Creme de la Creme Opens Tomorrow

Back in college, I went to see Chinua Achebe speak.  Before he took the stage, a musician came on, his purpose to get the crowd in the mood for the lecture.  A hype man of sorts.  Later that evening, I went to this coffeehouse/book store, and Chinua Achebe was at the next table along with the musician and a few other people.  I told my friend that I wanted that — someone to precede me to events and get the crowd good and ready for me.  I know I don’t actually warrant that sort of entourage, but I’d love to hear what my hype man would say about me to get people in the mood.

I was thinking about Achebe because we went to a parade last week, and we had to sit on the street curb for a good hour before it began.  They had positioned these teenage boys every few yards to entertain the crowd, pump us up, remind us as our asses became numb that it was all for a good reason — because the freakin’ parade was going to start in just 18 minutes and if we got up now to stretch we. might. miss. it.  So we watched these boys and even participated when they attempted to get the entire block of people to do the wave. (Fine, I didn’t actually stand, but I participated from a seated position.)

Which is a long way of saying that the Creme de la Creme of 2011 opens tomorrow morning at 9 am.

There are prizes, there are blurbs, there is laughter and crying and thought-provoking words.  There are posts that will blow your mind and ones that will make you sigh and quite a few that will make you smile and others that will simply feel as if you are sitting at someone’s kitchen table because they are a little slice of someone’s life.

I know the Creme post is often long — okay, I know it is extremely long and your ass will probably be numb by the time you finish sitting and reading it — but like any good hype man, I am here to cheer you along, promise you that slogging through will be worth it.  Please read the post in its entirety before submitting your post because things do change slightly every year and it helps things go smoothly.

And please help spread word tomorrow.  The list is closing early this year, so people who miss out on hearing about it now will miss out on being on the list.

So who is ready to get their Creme on?