Last night, through some happenstance and coincidence and no small amount of frustration, I spent a portion of my evening at a reading and signing at the Barnes and Noble's in Union Square given by a favorite author.  I'm always wary of these things because people you admire generally disappoint in person.  (Some day I'll tell you about my run-in with Joel Coen.) Thankfully, that was not the case this time, quite the contrary actually, the evening was everything I hoped it would be and more.  Please to enjoy some pics and explanation of said pics of my evening with Chuck Klosterman.  (All pics are property of Steve's Word.)

In these two shots, we see Chuck get his game face on, and go through his pre-reading ritual.  In all likelihood, this includes several cans of Mountain Dew and quite possibly an order of chicken fried steak.  Also, you can see just the hint of embarrassment as the emcee reads the names of some facebook groups dedicated to Chuck:

Ok, here we go.  Chuck gets up to the podium and first says that he often finds the "reading" part of a reading to be the most boring part, leading him to only read a few paragraphs of his own text, and instead he spends some time going over what it's like to write a book full of characters you intended to be wholly different from you but ended up being exact facsimiles of you:

Perez Hilton, will.i.am, and what it means to fight with consequence:

"So I was really mad yesterday and what do you do when you're really mad, you try to get madder."  So true, Chuck.

Then there were questions where people asked typically inane shit.  One guy wanted to know if Chuck could account for his own fame, someone else wanted to know what was on Chuck's DVR (answer: the Real World/Road Rules Challenge):

Then there was the signing portion where Chuck would obviously sign whatever work you had with you or had just purchased.  Also, you got a couple of minutes to gawk really up close.  Here's me and my girlfriend waiting on the line and getting increasingly goofy with anticipation:

Now here's the good stuff.

Caren went first and asked Chuck, "speaking of fighting with consequence and the Challenge, what did you think of CT and Adam throwing down?" and this is Chuck's reaction to that question:

This lead to a brief discussion of steroids in reality TV.  Here's where we're on the same page:

Here's where I have to interject some piece of minutiae that may or may not slightly contradict what Chuck just said BECAUSE I AM A TREMENDOUS JACKASS.  You've got to admit, the bemused look on his face is pretty good:

And here is where Chuck sets me straight while I try really hard to concentrate on not berating myself for what just happened:

And here is where Chuck signed the copy of Downtown Owl that I had just bought.  I usually don't go in for autographs, but, well, there it is.  It's a constant reminder of a really fun evening when for once, someone didn't disappoint.  And it's the only book in my collection not available for lending, so don't even ask.

**concurrently posted today on stevesword.com