Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Jesse requested more entries about feelings so I'm going to oblige. But first -

Excerpts from Sarah Vowell's reading of The Wordy Shipmates at the Union Square Barnes and Noble. These snippets come from the question and answer session.

Why write about Protestants:
"Oh, just selling out really."

"I can go all "grandpa" on any number of topics."

Sarah: Last question, better be good.
Audience member: Are we going to see you on Showtime's version of This American Life?
Sarah: Are you going to see me on Showtime's version of This American Life? [extended pause] Um, no. Thank you all for coming.

I took notes while timing my incessant coughing to match other people's laughter. If you were there, I was the girl blowing my nose before and after the reading. Apparently, I am not over my cold yet. Also, I am gross.

When I first heard Sarah Vowell a few years ago, I thought, oh my God, she got to my life before I did. This resulted in two feelings:

"There is no room for me in the world" and

"I wonder if she needs an assistant?"

To be fair, she's doing my life better than I would have. She's really nailing that whole visiting national historic landmarks, researching old-timey America and writing insightful, unpretentious, and clever works about those experiences.

Sarah, if you ever want to "visit" my office, "research" people on facebook and "write" this blog - we should life swap.

She too does not have a driver's license.

Soon I must choose one of my backup plans. Mayhaps, I will open a Presidential Bakery in the West Village. The hook is that there will be one era-appropriate-baked-good assigned to each President. There's no menu because you have to order the President.

Otherwise, I'll be a jedi. And marry Kenneth Branagh.

2 comments:

Jesse said...

I will bake in your presidential bakery. I can do cinnamon rolls and ginger cookies, which I'm sure we could assign to someone. And, I mean, apples, which are probably the only thing you could assign to Hoover.

Also, I had a kind of similar experience of "this author is really just me, huh" when reading Julie and Julia, but it was mostly superficial and I don't really want to cook a whole old-timey French cookbook in a year.

This is good human interest stuff, D-----l (is this a last-name blog?), but don't think I forgot the feelings.

Anonymous said...

Get over yourself - I am 0 for 3.