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Last Wednesday night we went to Benaroya Hall to see Stephen King, in town to support his new novel, Lisey’s Story. All went well if you don't count Seattle Arts & Lectures' ignorance of proper sound amplification.
King's lapel microphone didn’t work. So for over an hour of his appearance, he was a black-tee-and-jeans-clad statue, forced to speak deliberately into a mic stuck in a podium. Several attempts to roam the stage met with calls of "Microphone!" and were quickly, sadly aborted. Which made us want to throw our shoes at the host, find the producer(s) and do something unfriendly to their legs.
Thankfully, his being stationary didn't put a damper on the evening: he reeled off humorous anecdotes about his gift for scaring, his unexpected meeting with a careening van, and suffering from pneumonia. And he read a few choice paragraphs—it couldn't have been more than five pages—from his latest book, which sounds, thankfully, more Bag of Bones than Cell. King's jokes were funny, his anecdotes interesting, and the glimpses at his wild imagination vivid.
Eventually, after King had obliquely addressed several questions written by audience members (in turn reviewed and selected by the host), he was handed a modern marvel—a cordless microphone. Instead of making some sarcastic quip about the instrument's late arrival, which we might have done, he joked lightheartedly about singing lounge music. And about twenty quick minutes later, when our hope that he'd announce the resurrection of the Dark Tower series was stretched to its thinnest point, he cited his audience's suspected “fanny fatigue” and dismissed himself from the stage. Damn.
Selected quotes and minutiae from Stephen King's Benaroya engagement:
On his being there, and us with him: "We're missing Lost for this?"
On his shitty lapel mic, in good humor: "Can you hear me now?"
On the guy who ran him over in 1999, then later died on King's birthday: "Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me."
On a character in Lisey's Story placing a dead cat in someone's mail box: "Who writes this shit? I love it!"
On talking a lot, digressing, and interrupting himself, which he did frequently, to humorous effect: "My grandfather used to say, 'Stephen, you open your mouth and your guts fall out.' "
On having his young son attempt to "skin the cat" over the headboard of his bed and getting caught by his wife, Tabitha, who asked for an explanation: "Research."
On health-conscious art produced in the late '70s and early '80s: "Alien is the perfect cancer metaphor."
On writing: "I feel like the luckiest person on Earth. And people are paying me to do this."
On Maximum Overdrive: We didn't get a direct quote, but he acknowledged it was awful, though sung the praises of its awesome soundtrack.
The host didn't deem our question worthy of reciting to King, so we'll never know where he gets his ideas. That sucks. And the next time a world-famous living legend is in town, we hope someone at the hosting venue takes a second to utter five words before the hallowed soul takes the stage: "Testing, testing. One, two, three."
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