Thursday 20 May 2010

Cold Warriors Launch Party

Hi all,

The official Launch Party for Rebecca Levene's The Infernal Game: Cold Warriors took place amidst a modest fanfare last night at the rather snug Phoenix Artist Club on Charing Cross Road. A good time was had by all.

(One of the attendees obligingly pointed out to me that Googlemaps provides you with a street-level view of the venue. Check out the wonders of the twenty-first century, kids.)

Pornokitsch's fabulous Jared Shurin organised and presided over the event, and has put a brief thank you up for everyone here.

No, thank you, Jared. We had a blast.

We sold out of books, met with some very cool people - industry people and fans alike - and generally got our groove on. Bex seemed to enjoy herself, Bex's mum was very nice, and the atmosphere was very warm.

(And warm, actually. It was an underground venue and we were pretty tightly packed, so we got pretty hot.)

Anyway, I ran around with a camera and got some images to remember the occasion by. Here follows my pictorial tour of the evening:



The extraordinary Jared. He and his glamorous partner Anne Perry ran around the whole time, talking to everyone and generally making sure the whole thing went smoothly. He makes it to a lot of cons and things; if you ever get a chance to grab him for a drink and a chat, do so. He's very friendly.



Ms. Levene appeared to be camera-shy, or at least diligently remained on the far side of the room from the book stand, so capturing her on film was a challenge. This was shoot on high zoom through three conversations.



Rebecca is also afraid of public speaking. Her friend Magnus (I should probably know his full name, but regret that I don't) read a sample of the book. She then stood and gave a terrified forty second speech and fled the mic.



Our talented designer and artist Pye Parr, who did the beautiful cover you can see at the top of this post. Looking slightly bewildered that I would choose to photograph him.



At the beginning of the evening, with Ms. Levene's close friends mostly in evidence, they sat down for a meal before the guests arrived. Jenni stood in the way of my shot. Nuisance girl.



I'm explaining to this lady the themes and concepts underlying Transformers. It's not my fault; she asked about my shirt.

Actually, slightly disappointed. Clearly someone else has highjacked my camera and sneakily taken my photo. This doesn't bother me - I absolutely love having my photo taken - but whoever it is (Jenni denies all knowledge) failed to let me know so that I could pose pretentiously. Damn them.



"Jon! Jon! Jonathan! Look over here!" I cried, but in vain.
I guess that dude he was talking to was rilly, rilly interesting.



Scott Andrews was on antibiotics and not drinking - a tragic state of affairs in a room of media lushes - and so decided to give me an "I'm not impressed that you're taking my photo" pose. Nice try, Andrews, but I'm hip to your jive. Putting on a pose to show that you don't want to pose doesn't make sense. It just doesn't work like that.


So, anyway, a splending evening and an auspicious kick-off for an awesome book. Very slightly hungover (I'm more suffering from getting to bed at 2am than anything else) but pleased by the outcome.

Do buy it and read it; your life will be improved by it by a typical 17.2%. This has been proven by scientists; and scientists can't lie. It's genetic or something.

Cheers,

David

1 comment:

Scott Andrews said...

Dude, that was not a pose. Look at my eyes! I was watching the dancing elephants as they tangoed on your head.

In the fourth week of chrinic bronchitis, I was on WAY too many drugs, as will probably become apparent if the interview Jenni recorded with me that evening ever makes it into the podcast.