Last Saturday was the previously mentioned Altered Fluid appearance on Hour of the Wolf. A good time was had by all, and we even took some calls from a few colorful characters. You can listen to an MP3 PodCast of the broadcast on the Altered Fluid website.

One thing I took from the show this time – other than the fact that I’m in a group with a lot of damn talented people, but I already knew that – is the real difference there is when hearing a story read aloud by the author. It can lead to a completely different interpretation of the piece by the audience. I still firmly believe that the written words on the page, those the reader encounters when there is no other voice around to inform and instruct them, is the final form of a story and the one that simply must get the tale across. But, after hearing David read last Saturday morning, and after my own reading at The New School last Wednesday when I found myself switching around words on the fly, I’ve come to realize that a story isn’t necessarily confined by those words on the page. If a reading can bring a different interpretation, give the reader a new angle on the story, then what’s wrong with that? At the core, an individuals interpretation of writing and the reading is what the entire process is about. Reading aloud just adds a new dimension to something we might believe we know everything about.

I wonder if Cormac McCarthy will be doing any readings in the future?