the brookline booksmith is my enemy

and i'll tell you why.

some of you may remember my last run-in with the b. b.* and what a ghastly wreck of a literary experience it was. it very nearly put me off the whole reading/signing/bookstore/standing-in-line experience—but i'm no quitter, kids; i persevere, especially when it comes to the pursuit of personal gratification hinging on other people's artistic genius.

so today i went back to the scene of my most recent writer-based disappointment to give john hodgman an opportunity to redeem it. i went with no fear in my heart, as hodgman is the kind of writer i would gladly face down floods and college students and other perils for, and i was certain there was no way he could ever disappoint me. i'm still certain of that. the booksmith, on the other hand, seems incapable of doing anything but.

when i arrived at 6:40 for the 7:00 reading, the place was packed, which didn't make me unhappy, because of course hodgman deserves crowds that spill out into and across the street. for those of you unfamiliar with the booksmith (and i assume this is, well, all of you), the readings are held in a room below the store itself, which you get to by means of a two-lane staircase to the left of the main doors. i couldn't get into the room or even past the stairwell, but i didn't care all that much about that, because all i really needed was to be able to hear hodgman talking and jonathan coulton playing guitar. they could do it from behind a screen or inside of a large piñata for all i cared, as long as i could hear them. it was just very, very important to me that i could hear them.

and they came out, and everyone clapped, and then everyone got quiet because hodgman started talking. and then everyone laughed because hodgman said something funny. i know this because i'm adept at reading social cues and interpreting the moods and intentions of the people around me. i do not know it because i heard hodgman's voice. there was niet hodgman in the stairwell. none. nada. zero. and then more laughter came up from the people in the room who could hear hodgman (who, apparently, was knocking them dead) quite well, and then there was all kinds of noise in the stairwell.

there was the sound of about eight people behind me saying, "i can't hear anything. can you hear anything? why can't i hear anything? hey, excuse me, can you hear him? wow, no one can hear him." there was the sound of an older woman standing in the doorway to the store saying, "john went to high school with my son; he had long hair then. i didn't even know he was a writer, but my son called and told me he'd be in town today, so i came over to say hello. i didn't expect anyone to be here. how did you hear about him? the daily show? what's that? is it on in the morning? comedy central? what channel is that? yes, i know, comedy central, you said that, but what channel is it on?" there was the sound of the girl talking to the older woman, explaining that jon stewart was really popular with college kids and that was why the place was so crowded.** there was the sound of wave after wave of elated giggles emanating up from the floor, which only exacerbated the disgruntled muttering of the people on the stairs, and there was the sound of two junipers inside my head: one crying softly and despairingly at the brutal punishment i was being dealt for having chosen to work a full day instead of running off early and staking out a plot in the front row, and one yelling at the first one to shut the hell up because she couldn't hear hodgman over my stupid whining. once jp2 started yelling, jp1 only went to pieces more rapidly. it didn't help any that all three of us were crunched under the stair railing in such a way that the lower half of our body was being torqued at a right angle to the upper half and 65 percent of the muscles between our sternum and kneecaps were beginning to cramp and/or spasm. one girl in the far, far back (of the stairwell, not my head) finally hollered out, "mr. hodgman, we can't hear you back here! can you speak up?" but mr. hodgman, it would seem, couldn't hear us any better down there, and no up was spoken. here is everything i heard over the course of the first half an hour or so:

"good evening. i'm john hodgman. . . . the full title is . . . six . . . i will not touch my teeth . . . oils . . . sharp . . . more duties . . . jonathan coulton . . . feral man-child . . . black thursday . . . december . . . secretary of the treasury . . . in chalk . . . polio . . . to their waists . . . [coulton playing guitar] . . . not a children's song . . . [coulton playing song about children working in mines(?)] . . . and now we're going to start the q & a."

now, i've been in the booksmith when readings were going on in the past, and i know that you could have heard those authors if you'd been sitting in the stairwell, because i could hear them inside the store. sometimes i could hear them from the sidewalk outside the store. but the brookline booksmith is my enemy, and tonight, when it was absolutely imperative to me that i not miss one sparkling word, an invisible sound-deadening wall was constructed from floor to ceiling about two and a half feet in front of the place i was able to elbow my way to. this was bad. this was so, so bad.

and then it got worse.

for the q & a, hodgman broke out three walkie-talkies: one for him to speak into, one to be passed around the audience, and one for coulton to hold up to his microphone so that some, but not nearly all, of us could hear the delightful banter being transmitted back and forth between the other two. the gag in itself was lovely and exactly how i would have wanted it to be done. no, you know what, damn it? it is exactly how i did want it done. it was just right, a smart, quirky, adorable way to keep a potentially awkward process from overshadowing hodgman's smart, quirky, adorable tone. it was also almost completely inaudible. i think someone asked hodgman how he came up with one of the 700 hobo names, and someone asked him something about science fiction and water (?), and someone forgot to say "over" at the end of his question and had to ask it again. and then it was time to go.

the brookline booksmith is my enemy. but john hodgman, bless his tweedy little heart, is a peach, and i know now that the promise of even every twenty-fourth word will be enough to bring me back time and time again.

there was no bowing out of the autograph line today, boys and girls. i stood in that line, my left side pinched and twitchy, the eager boy behind me stepping on my heels every time someone five people ahead shifted from one leg to the other, jp1 still sniffling and gasping in a rear corner of my skull, because my love is that strong—and i was rewarded. as i handed him my copy of the areas of my expertise (the paperback edition, noteworthy for its extra dose of hobo monikers and lobster fur), he said, "hi, i'm john." i said, "hi, john, i'm juniper." and he said,

"juniper from the web?"

now, you weren't there, so you couldn't see, but i know that you trust me with your life and your house and all your stuff, and so you'll believe me when i tell you that when he looked up into my eyes, his expression of boredom and detachment and crushing indifference flawlessly masked the passionate yearning he felt within. this, tragically, is the way of the secret romance—doomed to deny itself until even those living through it seem unaware of its very existence. i, too, fought to maintain my cover, and i like to think i didn't let hodgman down. he apologized several times for his failure to project, and while this was sweet and good-host-y of him, i told him it was unnecessary and assured him that i would never hold him responsible for the shoddiness of the booksmith's sound system. his graciousness does prove beyond any reasonable doubt, though, that he absolutely would make a smashing roommate, especially compared to my last one, who didn't give a crap what i could or couldn't hear*** at any hours of the day or night.

and that was that. he gave me back my book and told me it was good to meet me, as though i were just one more fan whose face he would forget before i had even reached the door. in a room full of strangers, unable to reveal ourselves, we simply shook hands and parted. but when i reached my car, i saw what was written below the autograph:

"just 999 more please."

and we all know what that means.****






* this now stands for a number of things in my mind that are not "brookline booksmith" but are strongly associated with the store, such as "bloody bastards," "barnacle-encrusted baboons," "blundering biblio-peddlers," and, most of all, "my enemy."

** i don't believe this for a second, as everyone i could see down there looked way too old and stodgy to be staying up all night watching comedy central. i think they were more likely pie-chart enthusiasts, come to thank hodgman for bringing more attention to their cause.

*** this was generally her beastly bird making a horrible, screeching, crashing racket and silence, respectively.

**** don't we? i do. if you don't, please reference this post. also, please see my disclosure statement.