something your local high school AV club made for their final exam sophomore year.


All that having been said, I love this trailer:

It perfectly captures the mood of Tom Lichtenheld's whimsical, witty Cloudette.

Buy me.  I rock hard.  Well, softly.  I'm a cloud.

My first Lichtenheld experience was Shark vs. Train.  All the the little asides in the Cloudette video ("tee-hee!" "hi!")?  Lichtenheld peppers his illustrations with those.  Half the fun of reading his books is seeing Dylan giggle over those asides - particularly the trash talk in Shark vs. Train.  Finding them, reading them, and getting the joke; it's like watching a pinball machine light up.


Becky met Tom Lichtenheld at his hotel when he came to Miami.  I dropped her off and waited outside in the car so we wouldn't have to pay the $20 parking fee.  Becky emerged about half an hour later.  We're fairly sure the valets thought she was a call girl.  Or a drug dealer.

To capture Cloudette's rough look, Lichtenheld used pencil before tracing over it with Sharpie.

We don't worry about lead poisoning when art is at stake.

Especially cute art.

Somehow, Becky convinced tattoo artist Dicky Magoo to open Tattoos by Lou not only on his day off, but early so she could get back to work.  I don't think Becky has ever heard the word "no."  

Dicky used an extra-fine needle to create the outline and shading.  What looks deceptively simple holds a lot of detail.  Tom Lichtenheld looked very happy with the result.  

For a minute, Becky wanted Cloudette tattooed inside her wrist so she could see it better.  But as we all know, The Very Hungry Caterpillar is the tattoo that started it all.  So imagine them chummily side-by-side on her arm.

Caterpillar fart?

Of course, one could argue that as she lays, Cloudette could be seen as en extra large chuff from Otis that got blown astray.  Nevertheless, we've had fun with Cloudette.  Like the time Dylan decided that Becky and I should have matching tattoos.  He whipped out a pen and went to town on my forearm.

Uncanny, no?

Shaq: Uncut... or is he?

I often forget how special Books & Books is.  Every bookstore is not minutes from South Beach or Venetian Pool.  Every bookstore does not get shoppers like Sir Paul McCartney, Michael Moore, and Shakira.  Every book store does not host author appearances with Bill Clinton, Barbara Walters, and Shaquille O'Neal.

Does Clinton do candid shots?  Of course not. . . only if you're Becky Quiroga.

Yet there's a dark side to the celebrity-studded bookselling lifestyle, one you've probably never heard about but which claims the good moods of half a dozen booksellers a month.

Don't see it?  Let's take a closer look.

Yes, that's right: autograph theft.

If Shaq knew people were doing this to his books, he'd go Punisher.

I first came across this phenomenon when Gina and Dann Gershon visited for their book Camp Creepy Time in 2007.  For a few years, selling signed copies online became a lucrative business for us (if you're interested in a signed copy, email me; I'll hook you up).

I can't find my picture of Gina Gershon dressed as a naughty nurse for the appearance, so enjoy this instead.

Apparently, Gina Gershon's autograph is worth money on its own and paying $16.99 for the hardcover children's book would blow the resale margin all to hell.  It's much easier to take a razor and slice her signature out, making the book unsellable and killing our sale in one shot.  Thanks, asshole.

Since then, we've found slashed copies of Jerry Rice's Go Long, Alonzo Mourning's Resilience, Elizabeth Berkley's Ask Elizabeth, and Condoleezza Rice's No Higher Honor.  Apparently, sports figures, people with the last name Rice, and people from the movie Showgirls are high-risk groups.

Why not just steal the book altogether?  Sure, it's easier to sneak a piece of paper out the door but I think the real reason is that the thief likes to rub our faces in it.  There's a place in hell reserved for this perpetrator (perpetrators?) wherein paper-thin slices of skin are removed from portions of his/her body over the course of years.  S/he will plead for death but find none.

But that's just my opinion.  In the meantime, I'd like to catch this asshole in the act.  It would almost be worth him doing it, just to catch that asshole doing it.

The Secret Handshake: Do You Really Need an MFA to Get Published?

If you answered "no" then click here.

Quotidian. Why use quotidian when mundane works just as well?  Don't try citing some subtle shade of connotation, because there isn't one; they mean the same damn thing, except ninety-five percent of the English-speaking world could tell you what mundane means.  Barring mundane, why not give everyday, commonplace, or ordinary a day in court?  Too quotidian?

Using quotidian, you're not trying to tell us what the office is like, or describe Chester's workaday habits, or what materials an artist used for his pieces - unless you're Lionel Shriver, you're being deliberately obscure to add mystery to your piece, to make the reader work a little harder and invest more of herself.

