A Leak In The Safe

Well, we did it again, but there was no oops about it, just a lot of hard work by a lot of people. When I woke up on Sunday at 6:30 and heard the rain, I got an instant headache. The Kerrytown BookFest is a mighty, mighty creature, but like the wicked witch it has one weakness – water. Even though we have tents and roofed vendor areas a little liquid sunshine is pretty much of a deal breaker for attendance. Various people placated the gods in their own fashion (let me tell you, it’s hard to find a virgin in Ann Arbor to sacrifice at that hour) and lo and behold at about 10:30 the skies cleared and once I saw the sun I knew everything was going to be copasetic.

Attendance was up, the author panels and demonstrations were jammed, the vendors were making money and just about everyone was walking around with a smile, digging the groovy booklovin’ vibe. I guess it really is the Ann Arbor News’s loss if they treat the fab Fest like a red headed stepchild. They had a little article the week before and an anemic photo essay on Monday, but tell me the pictures by our official photographer GREGORY D. ANTHONY won’t be a jillion times better. The front page cultural event of Sunday? The bike race which was said to have "several hundred" spectators. Even if that were true – there were maybe twenty when I saw the start while on a coffee run (as well as the WORST mangling of our national anthem since Roseanne Barr) – it seems to me that an event that had almost FIVE THOUSAND attendees might merit a tad more ink. The other Ann Arbor Book Festival got a week of gushing build up raves from the Ann Arbor News before their event as well as a glowing front page postmortem with fantastic attendance figures, but all I know is that they are going to seriously downsize next year while we are expanding, with bigger tents, more exhibitors and more books.

There were so many good moments and so much help from good friends that I can’t name them all. I’m usually not a big fan of the Boy Scouts, but I have to tell you that I saw them in a different light while they were so assiduously and efficiently helping us set up (and most importantly) tear down. Tearing down is like sprinting uphill at the end of a marathon, and the first few scouts I saw at five p.m. were tiny lads, but I breathed a sigh of relief when their brawnier cohorts showed up. Hail to thee SCOUTS and SCOUT MASTERS! Even though I’m older, I’m only half as sore as I was at this time last year.

Authors are at worst interesting people, and at best as personable as the ones who were on the book panels at the Fest. Although I really enjoyed every writer I talked to, I admit having a bit of a crush on the Noir Ladies, MEGAN ABBOTT and THERESA SCHWEGEL. I guess I just have a thing for beautiful women who are incredibly cool, intelligent and write brilliantly wonderful books. Weird, huh?

The only downside is wondering how we are going to top the 2008 Kerrytown BookFest, but knowing the board that so brilliantly guides its destiny, I can only say that only a chump will miss 2009’s edition.

The following is from Cults That Kill: Probing the Underworld of Occult Crime by Larry Kahaner, a pure product of the great Occult scare of the 80’s. Once again the material has been arranged, edited and personally UBU selected for your reading pleasure:

SYNOPSIS: This report concerns listed individuals performing religious ceremonies in a secluded area while wearing white robes.

The information contained herein is distasteful and bizarre, to such a degree that one would choose to discredit it. However, research that I have done in this area has revealed that numerous cases of this type are surfacing around the country and in Canada.

Also during the investigation, officers have learned that students in three school districts in the county of Monroe practice the worshiping of Satan.

To have that kind of activity going on in our county and us not know about it, that scares me.

It blew my mind; right here in the city – devil worshipers. My partner an I have been looking into it, but we’ve been keeping a low profile. We’ve continued talking to the kids. It’s unbelievable the stuff they’re into.

Followers are held in the group by drugs, mind control, intimidation, and the cult of confession. During their criminal acts, terms or unusual sayings are left with symbols which to them have meaning.

Repeated physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual assaults combined with a systematic use of symbols, ceremonies, and machinations designed and orchestrated to attain malevolent effects.

Here’s a kid who’s a loner, not doing great in school, into drugs and so on.

Loner, above average IQ, underachiever, strives for control or power, takes drugs, preoccupation with death, pornographic material, secretive.

Another indication is books. People who have a lot of books are serious. It takes a lot of effort to study books.

The point we’re at now is trying to sift through all the information and verify it. The problem we have is that a lot of the information we get is from people who are in mental institutions.

If this incident changed me in any way it changed me to feel that there are a lot of things going on out there that we have absolutely no idea about.

It’s P.O.D. (Print On Demand) time again, celebrating the titles from those so special teeny tiny publishers and self-publishers who fly in the face of commercial fiction to make us ask the big questions – like HUH? WHAT THE HECK?

Love Runes

Jay Lygon

Sam, the god of sex, and Hector, the god of love, have a unique relationship. They’re into the BDSM lifestyle, and they both have some serious issues. Hector has no intention of losing Sam to Marcus, the god of fear, or the Goddess of Eternal Youth, but can he get to Sam in time? 248 pp. (Fiction/Erotica/Gay) Torquere Press: Imprints include Turn of the Screw and High Balls.

In The Stickup Kid, the coin stands on its edge on the fog machine that clouds the dragon’s long winding trail from Asia in this message that the meek shall inherit the loot. 180 pp. (Fiction/General) Llumina Press: Self-Publishing, Editing, Printing and More.

Alexa’s poetry reflects her belief that the destiny of time embraces peace. 112 pp. (Poetry/American/General) Outskirts Press: The Gem of Custom Book Publishing.