Author's humor out of hiding

Salman Rushdie appeared a little bit late and with security, but he kept the audience on their toes.

TAMPA -- It began the way many events featuring Salman Rushdie have begun: without him.

The publication of Rushdie's satirical novel The Satanic Verses in 1988 prompted Iran's Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to issue a fatwa calling for Rushdie's assassination.

For years, the 55-year-old author, born in India to Muslim parents, was forced to live in dozens of locations, surround himself with police security and avoid scheduled public appearances.

		[Times photo: John Pendygraft]
		Salman Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses, talks to members of the media before an appearance Thursday night at the University of South Florida. His 1989 death sentence for defaming Islam with the book has since been lifted.

While things have changed, there are constant reminders. Like the security guard Thursday at the University of South Florida, squawking into a cell phone:

"Any way we can get another partition to the book signing area," he asked, "so his back isn't open?"

Even so, Rushdie wasn't in hiding. He never is anymore. He just showed up a little late to a 6 p.m. reception, where people were sipping white wine and nibbling on finger sandwiches.

He began his 50-minute lecture, which was sponsored by USF's College of Arts and Sciences, by putting to rest any notion that he still fears for his life.

"I tell you what I'm not going to talk about," said Rushdie, wearing a dark suit and wire-rimed glasses above his salt-and-pepper beard. "I'm not going to talk about the Ayatollah Khomeini. I'd invite you to notice that one of us is dead."

Instead, the author many people find shadowy and mysterious and perpetually serious offered this to a crowd of nearly 600: humor.

He began by reciting a poem he wrote after the 2000 presidential election debacle in Florida, with apologies to Dr. Seuss:

The whole thing depended on Circles of Air -

Not to mention the half-holes,

And holes that weren't there . . .

He kept them laughing:

On graduating from college during the "sex, drugs and rock and roll" summer of 1968: "There was all that stuff going on and I was studying for exams. Once I finished with exams, I caught up."

On why he quit writing a monthly column for the New York Times: "I got tired of having to have an opinion every month. I don't have 12 opinions a year."

On the Kansas Board of Education's decision not to teach evolution in schools: "If (Charles) Darwin were able to visit Kansas in 1999, he would find living proof that natural selection doesn't always work."

When the lights in the ballroom kept going on and off: "Interesting, isn't it? It's like being in a nightclub. Maybe we should dance."

When asked what children need today to succeed: "I think reading is good for you. Not only my books. But particularly my books."

Despite his levity, Rushdie offered several serious insights. He urged the crowd to follow their own convictions, to always find comedy in tragedy and to "kneel to no man."

As the lecture wound down, a woman asked Rushdie: Why do you write?

He paused.

"The reason I do it is that I love it," he said. "That's the only reason. I'd do it if nobody paid me. It's my way of understanding the world."

With that, he waded through the crowd to start signing books.

Down the hall, several members of the Young Dairy Leaders Institute peeked out from a nearby ballroom. The commotion had interrupted their sliced beef and potato dinner.

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