Saturday, December 17, 2011

Train Seals to Balance Big Balls on Their Snoots

Last night at Writers' Block First Draft was a posthumous battle between two children's authors and their post-death writing. Dr. Seuss and Shel Silverstein. The host of the night, asked me to take on the Seuss and Scott Woods to assume the role of Silverstein.

This was going to be tough. The tale of the page has the new book by Silverstein, "Everything on It" coming in at 208 pages, with dozens of poems, if not more, to choose to read. The Seuss, The Bippolo Seed and Other Lost Stories is 72 pages, and 17 of them are the forward. The books is seven stories. I chose to read three of them but had to cut two of them in half to meet the constrictions of a five round event.

After an epic day of smacktalking on Facebook between Scott and I, the battle was finally on.



In round one, I read the first half of Gustav the Goldfish, but it was not enough as Scott won the round.

Round two, however, was all mine.



Round three went to Scott as I started the Steak for Supper story, but once again I took the round with the second part of the story.

At this time, Scott went deep into character and brought out a guitar. An impressive act, even if he can only play one chord.



At one point he even suggested that Dr. Seuss was a Nazi. The nerve. Ok, earlier I did compare the reading to Agincourt and called Scott a French mercenary, but a Nazi? Really?

We went into the final round tied at two. Scott read first and I was about halfway through The Great Henry McBride when the thread snapped.



The wonderful audience started heckling, Shel was heckling at my right and the story was turning into foreplay for a certain ex-defensive coordinator of a big ten school. Things got a bit out of hand, pants were almost wet onstage. It's on tape somewhere but I have not seen it yet. It's rather legendary. Thanks to Ara and Steph for the pictures here.

Scott won the round, and the night, but one poet is changing his name to Two Gun Henry McBride. It was so much fun, you should have been there. Thanks to all who turned up and to Louise Robertson for hosting the night.

1 comment:

elainegrey said...

Looks like you all had fun -- and i'm thankful for the photos because you don't mention the chapeau!