on going to a(nother) book launch

To be honest, I don't think I really believe a word of what follows in this post - not in the first half anyway. If I read it somewhere, I'd probably disagree. I might even write a strongly worded letter, if I had nothing better to do. The argument I make is narrow at best, with very little (if any) supporting evidence. I've presented stereotypes I find laughable. I generalise to the point of farce... If I were you, I wouldn't read it.

I find book launches weird at the best of times, especially when they're held in bookstores. Not that book stores are particularly weird... but sometimes it seems strange that this one, new and unproven little book should be celebrated so, especially when the literal backdrop is centuries worth of unique, flawed and beautiful literary art.

That said, we've a tendancy to celebrate a child's birth too.

Beyond location though, there's the people that attend book launches and the atmosphere they create. (I count myself out of this group and their atmosphere because I'm invariably at book launches in a working role...)

Book people are a whole different species, and never is this more clearly displayed than at a book launch.They look different, act different, talk about different things. (Negative stereotyping be damned.) They huddle together in groups, inhaling free wine and looking tentatively around the room to see if anyone is noticing how discreet they're being. (This is a behavioural trait they share with another odd species, actors.)

They all absolutely love each other's books. This goes without saying, of course, but if every last novel by every obscure minor novelist I've been introduced to at a book launch was as good as the other obscure novelist that introduced us said it was... well jeez, why aren't you guys famous?

(I don't mean to sound like I'm sneering, but I've a very low tolerance for sycophantic bullshit, especially in the arts.)

Last night, I accepted an invitation to Philip Casey's new collection of poetry, "Dialogue in Fading Light." Poetry launches are particularly uneasy experiences for me, mainly because they involve poets. (Is everyone still on board?)

Poets are like a neurotic subspecies within the writing breed. Compared to other writers, they always seem, I dunno.. vulnerable.

Novelists have great big books to hide behind, and the fictional classification of their work affords many of them a kind of artistic bunker to shelter in. They're respected (the good ones anyways) as artists inspired to take on and illuminate for us the heaving mass of humanity. Or even just a very tiny bit of it, that's okay too.Because, they're cool.

Playwrights are frequently a little eccentric, but unless we're talking about Marina Carr, they're generally in touch with the realities of life. Again, their work is about all humanity, which we like, but we grant them a distance between their work and who they are. You know what, I'm just gonna skip all this posturing and get to talking about last night.

I've know Philip since I was a kid and I know he's had a hard life. Watching him signing copies of his new collection was really satisfying, despite my cynicism with regard to how well-meant the back-slapping was...

But this post wasn't supposed to be about cynicism or stereotyping writers - it was supposed to be about something way more... or way less... something a bit more fundamental.

A very good friend of mine, who oddly enough wants to be a poet, once told me, "Until now I always thought of writers as people that sit in darkened rooms all day and wank."

He said this after we met (and he interviewed) D.B.C. Pierre, which was in the weeks after he won the 2003 Booker Prize...

You know what, I'm tired and this isn't working and I don't wanna smoke so I'm goin home. Sometimes ideas just misfire.