I am going to be attending the Baileys Crossroads Tour event on the 18th. It has been a full decade or so since I have attended a book signing and I am looking for some guidance. How are these things run? Is there a reading first then jump in line for book signings? Or the other way around?

I have yet to pick up a copy of Spook Country yet as I didn’t know if you are expected to buy a copy from the host book shop or if it really doesn’t matter. Per prior posts, it sounds like you can bring another book or two. I probably will bring in my paperback copy of Neuromancer. I wish I had a nicer hardback version, but even if I did, that well worn paperback copy is the one I fell in love with. It would be the one I would pickup when the urge to read it again hits. So does anyone have any tips on how to make this a successful event?

And now, ladies and gentlemen, let's get ready for Side 2:

6) ( Bigend answer, cont'd ) WG first prefaces his following statement with, "I hope you're not Belgian," (at which the audience laughs). He then explains that his predominant popular exposure to Belgians has been in the form of either kinky sex fiends, flamboyant fashionistas, or serial murderers. He then goes on a typically oblique Gibsonian tangent, about the diversity and tilt of his myriad plot devices, at which point my attention went on its own hiatus, getting fixated on the Corinthian capitals of the BN store building's ornate support columns, painted in this incarnation of their existence a most unfortunate two-tone of institutional brown and cream. The last thing I heard about Bigend was that WG had originally envisioned him to be tall, darkly tan and Tom Cruise-looking with a mouth overpopulated by very bright and perfect teeth. I didn't really catch where the answer to the question ended up, other than there...sorry punters!

7) A woman in a black dress asked if WG intended for the summary effect of SC, ultimately, to be equivalent to [Argentine author Jorge Luis] Borges' "giant maps."

WG: Offered a requisite more-or-less affirmative response. Commented on the fact that Borges has probably influenced more of his work than is generally realized, and that Borges' short story "The Aleph" contains a small, "iPod-like" device that he's shocked no one has ever connected to his own use of an unlike-but-similarly-inspired object in "Count Zero." He then subjected the audience to a firm dressing-down, stating with great (and rather uncharacteristic) passion that if we hadn't yet extensively read Borges, that we essentially damn well should, already. ("Sorry, man, there's only so many hours in my 27-hour day," I muttered to myself abashedly...)

8) Q: Finally, it's the dreaded "Neuromancer" movie question!

WG: Chronicles the persistent historical threats of the production of such a thing, throughout the previous two decades. Goes on to (wisely) say that each of us has their very own "Neuromancer simulacrum" in our heads, and that to posit a one-framed reproduction of that already kaleidoscopically-imagined fiction would be a great disservice to the readership, especially considering the possibility of such a production totally sucking horribly. He said that it's a forever-recycling meme, but...he finished up the Q&A by saying (in that perfectly honest, half-truthy, knowingly ignorant, innocent kinda manner that WG's so good at adopting) that he just might know of something that some weirdos in California may be mounting up in February of 2008, that we might want to keep our eyes peeled for.

(and with that, the audience moaned knowingly and burst into frenzied, approving applause)

I spent the next 25 minutes or so leaning and thumb-touching the glass screen, mostly ignoring the conversations around me, which ranged from irksome to insipid: a young-sounding techie blowhard behind me queried his beefy friend, "What kinda computer you think he has?" His friend roared, "I'll bet he has a Mac! Bwaaaaaaaaaahhhh, yeah! He has a MAC!!!" The blowhard kid went silent with dismay and intoned gravely, "If he has a Mac, I might not even let him sign my book. He's singlehandedly responsible for my having a job at all [presumably as a technician]."

I turned around rigidly and said, "He's always used a Mac." My tone was funereal.

The kid went silent again. His friend aped, "He's always used a Mac...whoa!" and glowered at his friend, pushing his baseball cap on his red haired head. His friend could only conjure up a quivery-sounding, "Hmmm..." Not to say that I even know that for sure -- I've never been to WG's house -- but I was feeling mischievous and conspiratorial.

In front of me, a large guy in a plaid shirt was rattling on loudly in an alarming suburban-NYC yawp about the inspiring complexity of the Bridge Dwellings from ATP. He went on and on, which I suppose was sort of convenient, because as I was iPhoning the first installment of this reportage, I imagined the expanse of the bridge yawning with a precarious, bristling mosaic of decorated cardboard cubes. It was sort of soothing. Then, the guy started unfurling the entire extent of his Stanley Kubrick film ownership, to his hapless friend, who kind of feebly responded, "I have a bunch of those..." "You have 'Paths of Glory'?" the big guy challenged. "I don't have that one," the friend replied flatly. I thought, internally, "That's a shame, because 'Paths..." is a damn good film." But I kept quiet, and kept thumbing.