I see the word all the time.

"Look out! The Quotidians are behind you!"

That, and words like it.  Elegiac ("expressing sorrow") is one.  Anodyne ("uncontentious or inoffensive") is another.  To me, it's all grandiloquent ("Pompous or extravagant in language, style, or manner, esp. in a way that is intended to impress").

I think my vocabulary is better than the average bear's.  If you're not David Foster Wallace, it ain't right to have me running for the dictionary (well, for Google).  It's also no comment on my lack of education (I hope) because it's the same words over and over.

I remember a poster in my sixth grade English class, back in the days when it was called Language.  Flying in the face of the Mighty Elmore Leonard (see Rule #3), this poster declared, "Said is Dead; Use These Instead."  An alphabetical list of words which wouldn't make it past an AP writing class followed- Argued, Berated, Chided, Declared, etc.  Seeing elegiac in four different books I've read in the last two months makes me imagine a spreadsheet handed out at creative writing programs across the country; Simplicity is Dead; Use These Instead.

Leonard says, "if it sounds like writing, re-write it."  John D. MacDonald says, "Author intrusion is, 'Gee, Mama, look how nice I'm writing!'"  John Dufresne says, "thou shalt not be obscure."

Look, I'm all for high fallutin language if it serves the voice of a piece.  I like learning new words, particularly from a Shriver or a Wallace who knows how to use them.  But most of the time these words just seem underlined.  If you tell me your book is a "bildungsroman" rather than "a coming-of-age novel," you're proffering the secret MFA handshake.

McWriterface, listen closely: shake off all those fancy words you discovered pursuing your degree.  They are weighty words and you need to build up your muscles before you can lift them properly.  I see intransigent ("unyielding") and suddenly you're not trying to tell me a story, you're waving your MFA in my face.  You can't expect editors to stop these words because they all have their MFAs, too.  So it's up to you, Authorton.

Only you can prevent grandiloquence, Authorton... only you.

Girl with the Pigeon Tattoo & Anna Dewdney, Too

Yesterday at Dylan's after-care program, two girls with eyes and a flair for the obvious told Becky she was the most beautiful girl they'd ever seen.  As Becky walked away, one of them pointed.

"Llama llama!  Llama lama!" she shouted.

This led to a tour of Becky's arm, a few minutes of book talk, and the near kidnapping of two girls from Dylan's after-care program.  

I'm sorry, kidnapping is never funny.  There was nearly a Forceful Non-Blood-Related Family Expansion, but we had to leave in a hurry to beat traffic.

Llama llama is a character from a beloved series of picture books that have been flying off the shelves for about seven years now.  Is it llama llama's sweet naivety?  The fact that llama llama can always count on Mama?  Or some magical combination of charming rhymes and gorgeous illustrations?  Whatever the secret, llama llama is one of Dylan's most-requested bedtime stories.  When author / illustrator Anna Dewdney came to Books & Books, Becky had the spot on her arm all picked out.


The tattooing has already been covered in depth by Publishers Weekly.  I love the picture I took with Llama Llama Red Pajama in the foreground, tattoo artist Dicky Magoo in the center, and the Miami Dolphins playing in the background.  I especially love that we just returned from our honeymoon and the last name "Curtis" was all over the place.

But since Shannon Maughan was so thorough, I'm reduced to this:

Look how cute!  Buy it.

I said, BUY IT.

Please buy it?

I'll also share some pictures which weren't in Publishers Weekly.

Signed by the artist; that arm is worth money.

There was a good deal of blood involved, but Becky was determined to get llama llama picture-ready.

All that scrubbing was worth it to see the look on Anna Dewdney's face.

This is why Dewdney looks so pleased; sweet job, Dicky Magoo.

World Book Night April 23rd, 2012 - sign up by February 1st!

Love books?  Want to share the love?  Go here to sign up and become a book giver awayer.

If you can get one non-reader to read, or convince a light reader to give one of those awesome books a try, it will make the fact that Carl Lennertz won't be publishing me at Harper Collins (because he's too busy being CEO of World Book Night) totally worth it.

You don't remember that story?  Probably because it was part of a many-layered ramble sandwich.

Anyhoo, give some books away!

One Reason My Wife Is Awesome

Yes, she is.

On Sunday night, Becky got back from New Orleans for the American Booksellers Association's 2012 Winter Institute.  Exhausted from meetings, loggy with shrimp po' boys and beignets, it was all she could do to keep her eyes open long enough to tumble into bed.  Mere hours later, she was sitting at the computer in her pajamas, on her day off, listening to the ALA webcast.  She had an open purchase order for Books & Books ready to go.

