With three interviews and numerous errands today, and a 10-day tour that starts at 4 a.m. tomorrow, it was hard to justify going to a concert last night. Harder still to justify going backstage and talking to some guys in the band until almost 1 a.m.
But when the band is the Pogues . . . well, I’ll sleep when I’m dead. Bear in mind, this is an opportunity that came about because I hang with some big dogs, guys who attract a lot of admiration from the kind of people that also attract admiration. Sometimes, it’s cool to be the chihuahua.
Oh, and everyone with whom I spoke last night is a thousand times better-read than I am. Proust! Finnegans Wake! (I’ve never met a non-professor/non-English major who had read this.) I even got a little advice on how to conquer Ulysses. “The first part is slow, but once you get to Bloom, it picks up.” “Hmmmm. Can I sort of skip ahead? Or at least skim.?” It was decreed that I could, if I must.
My advice? DiFara’s pizza in Brooklyn. Oh, yes, it was a pretty lofty cultural exchange.
Anyway, if you notice the bags under my eyes in the television segment I’m taping today, for air tomorrow — I don’t care.
I was just reading about Bloom- in an article on Jewish Dublin(there is or was a sign on the house where he lived- though as a fictional character…..). I have not read it either. As for Proust- well, I have eaten a madeleine and at La Madeleine. And I probably spelled it wrong.
On what station/program is tomorrow’s television segment airing?
My thoughts exactly: You can sleep when you are dead. I try to remember that in my daily life.
6:45 a.m Tuesday, the “Coffee With” segment on WJZ.
I’ll have been up almost two hours by the time it airs . . .
So, who was the band??
(I’m always amazed at how many books people have read… It makes me feel shockingly UNread — and I read a lot of books.)
I was recently the least well-read person at a table of film people, all of whom were male. It was pretty great.
I was looking at your tour schedule Laura, wow. Well there are a couple of plane flights to grad a nap, maybe. Have a great time and I’m really looking forward to your new Tess book. I listened to the inteview and got a few laughs there.
Now you’ll have a Shane MacGowen story to tell! Oh wait, I forgot there’s only one real Shane MacGowen story to tell-only the locale changes.