Since I was pretty much the first person to get there, I actually got to hang out with them for a little bit before the insanity started. I wanted to ask so many questions but realized that I pretty much knew all the answers from reading the blog everyday. So Heather, what do you do? Duh. Do you have any kids? Duh. They probably thought I was a complete airhead or mildly retarded because I just sat there staring at them with a giant grin on my face. I did have enough self-restraint to not ask them to adopt me. While it was still relatively quiet, two other fans showed up and we all go to hang out and talk like good friends. And since it was the Armstrongs that I was hanging out with, you know the conversation was interesting - topics included polygamy, circumcising penises with one’s teeth, and the crazy bitch that is Kathy Lee Gifford.

There were a few more authors from the book including Sarah Brown, Alice Bradley, and Doug French. Soon it got so crowded that there must have been at least 40 people forming a line to meet Heather. My favorite line of the night was from a woman who came up to Heather and said, “You are like the Beatles for me right now”. They eventually ran out of books and people had to settle for getting napkins signed. At one point Jon turned to me and asked, “Did you think it would be like this?”. And I looked at him and said, “Yeah, actually I did.” “I didn’t. This is wild”, he said. And it was pretty wild, loud and crowded, and I felt like I was dreaming everything.

When I was finally leaving, Heather gave me a big hug and asked me for my blog and e-mail address. And I just about died at the thought that she might actually take a moment to peek into these pages. I hope she comes back to New York soon and I get to see her again. Or I might just show up on her doorstep in Salt Lake City with a sleeping bag under my arm.

I know that I’ve been very paranoid about putting photos of myself on the blog because I don’t want to be “dooced” (fired for writing a blog) but I think in this case I have to make an exception. So…drumroll…here is Heather and me:

Heather, Jon, and me:

Heather in all her tall goodness:

Alice, Doug, and me:

Sarah and me:

So go ahead and call me a blog groupie but I had a great time. Now I just have to meet Angelina Jolie and I can die happy.

The movie was so good, as if the pages of the novels literally became animated. Unfortunately, I don’t think it is playing in too many cities; here in NYC it is only playing at the Angelika. I would recommend seeing it if it is playing anywhere near you. D liked it as much as I did which in itself should tell you how good it is (and should probably be a criteria for an Academy Award nomination) since he and I usually don’t see eye-to-eye on films.

Before the movie started, we also got a free comedy routine provided by the two men sitting behind us, one in his 40s and the other in his 60s. The older man had no idea what he was going to be watching so the younger man was trying to explain about the books (though it was obvious that he hadn’t read them himself and I had to literally bite my tongue and force myself to stare at the screen in front of me to stop myself from giving them a synopsis of the story). “But what is a graphic novel compared to a regular novel?”, asked the older man. “It’s basically like a large comic book.” “Oh, I never heard of those.” I guess he’s been living in a shoe box for some time now.

Then the older man’s cell phone rang and soon I heard him saying, “We’re seeing Persyphilis…well, maybe not syphilis.” After he got off the phone, the younger man told him to turn his cell phone off since the movie will be starting. “How do I do that?” “I think you push this red button here. That’s how I turn mine off.” “What red button? This one here? I just press it? How do you know?” I was trying my best to keep from laughing while discreetly elbowing D to see if he was hearing it too. Has this man seriously never ever turned his cell phone off?

As the movie started playing, the younger man would laugh these huge, loud, knee-slapper, belly-laughs every time something funny occurred, which was quite often. (Told ya’ll there’s a lot of humor in there.) It was one of those somewhat pretentious laughs where every individual HA is enunciated. And it was so loud that I kept turning around convinced that I will see a megaphone attached to his lips.

And if you’re still not sure if you want to see the film or not, here’s another incentive. You will understand why D said to me, “Maybe I will put coffee beans in my jockstrap so I will always smell nice.”

So yesterday was the sacred triumvirate of futon, kitchen, and bathroom. Between reading and watching movies my eyes were tired, but I finally got to read a big chunk of I Like You: Hospitality Under The Influence by the hysterical Amy Sedaris. The book is filled with tons of recipes and good ideas from a skewed point of view. There’s everything from food shopping advice (”Cashiers will notice patterns like ice cream at midnight three days in a row. The same is true for liquor. Rotate your stores” - p.29), to special considerations for guests (”One of your guests may be unable to remove himself from a physically abusive relationship. You need to be sensitive to this and avoid menu items such as battered chicken, whipped potatoes, beets, or sock-eye salmon” - p.90), to games for a child’s party (”Jr. Cat Burglar: Lock the kids out of the house and see if they can break in” - p.111). I will be sooo ready when D and I throw our next shindig.

She was about halfway through the second novel when the class began, so we got to read and critique chapters from it. When the semester was over Emer and I, along with two other classmates, continued to meet and share our writing. Of course, usually it was more beer-drinking and funny story-telling than actual work, but that was the closest I came to feeling like a genuine writer.

When More Bread or I’ll Appear was published, I was thrilled to see my name (along with those of our two classmates) in the acknowledgments. I joke that that was the high point of my life and it’s all been downhill from there.

