“I think we should publicly shame him,” said one of our party.
“Okay,” I said. “Why not?”
There were five of us waiting to meet up with Dan Wickett at the Sheraton Hotel Hudson Bar. But Mr. Wickett was not there! We hung around for around 40 minutes. But no Dan Wickett! Et tu, Dan?
Despite the fact that there was a need to beat a deadline, your correspondent evaded his responsibilities and will be chained to his laptop for the next thirty hours to get the assignment finished. But shortly after the fruitless quest for Dan Wickett, there was then an evening involving many additional places with many magnificent people with many crazed text messages and many phone calls and people coming and going and perhaps too many drinks. And because of these peregrinations, which were somewhat unanticipated, there is no entry on Filthy Habits this morning.
But oh those margaritas! And oh those hugs and kisses and talk of randy activity!
The Call by Yannick Murphy: The always interesting author of Here They Come and Signed, Mata Hari returns with a novel that whips up a worldview from a rather quirky set of limitations: namely, the call logs that a veterinarian maintains as his son is unexpectedly put into a coma and an unforgiving economy denies him work. What emerges is a surprisingly optimistic, often funny, and very moving account on how one family uses acceptance and forgiveness as a way to atone for hard knocks. (
Birds of Paradise by Diana Abu-Jaber: Forget Franzen and Eugenides. If you're looking for a social novel that counts, Diana Abu-Jaber is the author you're looking for. Building from the free-form exploration of consciousness and identity in Crescent and the gripping procedural structure of Origin, Abu-Jaber's latest novel is her finest, equally fluent with gutterpunk culture and smarmy real estate men. It has been suggested by The Washington Post's Ron Charles that you will likely gain some pounds while reading this novel. This is certainly true. Abu-Jaber's description of food is so precise that it often made me want to do more cooking. But I very much admired the way in which Abu-Jaber presents all her characters as unwitting victims of rough capitalism, which permits them some dignity even as they perform terrible acts.
The Last of the Live Nude Girls by Sheila McClear: This memoir isn't so much about the decline of the Times Square peepshow, as it is about one young woman's efforts to pull herself up by by her bootstraps when presented with few economic options. Filled with self-introspective candor and a quiet dignity, McClear's story is one that might befall any of us in these volatile times. While McClear does get back on her feet, her book leads one contemplating the terrible fates of other young women now moving to New York and falling into deadlier vocations. (
Maybe he was there and you didn’t notice him. I can easily get distracted at the Sheraton Hotel. Misunderstandings happen. But that’s just me.
I wouldn’t trust that bastard either. If only you’d have stayed 8 more minutes. Three flight delays out of Detroit because of wind in NYC, malfunctioned door and busy airspace had me arrive to the Sheraton 3 hours later than intended, and into the bar at 8:48 p.m.
Sorry to have missed you, Ed.