new school MFA student reading 9/28/06

managed to leave work early enough to only miss the first part of the first night of MFA Student Readings at the New School. As per usual, there was nowhere to sit but there were some great poets/writers reading. Standouts include a poet whose name, of course, I can't remember but his poems were wonderful. There was also a first year fiction student, Todd Wright, who read a great story about a man going to a thrift store to buy a grease monkey shirt to hopefully make himself appear sexier to his wife - that's a bad 10am at work w/a nasty cold summation of it... It was well read, well written and funny. Hopefully, there'll be more like that at future readings. Not to say I didn't love some of the other work too but this was a standout for me. Still finding myself not really into all the "collegiate" atmosphere of hanging out with my classmates & the whole pizza & beer before class isn't something I'm generally up for. I guess I'm getting antisocial & boring in my old age. (getting?) Ah well. Had another wonderful Lit Seminar (Francine Prose) afterwards though of course this nasty cough my heinous co-worker gave all of us interuppted the last half of the class for me. ouch. We were discussing Tatyana Tolstaya's "Heavenly Flame." I've never had a great interest or love for Russian Lit & I'm happy to say, this class has changed my opinion. Last week was Isaac Babel and Leonard Michaels - both wonderful stories. Next week we have off :( but the following week we'll be doing Jane Bowles' "Two Serious Ladies" - I can't say I'm liking it so far but from all the critiques I've read about her work, I understand that I should like her work. Okay. Fine. I'll keep going. Also reading "The Straight Cut" by MS Bell on the side/subway to keep me sane & just finished another James Lee Burke.