By the time I ended off in the last installment, I was about 15 people back, and me and "Never Saw 'Paths of Glory'" started to rapping. He saw my iPhone, armored by a black Marware SportGrip BackWinder case, and asked, "Afraid you're gonna drop it, right?" I stared blankly and said, "Well, I guess..." More so it'll look stealthy and anonymous, to successfully avoid "tribalization," I thought, half-grinning to myself.

Then he flashed his, all naked and shiny like mine was for my first four weeks of ownership. I confessed I had clumsily managed to have the smooth, beloved glass-and-metal mini-slab slip out of my hands once so far (pretty good for a perennial, depth perception-deprived klutzo such as myself), but at work, in my slate-grey, open-plan partition, lined by frosted glass, metal, mesh-woven magnetic partitions, and the floor with 2' x 2' tiles of industrial grey pile. That was the surface the phone bounced gently upon from the 2.5' drop of my matching grey Herman Miller Aeron chair. Cringing, I looked around and hoped no one noticed.

As an aside: the most amicable thing about the phone is that naturalness of materials...it is not plastic and plexi, it is metal and glass, with a slick strip of reflective chrome around the edges, and that one and only super-simple button that just takes me back home.

Turns out the dude's name was Logan, I found out as I glanced at his Post-It note on the title page of his book, just ahead of mine on the table before WG. Books were queued up there assembly-line style (which always makes me feel anxious and guilty, and like grabbing a pile of books and starting to forge to the best of my ability, just to give the poor man a break). Just before our turn, I nervously kept repeating, "Logan? As in ''s Run'?" repeatedly, like a lobotomized parrot. Probably just as nervous (as it was his first signing), he just sort of yessed me hastily, and kept shuffling woodenly forward.

On the steps to the stage, I told Logan about my iPhone idea. "That's a great idea," he said. I mused briefly on the hundreds of sweaty-palmed ubergeeks WG must have encountered by this point in the tour, and that evenings' crowd, a dense volume of punters jammed all the way back from the filled audience chairs down the front, to the escalators about 1/4 back on the floor, standees jostling each other, annoyed, amidst the bookshelves.

"I'll bet he's signed one already, though." I said, somewhat deflated. Logan shrugged, sort of agreeing, but sort of not. "Who knows?" he said. "He's had to have signed at least a dozen," I moped. This is not typically the era of original thought, I thought further with some visible sulkiness. It wasn't as though the considerably prohibitive cost of the consumer electronic devices impeded my sense of sureness my idea bore 0% originality, since they were becoming at least buck a dozen in NYC as the days pass into Late Summer, and the pennies in the piggy bank mount. Me? I worked freelance rebuilding a client's PC, and setting up a complex Tivo / BOSE / SONY / cable entertainment center all July 4th weekend, in order to finance my phone. I did so handily, methinks!

The moment arrived, and I greeted WG. "Hello, sir!" I said cheerily, since could think of nothing else to say. "Hello!" he cheerily retorted.

"Say," I asked. "Would you be okay with signing my iPhone?" I managed. "I'll bet it's not your first one, but..."

He looked up at me brightly, then down at the thing in my hand, and said something like, "Well, you know...I don't think I have signed one yet."

"What?!" I thought. "Really!" I said, handing it gently to him. He held it and turned it over gingerly, uttering "Wow" and such.

"Well...is there any way...can you...can you OPEN it? So, you know, I can sign somewhere where...I...." He just looked at it, a little mystified, trying I suppose to figure out a way to autograph it so it wouldn't, like, rub off or something.

A little calculatedly, I suppose, I said, "Well, I could have you write something *in* it..." Taking my iPhone back from WG gingerly, I slid my thumb across the bottom of the glass to unlock it, and opened the Notes application, which, in typical Apple fashion, is designed to look like your average brown-bound, yellow, lined flip notepad. Handing it back to him, he still stared down at it, perhaps surprised. "Is there a pen, or...how do you write in it?"

"You type on the glass." I replied, in sort of a daze, and watched him poke out the "WM" in his first initials. Then I remembered with horror, my first moments with the glass keyboard, and then saw the auto-complete feature's little microscopic menu appear, very suddenly changing the "WG" to "Ag" upon his pressing on the Space "bar" on the screen.

Delighted and sheepish, but encouraged that my iPhone may very well have been the first he'd even tried to use, I said, "Oh no, it's correcting you...maybe just, you know..." and gestured towards the back. Getting me, he uncapped a Sharpie marker and turned it over, exposing the brushed metal finish, and reflective Apple.

"This is so...transgressive!" he chimed excitedly. I was literally peeing myself. The bright lights above bore down, and the heat is a memory on my scalp. Staring at the pen approaching metal, the nib touched the surface, and he swooped out the first curved vertical of the "W." And I shit you not when I roughly quote his words, after a palpable shoulder-shaking shudder...

