It’s Wednesday, which means that last week’s print edition is slowly setting in the west and a brand-spanking new edition is rising in the east, spreading all across town like a rash, or a venereal disease. But before we say goodbye to last week’s paper, I’d like to direct your attention to Ed Lin’s piece on crazy people at author readings:

I had a sudden flashback to being accosted by a man after reading a section from my first novel, which featured a horny 12-year-old kid as the narrator…He wore glasses and was sweating. “Ed,” he gently admonished me, “you have to be careful about Asian teens and sex. There are laws.” He gave me a knowing look, as if he had some tips to intimate to me.

“Laws are great,” I said. “They prove we live in a good society.”

In all the years I’ve attended author readings, I’ve always wondered what authors felt about the freaks who ask crazy questions. Now, thanks to Ed Lin, I know: the authors are uncomfortable, too, but they’re even more afraid they’ll wind up out of context on YouTube looking like a dick to a fan.

Seattle, it seems, is especially thick with weird readings questions: At virtually any political reading, someone asks a question that is basically there to just say: “A lot of people are stupid, but I”m not: Please praise me!” And other people ask long, rambling questions that display a freakish knowledge of the author’s body of work that wind up with a fizzling non-question, as if to say: “Big fan!” And then there are the people Ed Lin writes about: the people who read poems they wrote for the author, the ones who are obsessed with the author’s sex life, the ones who wonder about the author’s relationship with Pop Tarts. It’s a good peek into the uglier, more uncomfortable parts of being a novelist.