People came to the opening night. This was pleasant. There were a lot of them. I mainly sat behind the table of free stuff and gave out the free stuff and talked to strange faces. None of these faces said "it was all great except the writing" so I got away with it and that was a relief. People must like mesmeric horrible things as much as we do. Pumpkin and popcorn soup was served in shot glasses and Demdike Stare played uneasy goodness. None of the locals came in demanding the free booze.
It's open til the fifth but I had to leave to spend more time with the Job Centre in Rusholme. I'd been neglecting it in favour of working on things I actually want to work on. But when I went there today it didn't seem angry. Just disappointed. I think that's why it kept recommending jobs in faraway places.
On my crawl towards the Job Centre I went into Oxfam with my copy of Roberto Bolannnnnyo's 2666 and informed the nice girl behind the counter, when she looked up from her book, that instead of catapulting it into Blackpool Tower I've decided to give it away so that someone else might squirm through its stunningly tedious first half before doing something better, like eating a pot of Copydex. Perhaps she could put it next to Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao on a special shelf labelled "The Latest Disappointments". I'm reading Richard Brautigan instead. Much better. And looking at a deeply unsettling but beautifully illustrated calendar. Approach with caution if you are under the age of eighty five or are on anything hallucinogenic, or plan to be during the next six weeks.