If you check out Newbury Winner Dead End in Norvelt and Caldecott winner A Ball for Daisy, for example, you'll notice that both titles say "special order - subject to availability."  That's because they're in reprint.  Every time a book wins an award (or an author dies), you can bet the publishers and wholesalers will go from hundreds of available copies to nothing in a matter of hours.

But we've got them.  We've got the winners, because Becky is so dedicated that she spent her one day off in two weeks ordering them.

If you wonder what makes Books & Books continually successful. . . well, sure I'm biased.  But Becky Quiroga is a big reason.

The Girl with the Pigeon Tattoo Gets a Tractor to the Forearm

Barack Obama's daughters loved Drummer Boy so much that when Obama wrote a children's book, he picked Loren Long to illustrate it.  The result is Of Thee I Sing:

Buy it, coz.

But toddlers couldn't care less about that.  When you need to entertain a five-year-old, you want something a little more funkengrooven.  You want a friendship between a tractor and a calf.

If that sounds dumb, it's because you're old and your heart is a brittle, numb thing.  It sounded dumb to me when Dylan requested it as his bedtime story, the first time I ever watched Becky put him down. When she read the gentle purring of the tractor's engine that lulls the little calf to sleep, Otis's putt puff puttedy chuff, I fell in love.  Being a family is mostly making things up as you go.  There are very few moments you feel you're getting it right, while they're happening.  That was one.

Also, when it comes to matters of the heart, Becky is my Otis and I am her calf.  In fact, when Loren Long scheduled appearances at Books & Books Bal Harbour and Coral Gables, I wanted to ask for the calf to go with her tractor.  It would have represented her saving me, us as a couple, and the father I became when she brought Dylan into my life.

But I didn't ask, so we'll have to come with another couple tattoo.


You know how this thing with Becky's arm works, right?

First comes the drawing.

While Mo Willems scribbled the Pigeon in about twenty seconds ("The thing is to capture the energy!"), Loren Long was meticulous.  He stopped several times.  He'd stand, step back, stare, erase, and start again.  "I wasn't this nervous for President Obama," he said.

Then comes the tattooing.

Dicky Magoo of Tattoos by Lou (seriously) loves the challenge of replicating other artist's work, trying to get the same effects in tattoo as they did in whatever medium they originally used.  He did Becky's first illustrator tattoo, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and returned to the scene of the ink for Otis.

Side Note: That last link is to the Los Angeles Review of Books, where Lisa Jane Persky writes, "Becky Quiroga’s “Very Hungry Caterpillar,” drawn on her arm by Eric Carle himself, is a piece of body art that soccer moms from Sandusky to Timbuktu would find it [SIC] hard to disapprove of."  But people see what they want.  The more ink Becky gets, the more strangers are wary of the badass tattooed chick.  Few look closely enough to see that they're pictures from children's books.


So it's a tattoo artist's rendering of an illustrator's actual drawing on Becky's arm, get it?  Stop saying, "I guess you'll never wash that arm again."


Becky was able to get Otis between Loren Long's first and second appearances, so he was able to see the finished product.

Pictured: Natural behavior.

Long was soooo nice.  He's the type of nice guy who's so nice that I walk away thinking, "Why can't I be more like him?"  Most people who meet me immediately think I'm an asshole.  Which is 1) not far off 2) why hand-selling books is difficult for me.  So this asshole thinks I should buy "The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet;" whoop-dee-freaking-whoo.

The Otis tattoo made Shelf Awareness as well, on September 19th.  Yes, that's how topical I am.  More to the point, that's what Miami Book Fair International 2011 did to me.  It took over all three of my lives, the internet one, the writing one, and the breathing one.

With the presidential credentials on her forearm, can Maurice Sendak's Max be far behind?  Are you listening, Mr. Sendak?  Say the word and we're Connecticut bound.

Miami Book Fair International Day 6: The Party Starts Today

This year opened with Christopher Paolini's Inheritance on Sunday afternoon.  The Miami Writers Institute, Student Literary Encounters, and the heavy hitters - Dorothy Alison, Harry Belafonte, John Sayles, Ron Suskind, Calvin Trillin - have been hitting all week long, but these next three days are key.  The Street Fair is its own monster, and Books & Books is 90% ready.

It's ten minutes to six am.  Becky and I are dropping Dylan off at school in the dark so we can finish the job of getting the tents set up.

