Sunday, January 26, 2003
Lunch at Eric's. My eye was feeling a little more irritated than yesterday, so we again decided to not go to the Flower Festival to save energy for tonight. I napped at home. Around 7:00 PM we joined writer Jason Baum at a benefit for Intersection for the Arts and Campo Santo—two arts organizations in San Francisco. The event was an interview with writer Denis Johnson by writer Dave Eggers. Jason had found out about the event from a listing in SF Weekly. Denis Johnson's Jesus' Son was one of the first books that Patrick had recommended to him, and Jason seemed to have liked the book. Such was his interest in going. We had 2 lattes and a green tea at a nearby ice cream shop. The event was packed—not bad for Super Bowl night. It started with American blues guitar by Jim Roll and Chuck Prophet. Then came the interview, which was surprisingly entertaining and funny, partly due to Dave Eggers' lack of interviewing skills but mostly to Denis Johnson's wit. I wasn't expecting that from a writer whose most famous book dealt with religion, philosopy, death, and illegal drugs. After the interview, we were treated to a sneak preview of live drama performance of the forthcoming play called Soul of a Whore, written by Denis Johnson. The scene we saw featured Delia MacDougall, Brian Keith Russell, and Michael Torres. Following that was another sneak peek: a work in progress written by Dave Eggers and performed by Sean San Jose and Danny Wolohan. The evening was fun and Jason's company was pleasant. SQL Slammer worm wreaks havoc by infecting 75,000 Microsoft SQL servers in only 15 minutes.