The Noir Tour with Christopher Moore

At the end of April one of my favorite authors, Christopher Moore, came back to Boston for the release of his latest book, Noir. This was my third time seeing him (the last time was in 2015) and per usual, I was totally awkward and star-struck.

My friend, Jonbot (yes, he too is a robot), accompanied me into Boston and naturally we needed sushi to keep us energized throughout the evening. We stopped at FuGaKyu, which is my usual haunt when I’m in the area. We sat at the sushi bar for the first time (they have really cool private rooms with sunken tables and you have to take your shoes off and everything! Also they have normal tables) and there were little boats moving around the counter on water, with fake (yet mostly realistic looking) plates of sushi.

The food was delish as always! Then we made our way to the Brookline Booksmith – I love this place! They’ve got used books, bargain books, new books and an assortment of home and stationery stuff. I do think that they could ditch the home section for more books, but I think that about any store with non-book merch. At least their selection is quirky! I wish I got into the city more, because this would definitely be my regular store. They have a ton of author events too.

I found my way to the basement where the used books are and bought 3 books (that I had to lug around the rest of the night) because I have no control.

Our copies of Noir in hand, we set off for the theater across the street for Christopher’s talk! We weren’t super far from the stage, but my phone camera is horrible when it comes to indoor lighting and zoom. So I took this one crappy, creepy photo of him chatting with the folks in the front row.

His talk was great. He told some anecdotes and then did a commencement speech for us! Lots of great, hilarious life advice. The Q&A session from the audience left something to be desired though. I know I have no chill when it comes to talking to people I admire, so I just shut the hell up. But I was suffering from some severe secondhand embarrassment when other audience members were asking questions. Some people just sounded like complete idiots. Also, the people around us were annoying and the man next to me was heavily breathing on me the entire time – gross.

When Christopher was done talking, Jonbot and I booked it out of the theater so we could line up for the signing. Historically (being the two other times I’ve made it to his events) we’ve had to wait in line for at least two hours to get books signed. I think with it being a Monday night, in April, with cool, rainy weather, there were fewer people than usual. We only had to wait about 20 minutes and we ended up much closer to the front than I hoped!

Line shenanigans…

I need this as a giant sign to hang in our mudroom…

Once I was close enough, I began creepily snapping pictures of Christopher while he signed books for others. I’m totally normal, I swear.

Every time I go to Christopher’s signings, all I can think of is Spongebob meeting his idol and pro-jellyfisher, Kevin the sea cucumber. (I’m this way any time I meet someone famous lol). I clam up and like, all I can do is whisper hi and their name and breathe heavily. I get all red faced too. It’s probably the only time I ever shut the hell up.

Anyway, here’s me, being a nut. I did manage to thank him for the commencement speech, because I skipped my graduation. Admittedly, this was what Jonbot was going to say because the same applied to him, but I stole it because I couldn’t think of anything else to say aside from “Hi.” Pretty sure we said other words, but I forget because I was too busy internally screaming. Oh, I think he complimented the plastic wrappers on my other two books because it keeps them nice. I said it was my inner librarian and then instantly panicked because I figured that would make it seem like I might be a librarian and I’m not but I didn’t want to seem like a liar and…

Well, you see how I am.

Here’s Jonbot being normal and chill.

And me creeping again.

It was a fabulous evening, as it has been the previous two times. With being able to get a good spot in line, we actually made it out of the city in good time and I was home before it was too late.

I brought two books with me to sign, in addition to Noir. Now all my hardcovers are signed! On to the paperbacks next? I try not to bring more than 3 or 4 books to have signed because Christopher is awesome and will sign as many as people bring and I don’t want to be a dink. (I may have made a comment like that in line, not knowing the guy in front of me had like 7 books to have signed. Oops!)