Vote for Mold!

Awesome open mic last night, courtesy of Mimaamakim, the Stanton Street Shul, and -- unexpectedly -- Yori Yanover, author of The Cabalist's Daughter, a sort of 24-meets-Apocalypse Now-meets-the-Apocalypse novel about the Lubavitcher Rebbe dying, his followers creating a clone, and the clone turning out to be a girl. It's always awkward to meet someone whom you've just written about. Square that when it's onstage in front of a bunch of people. Factor in any potential uncomfortability that might come about if the book wasn't a good one. Fortunately, it was, and fortunately, Mr. Yanover is just as large and funny and unhinged in real life as he is on the page -- and even more Douglas Adams-dik -- and so all was good on the Lower East Side.

OK, and now:

Vote for my poem "Mould" (that's "Mold" to you Americans out there) as the best in Melbourne! First do the super-fast registration, and then vote for my poem! (Or whichever poem you'd like to vote for. Not to play favorites. Ahem.)

Open Mic & Neil Gaiman in New York (but not together)

Tomorrow night: open mic with me at the 92Y Tribeca! 200 Hudson Street, right near pretty much every good after-show bar and restuarant in the city. Featured readers are Jen Hubley, senior style editor for About.com and wild blogger in her own right, and Megan Bruce. Everything moves quickly, and everyone there pretty much rocks. Which is why you should be there. Cause you rock, too. Oh, and it's free. Sign-up and coctails 7:00, show at 7:30.

And, oh, cool -- Neil Gaiman's Graveyard Book won this year's Newbery. Although, as a friend pointed out, what awards left has he not won? After a certain point, I feel like people should be immune from awards (which, in NG's defense, he's very good at withdrawing himself from competitions that he wins too much) and create, I don't know, like a hall of fame or something -- a center-of-the-universe Neutral Zone where writers and musicians are recognized as the coolest people ever, and therefore are disqualified from competitions, because you already know that everything they touch pen to is going to be really smoking good. I'm thinking of Maurice Sendak, mostly, although pretty much everything Lydia Millet writes is amazing, as well.

Oh, and in prep for the new movie (courtesy of Alisha at Harper's), you can (and should) read the entirety of Coraline online here for free. If only to prepare yourself.

Oh, and -- he's in New York today!

Orthodox Jew s for Obama

Last night, the Orthodox Union called me in a frizzle -- they wanted to run an article on Inauguration. Did I have anything to say? Could I have anything to say?

I don't know how well-acquainted you are with me, but, uh, yeah. Throw me a party, and I will fill the house with ruminations on the Obamanation. I wrote about it once, in this book about chicken soup and Democrats, and I didn't think someone would be nice enough to ask for more. But here's what I said.

I have a friend, an underground playwright, who hates Obama. He's convinced that, six months after Inauguration, nobody's going to notice anything different from the past eight years of George W. Bush's administration -- we'll be paying just as many taxes, our troops will still be mired in war, and everything will be much the same. Nothing will have changed.

But he was one of the first Philadelphians in the poll booths.

Why? "Hope," he said. "The man's all about hope. He believes in something. It's a nice change from all the politicians who believe in nothing."

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