Some retailers have the holiday season; at Books & Books, we have Miami Book Fair International.

Tensions are high.  Illness runs rampant.  Three of us have almost quit this week, including me.  When the gates open in about four hours, we'll find out if it's all been worth it.

There have been more cancellations.  I read an apologetic email from an author just recovering from the flu.  This author knew that flying down to Miami for the weekend would cause the flu to return, so... he can't make it, sorry.

Not everyone at Books & Books is or has gotten sick but there's a fairly sturdy illness making the rounds on some key players.  I worked a sixty-hour week, spent a miserable Friday night and all day Saturday in bed, and then worked another sixty hour week starting Sunday.  14 and 16 hour days are just as beneficial for your health as you'd imagine.

I'm putting more effort into stocking Authorton McFluwhiner's books than he is into promoting them.

As Becky says, "His loss, don't it so personally."  I don't.  Much.  I just get annoyed when people have the kind of jobs where they can make those choices.  I wonder what it is about me that I have never had the kind of job where I can take a sick day.  It is me, refusing to take one?  People call out all the time at every job I've ever had, so maybe it is just me.

Anyway, I've gone off topic and now the alarm is going off.  My point is, there's stuff I wanted to do.  I haven't written in forever, and not just blogs.  I've been sleeping in until seven, because waking at five would be pushing myself too hard, and this cold keeps nipping at my heels.  I wanted to morph that post about the wedding books into something Book Fairish for The Heat Lightning, because a ton of those authors are appearing.  I wanted to interview someone awesome like Vera Brosgol or Hillary Jordan for THL, too.  I wanted to drink juice and eat soup.

Well, I did that last one.  Just not enough.

By the end of every day, I'm in that mode where I have to keep moving, because if I stop, I'll crash.  It was over a hundred degrees in the tent yesterday.  I think I lost ten pounds of water.  I know I didn't pee once.  It's supposed to rain all weekend.

Wish us luck.

A Letter to Miami Book Fair International Authors Who Cancel

Dear Authorton McWriterface,

God forbid you have a successful tour.  Poor you, having to meet folks who adore your work.  You don't want attention, then guess what?  Don't tour.  Before that, don't publish what you write.

Clearly your work has struck a nerve, but screw the fans whose purchases have assured you'll never need a real job again, right?  Screw the folks trying to schedule hundreds of authors around your event, huh?  Fuck that guy in the buying office beating his brains against his desk trying to find copies of your book somewhere, anywhere, because your publisher is caught by surprise and your book is in reprint, yes?

Fuck those people because it's all about you, and flying in an airplane, checking into a hotel, sitting in a chair, and signing your fucking name is just too much.  You know why David Sedaris signs for four hours at every gig, even after all these years on tour?  Because he knows that real work is much, much worse.

Get a fucking job.

Google Images doesn't have much in the manner of book beatings. 

And if your tour is not successful, so what?  You published an honest-to-God book.  In this climate, where publishers are leary of anything not rambled (or co-rambled) into existence by some "celebrity," you did it - you didn't self-publish, you didn't CreateSpace, you didn't offer your book on the Kindle for 99 cents.  A publisher looked at your work and thought, "This.  This will keep the doors open a while a longer."  That's not enough affirmation for you?

I get it, it's frustrating to think you have something to say and that no one will listen, like this is your one big chance to shout your message to a mass audience but the crowd went, "meh."  I have no idea what that feels like.  But you know what it feels like being the guy ordering books for the guy for whom that's not good enough?  It sucks.  It's soul-crushing.  It sets my teeth a-grinding.

So think of me, pull your head out of your ass, and woo the half-dozen people who care what you have to say so hard that they'll have no choice but to tell half a dozen others.

Of the two book beating images on offer, this is the clear winner.

And if this is your second year canceling... oh, Authorton.  Nothing could make me agree to this again, order everything for Miami Book Fair while doing my regular job.  But to see you come in, give your presentation, and melt down because your books aren't here, thinking of that almost makes it seem worth the effort.

Better yet, maybe we'll just have you sign copies of our return paperwork.  Fuckwad.


May All Your First Printings Be Remaindered,

Frustrated in the Buying Office

The Best Day of My Life

Living in a culture were everything is the "Best.  _______.  Ever." makes it tough to call something your best experience without it getting swept up with the rest of the hyperbole.  I'll take that risk and dub my wedding day the best day of my life.  

A nice surprise from the folks at Onondaga County Parks and Recreation greeted us on Thursday.
My sister's wedding gift was renting Camp Brockway on Thursday so we didn't need to rush the day of the wedding.

