Tonight, I’ll sit down with Rick Kogan at the brand new Chicago Publishers Gallery at The Chicago Cultural Center. The Gallery is a permanent exhibition, showing off the city’s ever-expanding literary output. That opens up at 5, and the program begins at the Cassidy Theater at 5:30.

On Tuesday, October 14, I’m reading a 55-word story as part of a fund-raiser for Quickies!, one of the coolest reading series in the city. I’ll join 29 other writers, all reading these ridiculously short short short stories.

And then the big one, on Wednesday, October 15, is a reading as part of Writers & Cartoonists for Obama, a huge fund-raiser for our guy, with a ton of great writers on the bill, including Stuart Dybek, Quraysh Ali Lansana, Sara Paretsky and others.

Back from Omaha, and the (Downtown) Omaha Lit Fest. I dare say it was even more fun than last year. The reading at the Slowdown was a blast. Slowdown is a gorgeous venue, the kind I wish we had here in Chicago (i.e. there’s a stage AND windows). And I met loads of cool people, including Starlee Kine, Hesse McGraw and Jonis Agee.

So now I’m finally trying to catch up on the collapse of our economy, which is a funny thing to be behind on. The entire dialogue is blowing my mind, how the Treasury is acting as though we owe it to the bailed-out banks, and they should be allowed to hold us hostage. This is a really unformed opinion on the matter, at the moment, largely because I’ve never really understood anything more than savings accounts.

F’proof is headed down to the great (Downtown) Omaha Lit Fest this weekend. If you’re there, or you know anyone there, tell ‘em to come out to the Slowdown tomorrow night. I’ll be reading alongside Starlee Kine, Amy Guth and m’boy Zach Plague.

Z and I are on a couple of panels as well, throughout the day on Saturday. Otherwise, we’ll just be hanging out with Nebraskans. Say hello!

Downtown brethren: I’m reading at 5pm this Wednesday night. Come straight from your workplace!

A couple years ago, I wrote a story for The Dollar Store called “Eight Permutations on the Binoculars of Power.” It was sort of a funny little piece that takes eight vignettes featuring binoculars and lines them up 1 through 8, then finishes them off 8 through 1. I ended up publishing it as a featherproof mini-book, originally in dearly departed Resonance. It didn’t fit quite right into the main text of Hiding Out so I decided to make it one of the hidden stories (originally, I thought it might run one line at a time, at the bottom of each page). I thought that was probably about as much life as I could expect from the little guy.

But today, I received an email from a guy named Brady Russell, a writer in Philadelphia who downloaded and read a bunch of minis on a train ride to Washington, D.C. (This is what the minis are for, people!). He read and liked Eight Permutations, and wrote his own version, called “8 Permutations on the Electric Screwdriver of Power.” He then challenged his buddies to write one, using the form, and one of his pals has already followed suit.

Russell sort of jokingly claims that the 1 through 8, 8 through 1 style could eventually be called “a messinger.” And considering the amount of stupid stunts I’ve pulled in my time—i.e. ramming a snow sled into a moving vehicle, getting my head stuck in a fence—I wholeheartedly support this, before I do something else that warrants the title. Regardless, it’s fun to see people get into it.

Here’s the original pdf, downloadable off the mothership:

Five questions with this guy over at the Pilcrow Lit Fest blog.