Mugahbockwock!

Exhaustion sets in. Lack of sleep, a smorgasbord of intellectual stimulation, indulging in energy drinks and Old Milwaukee then playing poker while listening to Roger Miller and Neil Diamond will do that.

This weekend, Madison was abuzz with the Wisconsin Book Festival.

Bleak House set free their butterflies in style Saturday night at the Orpheum Stage Door. With Nathan Singer was stage left, strumming gently on the guitar as Paul Toth (any of you crazy kids ever read stories from Plots with Guns?) read aloud from his turbulent, eloquent prose shorts. I know I shall never look at penguins the same way.

When Singer took the stage solo, sans guitar and inhibition, he held the microphone in silence as he gathered his words, his spirit and his energy. All then exploded forth like emotional shrapnel. Where ever his words hit, gasps, laughter, anger and hope flowed from the audience. In the short attention span theater modern media has created it isn't often you see a room full of people enthralled. Yet this one young, passionate man held sway with an oration that was like Henry Rollins channeling an entire ghetto. Lets call this the last stop on Singer's Spoken Rage tour. And like Rollins, the man behind this modern, urban soliloquy is a funny, polite and gentle human.

Everyone then hit the leaf strewn streets on their way to the Bleak House to celebrate the release of John Galligan's The Blood Knot - a book I've heaped well earned praise on - and their own five year anniversary.

Look to this publishing house to find intelligent, edgy, meaningful writing of quality.

As for me, I had humanity redefined for me in a good way, I didn't sleep at all that night and was kept alive Sunday by a product produced by the good people at Naked Juice.

Birthday thanks to Alison, Annie, Ben, Blake, David, Dianne, Howard, Jeffrey, Jon, Kevin, Momasan, Nathan, Ruth and Sean.