I Survived the 2006 Maritime Writers’ Workshop and Literary Festival – Part 2

So there we were, escapees from alien invasion and refugees from a blood chilling haunting. We were suffering for our art, baring our souls to the whims of whatever muse swooped in from the wellsprings of creativity to torture us on the anvil of culture.

Or something like that. Something very much like that. In fact, we crawled for culture. It was the night of the Culture Crawl, a night like most others … dark … stormy … but tonight the galleries and coffee shops and art centers in the bustling heart of downtown Fredericton threw their doors open to free entry, special exhibits and free booze.

It was a night to crawl for culture. I made my way from the Beaverbrook Residence to the first stop along with Jim Joyce, Annie Rand and Gene Ionesco (dressed in drag). We were a ragtag troupe of word mongrels. The first stop was the Charlotte Street Arts Center and the Underground Café and Bookstore (both in the same building, but in different dimensions of similar intent).

As we entered the building, we were approached by a giant bowl of punch screaming, “Drink me! Drink me!” We had no choice. We lapped like kittens while Ionesco ate the bowl and grunted animal sounds. Sated, we crawled to the second floor where we were attacked by weaver sirens with weaving stuff, wooden contraptions and wool. They promised to weave our words into stories. They promised us immortality, but we knew they would just weave us into their insidious art and we would be hung on walls, trophies of their spindle skills.

Weaver sirens tend to look like normal humans, then they load thread and ... beware all life within the reach of the siren. 'Nuff said.

I broke away from the maddened crowd as Rand insisted on red thread in some weird gesture of atonement and I went downstairs to the Underground Café and Bookstore. The route there was maze-like and seemingly unending. I met Vonnegut in the throes of some biographical hunt for himself before writing his last book for the tenth time. He mumbled something about time and circumstance. I didn’t get it. Neither should you.

In the Café and Bookstore, Warhol (dressed in drag) and Anais Nin tried to beat me senseless with the latest copy of ellipse magazine. Andy already had my leg hair from the triathlon gig to mold into a piece of hair sculpture that would freeze frame my soul forever on a wall, but he (as she) wanted to pummel my physical me to death with the printed word.

Thank God for Joyce and Ionesco (in drag). They stumbled down the stairs and spilled into the Café and Bookstore hollering, “He’s a born again virgin! We need to throw him into the river!” Somehow, this made sense to Warhol (dressed in drag) and Nin. They stopped pummeling me and turned me over to my culture crawlees. I was safe.

For now.

Next: The Crawl Continues