doom
Bewildered Beginner
Posts: 9
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Post by doom on Oct 16, 2005 16:39:56 GMT -5
I couldn't imagine H-C doing that. The tickets don't cost anything, but preordering the book does. I'm assuming it'll be fairly long, too.
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Post by Gigi on Oct 16, 2005 17:04:29 GMT -5
I didn't know it was free. But if it's a long appearance, it may be too long to put the whole thing online. Maybe just a clip.
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Post by Page Turner on Oct 18, 2005 10:36:44 GMT -5
AUGH You ppl who are going HAVE TO TELL US EVERYTHING! Ok? Grrrr. I even missed Daniel Handler on the Today show this morning.
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Post by Gigi on Oct 18, 2005 16:20:55 GMT -5
No you didn't. He wasn't on.
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doom
Bewildered Beginner
Posts: 9
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Post by doom on Oct 18, 2005 22:14:21 GMT -5
I got back from it earlier tonight.
It was surprisingly empty. I guess not many people knew about it. First, before the show started, they showed trivia from the books, with book pictures. They were all very easy, like "How did the Baudelaire parents die? A. Fire B. An angry rhinoceros. C. Sore throats." (The answer is A, by the way.)
Then it started. It was at a book signing in New York--why didn't we know about this?--and a voice announced Lemony Snicket was coming, while a sign at the bottom of the screen said "Lemony Snicket, Author". Handler came in, and looked around in apparent distress. He said something along the lines of "I don't know who said that, or why the voice is coming from the ceiling. I don't know if it's God...or someone else...but the voice was lying. I don't know why people would lie to children...although it is fun... [kids laugh] Don't laugh! There's nothing funny about that!" He went on to say that the voice was lying, because Mr. Snicket could not attend, due to something that occured at a picnic. At some point around now, the sign at the bottom said, "Lemony Snicket, Author?" and was then crossed out. He asked a kid to give the definition of a picnic, which was "when you sit on a blanket and grass and bring food and eat it." He asked them what terrible thing might have occured to Mr. Snicket. One of them suggested a spider bit him in the armpit. Another suggested a plane crash. He told them that the first guess, by the suspicious looking girl, was the closest, but he had not been bitten by a member of the arachnid family, but of the insect family. He said that Mr. Snicket was paralyzed, and could not attend, as much as he wanted to.
He performed a ballet of the attack, using the services of someone dressed as a fly. Handler said he would teach them three moral lessons. He would indicate them using first his index finger, then middle finger (this was New York, remember), and ring finger. The first was to never raise your hand, because that would make your armpit vulnerable to attack. "So if your teacher asks you what 1 + 1 is (everyone was calling out and rasing their hands when he said this) let another student answer." Then he singled someone out, and showed everyone else how he had managed to raise his hand without exposing his armpit (the kid had his arm up, but flat against his body). Handler asked his name, and then said that he'd heard of the (child's name) method, but thought it was something else.
He asked if anyone had read the first book, and when they all raised their hands, he yelled, "Have you learned nothing?!" He read the part where the Baudelaires make puttanesca aloud, using volunteers to provide sound effects. Then he said that the second lesson was, "If you see Count Olaf, scream and run away." I'm not sure when this was either, but sometime the sign at the bottom read "NOT Lemony Snicket, Author?", and then crossed that out. Anyway, he said he needed someone to be doing something else, like drawing, and he said he needed a girl or boy from the audience. He selected a boy, or rather Brett Helquist. He still didn't think things were right, so he got his accordion. He explained that it was hated by most people, and most people hate something because of a foolish foreign policy, or because they don't understand it.
He then asked for two friends to come up, and instructed one of them to squeeze the other. The one being squeezed made a sound like "Ow..." and Handler said, "Okay, you can go." He explained the third lesson, which was that if you squeeze anything hard enough, whether it is a bag of potato chips or your grandmother, eventually it will make a noise. He said that the accordion worked the same way, and now that everyone understood it, they wouldn't hate it. He played "Scream and Run Away". At the end Helquist showed his Count Olaf drawing, and Handler said it was very good, and what was his name? Brett answered "Brett", and Handler said that it must be Brett Helquist, the illustrator.
He then read some questions from the people in movie theaters. One was asking if he preferred sandals without socks, sandals with socks, running shoes, or formal shoes. Handler answered that both he and Mr. Snicket preferred formal shoes for themselves, running shoes for runners, sandals without socks for people on beaches who bring you cold lemonade, and sandals with socks for no one. Another question said that it was a very random question, but was asking what he thought she should be for halloween, and what Handler said was a semi-colon and a parenthesis. "I believe that's known as an 'emoticon'" It also said LOL, "which I think stands for Leeches-" (I forget the rest of it) He said that he knew an excellent fly costume she could borrow. One asked if he was married, and he said he wasn't interested in her right now. Then one asked who Beatrice was, and he said he was sorry, but he had run out of time.
Then he told them that he'd be stamping their book and signing it, even though he wasn't the author. He said that for the people in the movie theaters, there would be someone to stamp the books too, even though they wern't the author either (there was no one there to stamp ours, though). That was pretty much it, except for video of a lady asking some kids stupid questions, like "If you could be a Baudelaire, which one would you be?" and "What do you think V.F.D. stands for?"
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Post by Gigi on Oct 18, 2005 22:27:05 GMT -5
Thank you for that wonderful, detailed report! It sounds like it was a lot of fun. Probably the only thing that would have made it better was if he was there, live and in person.
(Makes me even more excited for when I go see him on Saturday.)
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Post by Dante on Oct 19, 2005 12:02:41 GMT -5
Wow, that sounds like fun. Thanks for the description.
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xcocox
Catastrophic Captain
The World is Quiet Here
Posts: 50
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Post by xcocox on Nov 14, 2005 15:15:12 GMT -5
NO! I never knew he was comming to Toronto :[ im soo sad i could have went:[ i think im going to cry!!!
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