How to develop your schtick and an iPod
Okay, two fun links for you to entertain yourselves on a Friday afternoon.
First, Meg Cabot’s continuing series about how to survive a book tour. Today’s lesson: how to develop a schtick. Although it’s aimed at authors, it also applies to the socially inept (um, that would be me, too) who need a few stock lines to help them warm up at a party. So read and be inspired.
Now if she could only help me leave phone messages so I don’t sound like such a complete moron. “Um, hi, hello, this is, um . . . No, wait. Start over.”
Second, this recent rant by Garrison Keillor, about the Republicans’ bashing of Nancy Pelosi based on the fact that she comes from San Francisco, which is (brace yourselves) apparently full of gay people:
“But the Bay Area is the cradle of the computer and software industry, which continues to create jobs for our children. The iPod was not developed by Baptists in Waco. There may be a reason for this. Creative people thrive in a climate of openness and tolerance, since some great ideas start out sounding ridiculous. Creativity is a key to economic progress.
“Authoritarianism is stifling. I don’t believe that Mr. Hewlett and Mr. Packard were gay, but what’s important is: In San Francisco, it doesn’t matter so much. When the cultural Sturmbannfuhrers try to marshal everyone into straight lines, it has consequences for the economic future of this country.” (Emphasis mine because I love that line so much.)
Enjoy your Friday. I’m off to NY in the morning (and yes, I did finally find some clothes, thank you all for caring and debating the issue so spiritedly in the comments to yesterday’s post–I’m sorry you all had to take so much time away from your lives, but I think we all agree it was worth it to settle some of those issues). I’ll check in from NY just as soon as I possibly can. I know you can’t wait to hear whom from my List of 30 I’ll be meeting, and whether Meg Cabot’s advice helped me get through not only that interview, but also my first meeting with my editor at Knopf.
As Mr. Lorry says in A Tale of Two Cities, as he prepares Lucie Manette to meet the father she thought was dead, “Courage! Business!”
Really, every situation can be likened to Dickens. And if not, then Seinfeld.
Technorati Tags: Meg Cabot, Garrison Keillor, Nancy Pelosi, iPod, San Francisco, Charles Dickens, Tale of Two Cities, Seinfeld
June 9th, 2006 at 9:21 pm
Speaking of Garrison Keillor, I just got home from seeing A Prairie Home Companion, and it was soooo cute!!!
June 12th, 2006 at 2:45 pm
Ok, Meg Cabot’s whole book tour thing is laugh out loud funny…though I am not as much of a mole as other writers.
Oh, to be at the point of actually being asked to go on a book tour….
June 12th, 2006 at 7:56 pm
saw phc last night–it was really fun, especially if you’re a weekend aficionado of the show, as am i. sue scott (the make-up lady, who is a regular on the radio show) is on my list, and since i actually went to school with her (as i almost did with dave barry before robin totally blew it for all of us)and as i meet her with some frequency i can now, finally, take her off the list. see, i’ve decided i’m going go about my list a little differently, like make it up as i meet people, retroactively put them on the list, and then delete them–it seems so much more doable–don’t you think?