Simon
Simon gets some audible laughs, looks up frequently from the papers without getting lost, and finishes on time to respectful applause. Nuyorican Poets Cafe ’s Master of Ceremonies briefly clasps him on the shoulder in a kind of victory gesture. Simon follows his writer-in-residence-fellow Julien to the Dorian Gray Pub (Tonight: Writer’s Special – free drinks when you can name fifteen writers on the portraits on the wall. A task so easy that it hurts). Julien compliments the waitress on her hair, orders chicken wings and shepherd’s pie and talks about the fifty shapes of pipes of Saint-Exupéry and Sartre. He doesn’t say a word – not one bad or mean word – about the reading. It is Simon’s most hormonal night in NYC so far.
