Erik Larson - Author of Devil in the White City

Among other books...

It was such a great day and it ended a little rough. I worked hard, got a lot done, took my first test of the semester (a statistics test which ended up being really easy, but my first "math" test in a few years), and even sat in on a German conversation club at the Carnegie library when I got out of the test early. That might have been where my fatigue started. Turns out Portuguese is the first foreign language out of my mouth, but I can still understand German without any problems. I gave myself a headache trying to think out how I wanted to respond.

I was all excited for Erik Larson's lecture, and I got all set up with my camera in a central seat in the balcony. I shot off 15 pictures of him when an older woman from the row in front of me grabbed my knee and said "Do you have any idea how annoying that is?"

Well that put me in a very blue mood. I understand a shutter is not silent, but I didn't think my form of art and engagement would be THAT annoying. It took me a while to get back into Larson's speech, but fortunately he was very entertaining and got me laughing over his experiences with his new book, Garden of Beasts. (Which sounds amazing by the way.) I'm trying not to feel too badly about the whole thing, but it just bothers me! Americans and their bubbles...