I'm a big dreamer.  Most writers are, I think.  I was raised as an only child, a none-too-popular one at that, and thus books and my imagination provided a good deal of my entertainment. I spent many a summer afternoon in an old abandoned apple-orchard near my house.  A stream trickled through it and I lay on the grassy bank reading, dreaming, communing with the spirits of the place. I even built a small altar on a tree stump -- candle, hawk feathers, a stone...

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I was really looking forward to the Believer Magazine Event. I like The Believer and the people who run it. I was also pleased to be back on the lower west side of Manhattan, where things are a little bit realer.

I got there really early, but alas, no party. I just got to stand in line with about twenty other people who were concerned that the event would sell out. This concern was justified, after all, the event was advertised as featuring a 3-D View-Master presentation. I was all in.

The M.C., Michael Ian Black, was sort...