Okay, this knitter is kicking my butt. His name is Alexander. That is our dog, Nappo, next to him. A is a proud manly knitter. Who knew that he, as did Laurence Fishburne, would wander into the land of the humungo knitting needle? And now, he's off to guitar class.
Last night I got together with my friend T., the newly-promoted-to-Senior-Editor chick at Big Glossy Pictorial Book Publishing House. I pulled out the Dave Eggers book out of my bag to show her.
I like this guy's writing style. I mean, the momentum is a little much, and he comes off as a jerk, but his writing is so fresh. That was when she looked at me as if I had been living under a rock.
T: "He's created this entire world based on himself since that book. He's with McSweeney's in San Francisco. He's a big gun now."
Me: Erm...wasn't this book published only three years ago or so?
T: "Yeah. He's had some time to create his empire."
Three years? To create an empire? Based on a book about holding his mother's nose and keeping it from bleeding? Are you kidding me?
I need a literary job to keep abreast of all this stuff and not look like a dork with my Big Publishing House friends. T. also mentioned the James Frey controversy. I have yet to read his book but I am not living under a rock with respect to the controversy surrounding Mr. Frey's literary honesty. Apparently, there is talk among publishing houses about two book manuscripts that were initially submitted as "fiction" - but when the manuscripts were rejected by the publishers - were subsequently re-submitted as "non-fiction/memoir" manuscripts. Ouch.
Our downstairs (ground floor) neighbors are complaining about us again. They are REALLY LUCKY (CAN YOU HEAR ME SAY THIS, YOU DOWNSTAIRS PEOPLE?) that we rarely have invited guests over, if ever, at all, that A does not have playdates here, and that we keep things quiet by 10 p.m. They do not seem to differentiate "noise" from "sounds" and refer to their three-year-old girl in pink barrettes as "the baby." As in, "It's 7 p.m. Could you stop vacuuming? The baby is sleeping." They also told the management that A has a drumset. A DRUMSET. How can they make that up? Do they even know what a drumset SOUNDS LIKE? I think that I shall produce a map with "Westchester" clearly demarcated in yellow highlighter for them. Because that is where they ought to live. Nice and pin-drop quiet and out in the suburbs.
Okay, LaMai has sufficiently vented for today about the downstairs neighbors.
3 comments:
Hello There! I ran across your blog whilst "next blogging" to kill time.
I also thoroughly enjoyed AHWOSG, and I'm a huge fan of Mr. Eggers, having read both his novels and his short story collection. AHWOSG was first published in 2000, so Ol' Dave has had quite a few more than 3 years in which to build his empire. In fact, as you read in AHWOSG, he was in SF publishing indie 'zines well before even that date.
I just wanted to point out that, alongside his publishing empire, Eggers has started a network of after school writing programs for inner-city teens, of which he is apparently very proud. Each year, the teens at the SF writing center select the pieces to be included in the annual Best American Non-required Reading series, which I highly recommend. So, he's not your average mogul.
If you liked AHWOSG, check out the McSweeney's site. I read it every day, as part of my routine. It also has lots more details about the after school writing programs I referred to earlier. http://www.mcsweeneys.net
I stand corrected. The book was indeed first published in 2000. I first noticed the book at a Barnes & Noble after my first year of law school - around 2002/3. I was indeed living under a rock at the time. : )
Also, and not to be snarky, but isn't it cute how young people consider 2.1 years as "quite a few more" years? Am I getting old?
Eggers got a great plug here. Maybe this type of loyalty is telling of Egger's empire-building powers. Or something.
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