A good thing, since it took us six hours to put together everything we've doing over the last few months.  

Becky and I drew and labelled place settings.  Becky and her sister made dozens of flowers from book pages.  That's 10 pounds of Starbucks Espresso Roast holding them in place (whole bean; we have coffee for months).  We wrapped the books so they'd match and printed labels so our families would know what they are.  Those are Proust Questionnaires in lieu of a guestbook, which led my seven-year-old 2nd-cousin to say, "Why do we have a test?".

Our troubador, who performed Bob Dylan's You Ain't Goin' Nowhere.  

Our troubador, canoodling our officiant from the First Nation Church.
These folks are also known as Becky's parents.

Sometimes you need a little help getting dressed.

It might even be a two-parent job.

But it's worth the effort when this is your ring-bearer.

When getting married, try not to have too much fun.

I DO!

Our menu was pulled pork sandwiches, mojo chicken, tomato-cucumber salad, mashed potatoes, and cornbread.
I love me some Dinosaur Bar-B-Que.  You can order the sauces and spices to your home, or you can make them yourself. Their cookbook recipes are the same recipes they use in the restaurants, and they taste just as amazing.

Nonpareils baked our cupcakes: Red Velvet with cannoli cream filling and ice butter cream frosting, Chocolate Espresso   filled with espresso ganache and topped with mocha butter cream frosting, and nut-and-raisin-free Carrot Cake topped with cream cheese butter cream.  Basically, you're looking at a lot of cream.

We weren't quite sure how we were going to pull off the cake-toppers, images of books we love cut from old publishers catalogs, and mounted on our cobalt blue.  Jen from Nonpareils suggested spray adhesive on card stock, then attaching those cards to coffee stirrers.  It worked like a charm.  They're stacked on books from my parents' shelves, wrapped in white, cobalt, and black.  I'm pretty sure Jen suggested that as well.  She was awesome.

We let folks take the leftover barbeque, but we took the cupcakes for the road.  I wish I had one right now.  

After our first meal as a married couple...

We repped 305 during a Pratts Falls photoshoot.

When we returned, we found many in the family had already left.
These are my parents, trying to sneak off.  Luckily, we caught them before they missed our first dance.

Becky thought we should do Judson Laipply's Evolution of Dance.  If you're unfamiliar, check it out.  You're in for a real treat. 

We rehearsed for several hours and several Coronas one Saturday night and decided that, apart from "The Worm," we could pull it off.  For the couple of weeks leading up to our wedding, we rehearsed when we could squeeze some time in.

As an introduction, Becky told our families, "We couldn't pick one first dance, so we picked them all."  

I must say, we rocked the Evolution of Dance.  Our families could not stop talking about it.  For six minutes, Becky and I were dancing machines.  Unfortunately, no footage of our efforts survive except for these grainy, poorly-lit, disposable camera shots.

The twist...

The Brady Bunch...

The Billie Jean...

The Robot...

This shot is clear proof that we know how to "Ride the Pony," but this next photo is a real shame.

We couldn't do The Worm, so this a picture of the up-rock grande jete salsa break we did instead.  It's a sort of Bob Fosse meets break beats meets Cuban Casino.  We couldn't decide on a name, we just called it, "that thing," as in, "Oh man, that thing you guys did?  It was fucking awesome."

Dylan finally met his cousins, Rylee and Sophia.

In lieu of keg stands, they did trash sledding.
Also, I got to use "in lieu of" twice in one post.

Then folks got changed into casual dress for the after-party, and to get the place cleaned up. 

While Becky ran around the mountain screaming, "I'm maaaaaaarrrrrriiiiiiieeeeed!" I stayed on the dance floor, rocking out to Becky's Ipod.  

It wasn't a good look for either of us. 

Ultimately, a good time was had by all.  Becky and I got cupcakes, Dinosaur Barbecue condiments, and some awesome reading material in the form of our family's answers to their Proust Questionnaires.

Some people took home paper flowers in glass vases filled with coffee, some took paper lanterns, and everyone got a book or two.

At this point, the only Curtises left were me and my brother. . . and Becky. 

A wedding doesn't make a marriage.  A marriage is created day-to-day as you and the person you've chosen learn what your love will hold.  Sometimes it means living in the moment.  Sometimes it means putting the mistakes of past relationships to rest so they don't cloud this one.  Sometimes it means having coffee brewed when your spouse wakes up.

But now is not the time for wondering about how our relationship will evolve, it's the time for enjoying each-other.  It's been thirty-seven lovely days that feel like an eye blink.  I intend to play the newlywed card for as long as I can.