May 21, 2004

• Bruce Sterling at Third Place Books in Lake Forest Park 2-nite, 7pm. Attendance is mandatory for all Cult of Homer initiates, regardless of the last-minute quality of this missive.

  Update:

  Sterling is charismatic and possessed of what I call the ‘Austin accent,’ which is very subtle. By the time I got to the front of the line for book signage, he was completely exhausted, too.

  He’s the kind of guy whose rants are really enjoyable, especially when he’s preaching to the choir as he was tonight. The two things that struck me most were:

  He called Osama Bin Laden the ‘Ghandi of Evil.’ He said guns and tanks aren’t any more effective against him than they were when the British wielded them against Ghandi.

  He also took a question, about whether he had an opinion about the idea that Bush might pull Bin Laden out of hiding somewhere in order to turn the election. His answer was, yes, he had an opinion, and his opinion was that the existence of such a question, held out as a legitimate question to ask, was evidence of the extreme polarization of our political culture. Essentially, it says more about whoever asks it than it does about Bush or Bin Laden. And he’s completely right.

  His pen ran out of ink while signing my book (his pen was exhausted as he was), so I gave him mine, and he wrote ‘My pen died in the trenches of literature!’ in my book.

  • 11:59 pm
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