Taking a departure from the usual link-and-run style of blogging, Frank Wilson of The Philadelphia Inquirer has written a meaty post about last night's Chuck Palahniuk and Elmore Leonard appearance. He writes:

The whole event was the literary equivalent of a rock concert. When Chuck announced that he was going to read one his more notorious stories, "Guts," the audience cheered, the way they would if a rock star said he was going to perform a legendary hit.

I kept thinking on the way home how newspapers are desperate to attract younger readers, but haven't a clue as to how popular this guy is with just the people they're looking for. Never have I had a greater sense of just how out of touch newspapers have become.

[Speaking of being out of touch, I wish Critical Mass would stop posting name-dropping lists. It's very nice to see lots of authors protesting the AJC's removal of their book editor. However, it'd be even nicer to read an homage to all the paid subscribers who have signed the petition, like #5377, "a subscriber to the AJC since 1970," or #5312 who writes, "There is no other way to get the regional book coverage. So if AJC doesn't have it, I will need to go back to subscribing to the New York Times."]

Back to Chuck. Here's another post about last night's Philly reading from a fan who cut class to attend:

Chuck spoke for 2 hours, he was definitely on something, his speech was slurred and he looked a touch unsteady, but it worked for him. He took questions from the crowd and when asked how zombie movies had influenced the rabies plague in his new book, he said he loved zombies. He said that when his friends watch boring movies like "The English Patient" or "Howard's End", they often say how the movie would be exponentially better with some of those fast moving zombies from the "Dawn of the Dead" remake.

And from the Cult forums, here's an account from the New York tour stop on Wednesday night:

You might have seen me, I was in the duct tape wedding dress. (Front row, huzzah. The perks of being early.) I got to talk to Chuck at about 3:30 and he gave me the slip for redeeming the wedding dress...prize...thing. (Of course, they gave me another during the readings, so now I have two. Ahem--scrapbook time!) Which, the only thing I know about the prize is that he told me it "would be too big to hang in a frame on my wall". Yeah, so, that doesn't narrow it down at all, but that's all I have. I never met him before, and was surprised how amazingly warm and friendly he was, not to mention how light and sincere his handshake was. Very personal.

I only have one regret, and that is--stupid me--I didn't ask to get my picture with him while we were talking. My brain was completely fried and I got entirely too nervous, popping my knuckles, turning red and saying really nonsensical things because my thought process just wasn't working.

I'm jealous. I should have forced myself out the door.