Pink Tutu at the Stigmata Puppetshow

I took The Magician to Powell's City of Books last night to see Ariel Gore. There we beheld the wonders of a tenor sax with just one tune, a published author wearing a tutu with striped socks and a shadow puppet with bleeding palms. I love Portland.

I first "met" Ariel through her zine, Hip Mama, which was always funny, subversive and challenging. My favorite part was (and still is) "Yo Mama's Daybook," where she chronicles her month of therapy, court appearances, tattooing, writing and mothering. Hip Mama was hard to find in Kansas.

Unwittingly, I followed Ariel to Portland and read more of her books. Atlas of the Human Heart is a somewhat true memoir of trekking the world as a homeless teen and having a baby. If I figure correctly, we both stood in Palo Alto the same summer contemplating our paths. She went to China without a return plane ticket and I went to Finland as an exchange student.

Her new book is called The Traveling Death and Resurrection Show. I recommend it, although I thought it was short and the end somewhat unsatisfying. In the book she even references Fred Phelps, although not by name.

She said at the booksigning that she'd never been to Kansas and I suggested she'd find an appreciative audience in Lawrence.