I'm so embarrassed, I got my thread locked...
But at least our mod is doing his job.
Anyway, this is what happened:
It was a while ago, Sep. 21, to be exact, so I don't remember all the details so well. First, a man, only identified as the professor came out to interview Lemony Snicket.
Of course, Handler came out, introduced himself as Lemony's representative in all literary, legal, and social matters, and said that Mr. Snicket could not attend, due to something he had under a small cloth. With a flourish he pulled the cloth away, to reveal an alligator head, saying that was why he couldn't attend.
Later, the professor asked if the newest book had just come out. Handler said it would be better not to tell everyone that, and to instead say that he didn't think there were any copies of TGG available. One kid held up their copy, and then all of us were holding ours up, and Handler yelled at us to put them down.
Then he read from the part in TBB where Count Olaf comes home to demand roast beef, and got volunteers to do the sound effects. At one point, he divided the audience in half by an invisible line, and one half did the sound of Olaf's troupe laughing, and the other side (my side) did the sound of the Baudelaires sighing as Olaf set Sunny down.
He wanted two volunteers who were friends to demonstrate something. Three friends got up, and he said that if you squeeze something hard enough, eventually it will make a noise, and he got the volunteers to try to squeeze each other. No one made a noise though, they just sort of collapsed.
Another time, he wanted to play a song, but he didn't have an accordion. Thankfully, someone in the audience "just happened" to have one handy.
He needed a volunteer (notice how big he is on volunteers? what could that mean?) to draw a portrait of a villian while he played the song, either a little boy or girl, and he finally found a man, who he introduced as Brett Helquist!
Handler played "Scream and Run Away," and when he sang "run," everyone was expected to
pound their feet upon the ground as if they were running, and when he sang "die," everyone would slump over as if they were dead. When he was finished, Helquist showed us his drawing of Count Olaf.
When the actual "book signing" part happened, there was a really, really, long line. I started reading TGG, and I finished it while standing on line! It was either 2 1/2 or 3 1/2 hours, can't remember which. There was a fridge in the middle of the line, rather randomly, and it made me think of Verbal Fridge Dialogue, but it was locked.
When it was my turn, I stepped forward. My mother relayed the story of me finishing TGG, and he said "That must be why you look so depressed," to me. (I rarely smile) He signed my book "To K_______, who finished" and Helquist signed it as well.
Overall, it was quite a fun time.