Emer always threw the best parties - and had the best parties thrown for her. She knew the strangest assortment of people, from writers and musicians to junkies to scientists. She’s been around the globe several times and always has tales of new adventures. Her other source for great stories is family - both hers and her husband Afshin’s. Even now, when we have our yearly reunions, everyone has a request: “Hey Emer, tell us about the time Afshin’s family called you a whore” or “Hey Emer, tell us again about your crazy Vegas wedding, Elvis impersonator and all.”

I only get to see her about once a year now since she divides her time between Ireland and California. She has two young daughters to keep her busy, but that hasn’t stopped her from reinventing herself as a painter and publishing her third novel, Baby Zero. This novel has been published in the UK and Ireland so far, but I got a copy from Emer and I’ve been devouring it since Saturday. It’s an interesting story with crazy characters written in Emer’s distinctive style. I can’t wait to finish it.

That’s why I haven’t posted in four days - too busy reading the book and catching up with Emer & Co., reminiscing about the NYC days, laughing our asses off, and hearing the latest family secrets. I feel like I did more this weekend than in the last month. When meteorologists are coming up with names for hurricanes and tropical storms, they need to consider “Emer” because she rolls into town with all this energy and force, and for those few days nothing is the same. But in a good way, of course.

I first started hearing rumors about a film being made of TGC a few years ago. At that time it was still way in pre-production and Nicole Kidman was the only name attached to it, to play Mrs. Coulter. I had very mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, if the script stays true to the book and leaves the characters with their complexities then it would be amazing to see Pullman’s vision. It would also introduce the book to new readers. But because the book is very deep and works on so many levels, rather than simply as an adventure or quest, because the characters are so real, because the book explores free will, religion, and fate, I am worried that all this will not translate well onto the big screen. It will be horrible if the script leaves all that out and makes it into a Hollywood adventure film.

So as much as I love TGC, I was secretly hoping that the movie never goes into production. Well, imagine my surprise when I recently found out that the movie is finished and being released in December. I decided to go on the official website and check it out and I must admit that the trailer looks fantastic. The whole website is nicely done and you can see all the main players. I’m not completely convinced by Daniel Craig as Lord Asriel, though with the facial hair he does look more like how I imagined the character. Dakota Blue Richards, who is playing Lyra, will have to be amazing to do this complex tomboy wild-child character justice. I’m still nervous but from what I’ve seen so far, it looks good.

The website also has a very cool feature where you take a short quiz and find out what your daemon is. Mine is a spider named Sergius. So go to the website, choose Daemons from the menu and click on Meet Your Daemon to take the quiz. Then let me know what your daemon is. Have fun.

Of course, throughout the book, Stephenson also puts in plenty to ponder.  Such as:   “The difference between stupid and intelligent people - and this is true whether or not they are well-educated - is that intelligent people can handle subtlety.  They are not baffled by ambiguous or even contradictory situations - in fact, they expect them and are apt to become suspicious when things seem overly straightforward.”

Or how about: “But what you learn, as you get older, is that there are a few billion other people in the world all trying to be clever at the same time, and whatever you do with your life will certainly be lost - swallowed up in the ocean - unless you are doing it with like-minded people who will remember your contributions and carry them forward.”

The first thing that came to my mind was blogging - the thousands or even millions of blogs that exist without us even knowing them.  *sigh*

What makes these cases hard is that as the crime gets older, the leads get colder and the chance of solving the crime gets smaller. Especially when dealing with much older crimes, there might not even be much evidence left. Things get misplaced, damaged, ruined, and forgotten. Who would’ve thought in the 1950s that some fragment of fingernail or scrap of bloody clothing could maybe help capture the killer many decades later. Before DNA testing and other modern marvels, physical evidence was not considered as important when a case remained unsolved as time passed.

Though the book focused on the four cases, I also found the history of case solving and police work very interesting. I had no idea that, decades ago, confiscated liqueur, weapons, drugs, and gambling devices were often thrown into large bodies of water. “In 1933, 3,816 guns, knives, and swords were dumped into the sea at the Scotland Lightship station off the New Jersey coast. A couple of years later 1,575 phony token slugs were dumped into the Long Island Sound at Eaton’s Neck in Huntington Bay, along with 500 slot machines and 4,000 weapons. Two years after that the Property Clerk poured 10,000 gallons of wine, whiskey, and beer into the Lower Bay.” I’m picturing all these weapons and things laying on the bottom of these rivers over 70 years later.

No wonder the water out here is so polluted.

Then I read Ask The Dust and I could see where the comparison to Miller came from. So much of the book was, as many of Miller’s works are, about the protagonist’s struggle to be a writer but not really being able to discipline himself to do it, waiting for a lucky break to fall from the heavens. But the ego of Miller was not there. The arrogance was not constantly present. Personally, it reminded me of Joan Didion’s works of fiction, especially Play It as It Lays. I don’t mean her writing style because that is and will always be unique. But Ask the Dust had moments of darkness, the feeling of drowning and helplessness that Play It as It Lays has. Only moments though, so that there was room for a bit of light and hope.