We Met R.L. Stine!

The Lexington Public Library arranged for R.L. Stine to come and give a lecture and then lead a seminar for young writers, so of course I had to sign my daughter up for it (my son had a ballgame and couldn't come).

The lecture was given at the classic Lexington Theater, which was built in the 1920's, and still shows movies, both recent and classic. After the lecture, Mr. Stine signed autographs. Then, after a brief lunch period, he led a writing seminar at the Lexington Public Library downtown.

After the seminar, we were able to spend some quality time with Mr. Stine on our own for a few minutes; I noticed during his presentation that he and were like-minded about many things. At any rate, the topic of E.C. Comics came up in his lecture, so I asked him which classic E.C. story was his favorite. He told me he especially enjoyed the one wherein a butcher runs out of meat, and ends up killing and using homeless people for meat, and becomes a huge success. This reminded me of the fact that Meatloaf and Christopher Reeve starred in the HBO episode based on that one, and then we started talking about how disappointing the HBO TALES FROM THE CRYPT was, since it opted to be so crude and crass whereas the old E.C. stories were classy, and always featured a moral at the end of each story. Then we started talking about horror movies we liked, and he mentioned that he really liked ORPHAN, which Renee and I enjoyed, and I recommended INSIDIOUS, which he hadn't seen yet.

We talked about the Classic movie lineup the Kentucky Theater had scheduled for the summer, and he and I both noted that we'd never seen ROSEMARY'S BABY (which they're showing  a new print of on August 31st) on the big screen; then we talked about how disappointing Ira Levin's sequel novel was ("Son of Mary"); Stine said it was a shame that Levin was "such a lazy slob," and bewailed the fact that Levin didn't write enough, and wasted his talent.

In his talk, he mentioned that his number one phobia was diving into a pool, and how his nephews always teased him for walking down the steps holding the railing whenever he got into the pool. I told him I did the same, exact thing, and that my worst fear was old women screaming in the dark. He laughed and said, "Whose isn't?"

R.L. Stine was really nice. I wish we could have talked even longer. He asked me what my name was, which was a compliment, considering he didn't ask the same of anyone else. I think he and I would get along great. My daughter was too bashful to say or ask anything, but he said that was okay, because he was a bashful kid, too. We really liked him a lot.