by Edward Champion

Roundup

  • Ian McEwan may be taking a page out of Margaret Atwood’s playbook. McEwan has decided to forego touring for On Chesil Beach, replacing his bookstore appearances with a 23 minute film. But here’s the question: do people really want to go to a bookstore to see a film of an author? Particularly if they can download the film off the Internet? I agree that the current idea of an author reading is flawed and that some authors simply lack the pizazz to work a room. But if bookstores want to keep on thriving and have their customers return, there’s no substitute for live author appearances, where readers can ask questions and authors can personally inscribe their books, as odious as the task might be for the author. (via Bookdwarf)
  • I agree with Bill Peschel. Lynne Scanlon is really missing the point about the Vagina Monologues debacle. Besides, what were these girls supposed to do? Tell the principal that they would, in fact, say the word “vagina” and then have the show canceled?
  • It’s a sad world indeed when The Secret Life of Bees replaces The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
  • Maud Newton chooses between Kate Atkinson and Richard Ford. All I have to say is: Ouch.
  • Forget the Tournament of Books. How about the Tournament of Reading Reports? Who will be the first to report of John Banville’s Los Angeles appearance? Mark Sarvas or Callie Miller? There’s no rooster here to be had, but certainly there’s a booster.
  • The Independent‘s Susi Feay investigates Muriel Gray’s recent claim that today’s female writers lack imagination.
  • The CliffsNotes dilemma spelled out in comic strip allegory. Years ago, I had something close to this happen to me, although I was the one to walk out. (via The Millions)
  • The Raw Shark Texts author Steven Hall muses on the number 31.
  • Terry McMillan has filed a $40 million lawsuit against her former husband, “now a hair stylist in a Danville salon.” Who knew that hair stylists had publicists?
  • Fugitive novelist Cesare Battisti has been arrested in Italy.
  • New York Magazine interviews LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy.
  • I didn’t realize this, but Eric Bogosian’s Talk Radio has been revived, with Liev Schreiber taking on Bogosian’s role.
  • Salman Rushdie: “not afraid to laugh.” Well, good for him. I didn’t realize there were authors out there who were cowering in fear from humor and I’m glad Rushdie has sought the appropriate therapy to learn how to laugh again. (via Orthofer)
  • Russell Crowe is making his directorial debut with a surf film. The story involves a bunch of needlessly angry surfers who scream at hotel clerks and beat the shit out of any detractors, when they aren’t busy throwing telephones into the ocean.
  • I find it amazing that there is only one gay and lesbian-based bookstore in the whole UK. But authors are now rallying to save it.
  • It appears that the folks at Gawker have now seen fit to emerge from their collective anonymity and sign their posts. Whether this is a testament to future accountability or an effort by Denton to keep track of his writing slaves extended family is anyone’s guess.

[UPDATE: Mark and Callie‘s respective accounts of the Los Angeles Banville reading are now up. Mark wins out for timeliness, beating Callie’s post by a mere eleven minutes. But eleven minutes! That’s what I call a close race. I certainly hope that Mark and Callie meet at some point. I can dutifully attest that Mark Sarvas does not bite people, although there are unconfirmed reports of Mark noshing on gourmet roadkill.]

[UPDATE 2: And it turns out that John Fox was at the Banville reading too! None of these three have met each other. This is criminal! All this makes me want to fly down to Los Angeles, get these three together in the same room, and not allow anyone to leave until at least twenty minutes of friendly conversation has gone down!]

by Edward Champion

Meditations on a Pizza Delivery Man

He walked westward on Washington Street, carrying a burgundy bag cloaking pizza boxes, as if it were a faux pas to reveal cardboard in the Financial District. In his other hand, two white plastic bags, containing fixings, the top ends neatly twisted in the same relentless knots found in some Chinese restaurants. He was ignored by everyone else. You might even say that, aside from my five-second glance, I ignored him too. Why exculpate myself? What business did I have with the man? It wasn’t as if he was bringing me food. And even if he was, it wasn’t as if I’d get to know him, or ask him about the sports or the weather, let alone his name. The only thing I’d probably do is tip him generously. Perhaps more so than the investment bankers he was delivering lunch to, if I were to rely upon the remarkable tip-to-income inverse ratio described by acquaintances who worked in the food service industry.

He remained unnamed, as anonymous as a soldier in a tomb. Not even a name tag. Instead, the red pizza uniform and the slightly mystified and resigned look revealing why he, a man of thirty-five or so, was still delivering pizzas at his age, and how the advancing years had made him more invisible, and how he had quietly accepted his lot.

I took in many details in five seconds: his unsmiling face, the way he hid his eyes beneath sunglasses (it was a sunny day, but not that sunny), the white flecks settling into his dark hair, a torso neither muscular nor paunchy, but perfectly nondescript. Did he have a wife and kids? What were his hobbies? Did he have a second job? Did he have health care?

I thought of the pizza delivery man when I stood in line for lunch. And I fell quietly into line with the rest of the suits. I was an utter hypocrite. And there were more people there, paid to service us, with soft lines beneath their eyes and fabricated smiles to last the afternoon. I couldn’t eat easily. Because I kept thinking to myself: at what cost this food? Not the monetary cost, but the price I had paid in basic human decency. “Thank you” and brief pleasant talk didn’t cut it. This was the current economy. This was the human food chain.