“Gee, you know, I enjoy hearing Ira Glass talk about anything. But hearing him talk about me? That’s absolutely thrilling!”

Terry Gross is not planning on improvising. So good on her for knowing her limitations. She has not yet said FREEEEEEEEEEEEEESHHHH AIRRRRR!

“I never dreamed that I would be honored at the National Book Awards, and without even having to write a book.”

“Book interviews can be pretty perplexing. I once met a political correspondent who stormed out when I asked him a question that wasn’t in the book.” By contrast, an actor who wrote a book wouldn’t answer questions because the answers were already in his book.

“Why do I love talking to writers? Well, because non-fiction writers tell us things we don’t ever know.”

Really?

She’s boasting now about J.T. Leroy’s interview being used as court evidence.

“Fiction allows a novelist to get at the truth.”

Really? I did not know that.

This is the longest presentation speech I think I’ve ever heard.

Lebowitz’s response to Didion’s speech: “pretty funny.”

Ira Glass is now presenting. They don’t applaud for Ira in quite the same way that they do for Didion. But it could be because Ira is wearing all black.

Yes, he’s presenting for FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESHHHHHH AIRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

First 9/11 reference of the night! What the hell do 9/11 hijackers have to do with Terry Gross? Oh, he’s rambling on about a 9/11 interview. “And then this interview goes incredibly barebone, when this writer confesses — that when he started reading — that, uh, yeah this was an amazing interview. Not just the strippers. The flying planes in the building.”

Ira, this is not your therapist’s office. You are presenting an award. You are not accepting an award.

“It was great radio, of course.”

Of course.

Didion is now on stage. A lengthy applause. And now a standing ovation.

Didion is very small, as everybody has often reported.

“I didn’t start writing to get a lifetime achievement award. In fact, it was pretty much the last thing on my mind.”

Words on “Self-Respect” written in 1961 in Vogue. A real writer at Vogue at that time was “pretty much anyone who wasn’t on staff.” Lengthy stuff about San Bernardino. Yes, the woman can write, but to reproduce this speech is to possibly bore you readers. Didion-is-read-ing-like-this-in-a-flat-line-voice.

“Overwhelming impulse. I need to go back to the airport. So each of these pieces was a job, a craft. But each of these pieces were an exercise in learning how to live.”

Aha, the first Mailer mention of the night! “There was someone who really truly knew what writing was for.”

Michael Cunningham — the author of The Hours — is now up to present the Lifetime Achievement Award. He is accompanied by a young gentleman who looks like a Williamsburg hipster. I presume he is the “assistant.”

Cunningham: A long pause, then a sigh. He is nervous and then not so. What’s that? An audience! The literary establishment at my beck and call! Talking about a long trip to Los Angeles. He is emphasizing words like “frighteningly” and looking more than a bit pompous. The air that escapes from his lungs does so with a stunning regularity. This is a windbag that came from the factory. If Didion kicks Cunningham in the ass when she gets the award, I will have nothing but good words to say of her from now on. The likelihood of this happening is nil, seeing as how Didion avoided an interview from videographer Jason Boog.

One thing’s for sure: I don’t believe that he loves Didion as much as he says he does.