Sitting in the audience before this lecture, there was Miles Davis music playing over the PA system and the man behind me reeked of aftershave. I was teleported back to 1985 when I listened to Miles Davis on a regular basis, smelled aftershave on boys, and was given The Handmaid’s Tale as a birthday gift. It was a bit surreal sitting there waiting for the lecture to begin.
I had the opportunity to hear author Margaret Atwood through UCSB’s Arts and Lectures series. I was surprised at how different the author was from the tone she uses in her books: gloomy dystopian futuristic, fatalistic. How odd it was then that she spoke tenderly of the current day phenomenon of vampires, werewolves and zombies!
Atwood had offered Arts and Lectures 2 different topics for the evening fare: love/valentine or zombies. A&L chose the love theme but Atwood suggested that if we were interested in her thoughts on current-day zombie culture, to please consider asking her during the open Q&A. Obviously she was more interested in zombies than in valentine related stories.
She read excerpts from books and poems she’d written, the most amusing being a poem about her cat who died and went to heaven to find that god was a cat, that his testicles were waiting for him, and that cat heaven was actually human hell. Atwood was much funnier in person than I knew her in her stories. She would be someone I would want to hang out with: creative, sarcastic, racy.
In the Q&A, the first question was indeed about zombies. Atwood became very engaged and animated; she had a lot to say about zombies. It was the similar smitten experience I have with vampires in True Blood or Twilight, so I understood where she was coming from. I may consider exploring zombies for my next interest.
Very enjoyable, engaging. I will read her next book with a different view.