March Forth!
Today, we celebrate International Progress Day, although not very internationally, because the pun doesn't work in other languages. Happy International Progress Day!
In the event, I did not ask Colm Tóibín to say his name. While he signed the book, I suggested that The Master could be seen as a short-story collection, and I told him that the James work that it most reminded me of was The Awkward Age. Mr Tóibín graciously assented to both remarks. I looked at his signature. It was almost perfectly legible.
The reading at 192 Books was my sole Saturday-evening entertainment. Kathleen could not rouse herself to leave the apartment, so we missed the Scissors Sisters concert. I wasn't about to go to that by myself! Readings given by writers I admire are much more my thing, even if the event requires a fifty-minute commute each way. (Tenth and 21st is a long way from 86th and Second, with at least one train change.)
I'm especially glad that I didn't miss Mr Tóibín. Something about his writing - or perhaps it was his soulful author photographs on dust jackets - led me to expect a dour, shy Irishman. Wrong! He was so charming and conversational that it actually hurt to turn away from him after the signing. I'd have given anything for an hour's conversation - a feeling I've never had before. He recommended that we all read Hemingway's "The Killers," in case we hadn't. He talked about how his new collection of short stories, Mothers and Sons, came to be, and revealed fascinating details of the backgrounds of a couple of the tales. More about that tomorrow.
Like a dodo, I left this week's Book Review at the bookshop. I was so involved with tying my scarf and turning the mobile back on that I abandoned it atop a stack of books, where, to be sure, it fit right in. The thought of having to buy another newspaper just to replace it was almost as irritating as not having anything to read on the voyage home. (I did have Mr Tóibín's book, but I'd read it, and it's really not suited to the MTA's clatter.) I resolved to be resourceful. I'd haunt little room where the service elevator stops. That's where we do our recycling and leave our newspapers. Sure enough, I had a replacement by noon.
Yesterday's burst of spring has drifted off, leaving wintry conditions in possession.
