As detailed earlier, there's been a lot of travel. A week ago, to Tampa. Monday, back to Cali. The baby held up extremely well. On Tuesday, Olivia's students—all of whom either have AS or other, similar, disorders—toured my workplace, so I got up earlier than usual to accompany them all. Wednesday morning, I flew to New York, met my sister and together we went to the Edge of Tomorrow premiere. When we stopped at the Starbucks near Lincoln Square, we got to see an authentic yuppie meltdown—a customer wanted milk in her drink. She didn't want to go to the bar and pour her own milk, she wanted milk in her drink. The manager, who had served her, was unimpressed with the problem, so customer and boyfriend started shouting "I want the name and number of your regional manager, now!" How about a refund? "No, you keep the money you CUNT, give me the name and number of your regional manager!" When that was not forthcoming, the pair called the police.
They called the police.
I don't like single-sentence paragraphs, but I didn't want you to miss that. They called the police, and the police came, looked around for about ten seconds, and left.
Edge of Tomorrow's NY premiere was the culmination of a three-nation stunt, so the film was set to begin at 11:59pm...the edge of tomorrow, get it? There was a black carpet, and Cruise showed up early, and he does seem to authentically like his fans. There was a fan appreciation event and two round-the-block riff-raff lines of people who just win tickets from radio stations and whatnot. Luckily, my sister and I were able to just swan past them and attend the 3D IMAX premiere, which had free popcorn and soda and Cruise, Emily Blunt, Doug Liman, and one of the producers showed up to say hello. I have an interest in the commercial success of the film, and so an extensive review here is inappropriate, but I will say that it was pretty good, and that I expect the very high Rotten Tomatoes score of 95% to hold more or less steady when the film hits theaters next week. I doubt it will dip down past 88% critical approval. At 3am, we were back at Off-Soho Suites, in an "economy" room. Basically OSS is apartments rented out in a hotel fashion; this one was a two-bedroom place but we shared the bathroom and kitchen with another guest. We saw nothing of them except for two pair of sneakers, one for men and for women, outside the locked door of their bedroom. Manhattan hotels!
On Thursday, I went briefly to Book Expo America, which is so obviously dying it isn't funny. There's no need for it anymore—everyone's catalogues are online. The first shoe dropped when it settled in NYC instead of traveling; people just weren't coming. At least now publishing people might split a cab to head out to 10th Avenue. The public-access part of the show, BookCon, will predominate in a few years, I bet. It's already gone from 1000 attendees to 10000 and everyone in the main show were holding back most of their ARCs and their best signings till Saturday. In BEAs past, I'd walk out with a huge bag of books and ARCs—good ones! This year I picked up all of four, two from Grove Atlantic, one cookbook-history-thing for my mother, and one book I had to beg for and only got because I a. wrote two successful books for the publisher and b. used to work with the publicist at my day job. Neil Patrick Harris's Choose-Your-Own-Adventure memoir was the big hit on Thursday, which says it all. I ended up evacuating to a nice Italian place a few blocks away with two friends, one of whom had an expense account (!) from the alternative weekly newspaper (!!) for which he reviews books (!!!). So for a moment it was 1993 all over again.
I actually got a more interesting book at the Penn Station Long Island Concourse bookstore—My Salinger Year. We live on a planet when a woman who was the assistant for Salinger's literary agent for a single year can write a memoir about it, and I'll buy it in hardcover, and enjoy it. (The book was an extended riff on her life and this essay if you want a taste.)
Thursday evening I headed out to Long Island to visit my family. I slept in for the first time in a week, saw a deer, had some lunch, and took the trip back to JFK, then got home at midnight. I would have stayed on Long Island longer but today my latest Writing Salon workshop begins—nine students!
I mentioned having to write several short stories. I finished two of the three I was aiming for (the last is due tomorrow) and one has sold. It was my first ever acceptance via telephone. Anyway, "Der Kommissar's In Town" will appear in the anthology Streets of Shadows. This was a Kickstarted anthology, but out of concern for both my mental health and his own physical well-being editor Maurice Broaddus only solicited my work after the Kickstarter funded.
Okay, time to pack for class. Oddly, this one has more male students than female, which is very unusual for a writing class. Will egos clash? Yes they will.
They called the police.
I don't like single-sentence paragraphs, but I didn't want you to miss that. They called the police, and the police came, looked around for about ten seconds, and left.
Edge of Tomorrow's NY premiere was the culmination of a three-nation stunt, so the film was set to begin at 11:59pm...the edge of tomorrow, get it? There was a black carpet, and Cruise showed up early, and he does seem to authentically like his fans. There was a fan appreciation event and two round-the-block riff-raff lines of people who just win tickets from radio stations and whatnot. Luckily, my sister and I were able to just swan past them and attend the 3D IMAX premiere, which had free popcorn and soda and Cruise, Emily Blunt, Doug Liman, and one of the producers showed up to say hello. I have an interest in the commercial success of the film, and so an extensive review here is inappropriate, but I will say that it was pretty good, and that I expect the very high Rotten Tomatoes score of 95% to hold more or less steady when the film hits theaters next week. I doubt it will dip down past 88% critical approval. At 3am, we were back at Off-Soho Suites, in an "economy" room. Basically OSS is apartments rented out in a hotel fashion; this one was a two-bedroom place but we shared the bathroom and kitchen with another guest. We saw nothing of them except for two pair of sneakers, one for men and for women, outside the locked door of their bedroom. Manhattan hotels!
On Thursday, I went briefly to Book Expo America, which is so obviously dying it isn't funny. There's no need for it anymore—everyone's catalogues are online. The first shoe dropped when it settled in NYC instead of traveling; people just weren't coming. At least now publishing people might split a cab to head out to 10th Avenue. The public-access part of the show, BookCon, will predominate in a few years, I bet. It's already gone from 1000 attendees to 10000 and everyone in the main show were holding back most of their ARCs and their best signings till Saturday. In BEAs past, I'd walk out with a huge bag of books and ARCs—good ones! This year I picked up all of four, two from Grove Atlantic, one cookbook-history-thing for my mother, and one book I had to beg for and only got because I a. wrote two successful books for the publisher and b. used to work with the publicist at my day job. Neil Patrick Harris's Choose-Your-Own-Adventure memoir was the big hit on Thursday, which says it all. I ended up evacuating to a nice Italian place a few blocks away with two friends, one of whom had an expense account (!) from the alternative weekly newspaper (!!) for which he reviews books (!!!). So for a moment it was 1993 all over again.
I actually got a more interesting book at the Penn Station Long Island Concourse bookstore—My Salinger Year. We live on a planet when a woman who was the assistant for Salinger's literary agent for a single year can write a memoir about it, and I'll buy it in hardcover, and enjoy it. (The book was an extended riff on her life and this essay if you want a taste.)
Thursday evening I headed out to Long Island to visit my family. I slept in for the first time in a week, saw a deer, had some lunch, and took the trip back to JFK, then got home at midnight. I would have stayed on Long Island longer but today my latest Writing Salon workshop begins—nine students!
I mentioned having to write several short stories. I finished two of the three I was aiming for (the last is due tomorrow) and one has sold. It was my first ever acceptance via telephone. Anyway, "Der Kommissar's In Town" will appear in the anthology Streets of Shadows. This was a Kickstarted anthology, but out of concern for both my mental health and his own physical well-being editor Maurice Broaddus only solicited my work after the Kickstarter funded.
Okay, time to pack for class. Oddly, this one has more male students than female, which is very unusual for a writing class. Will egos clash? Yes they will.