MAGIC SATURDAY

Four years ago in about the same time of the year as today, I was in downtown Miami for the Miami International Book Fair. I bought a lot of good books, some rare, at very cheap prices, but the blessing of the day came in late afternoon when I listened to the concert of Dave Barry, Amy Tan and some of their writer-friends who formed this swaggering band playing 60's tunes. While I was scrambling for space to get close to the stage, there was this guy wearing a fake afro who was somewhat shoving me so he too could get closer to the stage. As it turned out he was with the band. Like the other band members, he was also a famous writer, and his forte was legal thrillers. His name's Scott Turow.

Three years ago in the same fair, I bought another stack of books and one of them - The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty - came out to be one of the greatest short story collections I have read in my long life.

Two years ago, again in the same fair, I listened to Barack Obama's lecture at the Guzman Theatre in a SRO audience. I got his autographed book after that, but neither his lecture nor his book made me envision that he was going to be the first African-American president of the United States; it was the number and composition of people who lined up for a long time and in a long queue just to be able to listen to him speak. (Quick note: in front of me in that line was Chris Darden, remember him?)

Then last year, yet again in the same fair, I was sitting on this bench under a canopy, enjoying the radiance of a poem from the anthology book I just bought, when I noticed an interview going on right next to me. It turned out to be Edwidge Danticat's - whose book that year, Brother, I'm Dying, was shortlisted for The National Book Award. After her interview, I pulled enough gut to chat with her, and when I got a copy of her book, she wrote a pretty cool dedication for me. Then in the afternoon I listened to the lectures of South African poet Breyten Breytenbach and Chinese novelist Ha Jin (one attendee even thought I was Ha Jin!)

This year's will be today. In an hour I will bring my butt to the Wolfsson Campus of Miami Dade Community College in downtown Miami to listen to, among others, Russell Banks, Junot Diaz, Joyce Carol Oates and Francine Prose, and will be on a spending spree for books for my development and others' (and when I speak of development, I mean literary development!)

After that I will head off to the Trinity Episcopal Cathedral to watch the Mendelssohn's Elijah concert of the Master Chorale of South Florida, Joshua Habermann, Artistic Director.

Life.