"Woooh! What a sexy feeling to be signing an iPhone!"

*faint*

Well, I didn't actually, but I might as well have, because I suffered a fanatic's psycho-physiological blackout after that, and barely remember hobbling off after quixotically muttering, "Enjoy!" to him, and wobbling off down the escalator, puffing air on the Sharpie ink before carefully re-sheathing the phone.

I guess I'll wrap with that, because it doesn't get much better. I needed to testify the glory of it all here, for all you folks, and apologize as I do semi-yearly, for being too shy, busy, greedily obsessed and antisocially and fetishistically mesmerized with Herr Artiste to spend a lot of time on this board. Kudos to digitalprimate for even trying to have a meet up, and for alerting me to the fact (in my months-long, manic, self-imposed "no spoilers" exile) that "Spook Country" was even finished, and being released this month.

Here is the fetish pr0n, courtesy of the in-house photog at the global ad agency for whose IT department I daily toil. I bid you farewell for now, as I slip back into the ozone between nodes...




PS - I am free for iPhone and/or other hardware usage tutorials at any time of day or night. (LOL)

This message has been edited. Last edited by: skydancer,

You write like a South African.

Post of the week.

Awesome read - felt like I was there with you.

So it's true, then : WG does sign anything.

(great post, skydancer)

Very cool, Skydancer!!!

This is why he always carries a Sharpie.

Thank you for this inside insight: he loves his technology and I really hope this tolerant mood keeps till London...I mean it!!

_{jealousy is an irrational feeling... to be suppressed}

How can we top that, other than by having him sign a Pope's hat ?

"Ratzinger, I'm coming for you!"

Look out Mr G - Stephen King mistaken for a vandal in Australia.

going tonight.

Jasileet, you lucky wigber. Look for someone with wigber eyes, a lurker or two may come to philly!

quote:

Originally posted by Mean Old Man:
You write like a South African.

...and that's to say like what, exactly? A 17th century Dutch settler? A Xhosa frontierswoman? A British Transvaalian colonialist? Could be anything, really...

But it's just good old Queen's English seeping out of me by birth: I'm 1st-generation West Indian-American from Guyanese parental transplants. (shrug)

I think the reference was to him.

Might even be a compliment...

quote:

Originally posted by Hasa:
I think the reference was to him.

Might even be a compliment...

Sheesh, thanks. Wow, he can half write. I daresay such chops usually issue from PTSD-riddled circumstances. Like the hot breath of reality blossoming into an unceasing urge to chronicle events, to compress them into something like the thinness of a dex-wafer, for the purpose of propelling the re-experience into the world, a flailing exorcism...

As Odile Richard says on Page 6 of SC (I'm only on Page 10, LOL...ah, to savor, as if by olfactory hallucination), "Alberto is concerned with internalized space...He sees this internalized space emerge from trauma. Always, from trauma."

Me too!

quote:

"Woooh! What a sexy feeling to be signing an iPhone!"

If the Apple marketing team has half a brain, this could be the start of a beautiful relationship... the Buzz Rickson effect.

Damn. What a rush must that have been for you, Skydancer. Congrats. I take it the phone is now encased under lexan, never to be soiled by human hands again? : )

quote:

Originally posted by ArkanGL:
So it's true, then : WG does sign anything.

(great post, skydancer)

Excellent - I'll see if I can get him to sign my "No Maps" disc.

P.S.: Sounds like there's still some space left at the CBC Book Club event, if any locals want to try to get in.
(The email I received today indicated this - 3 weeks left, so should be enough time to get an entry in)

quote:

Originally posted by fuldog:

Damn. What a rush must that have been for you, Skydancer. Congrats. I take it the phone is now encased under lexan, never to be soiled by human hands again? : )

No! What do I look like, Hugh Hefner? I don't have the "estilo" to afford another iPhone, so this one's going to have to do. Luckily enough, the case I invested in is pretty airtight, absolutely protected with hard, matte black plastic around the back and sides, then snugly tucked away from dust and impact under thick silicone seal that completely surrounds the phone.

Of course, that doesn't leave it insusceptible to other possible human trespasses, or, say, the Ocean (or a toilet on the LIRR, as a most unfortunate story of a Long Island commuter once went, ending somewhere in Baldwin, with a stalled train, and a sprained blue wrist). But I'm quite confident the phone is impervious to damage or other blights by way of protective forces far beyond the mere, gross laws of This Island Earth.

I like to think that's one of the things WG meant when he called the act "transgressive" -- not only was I allowing him to deface a rather expensive and coveted piece of personal technology, but he might have, on some visceral level, known that I would just keep on using the damn thing as if nothing had happened. Which I am, and will, until fate, armageddon, Jeremy Norman, or a post-apocalyptic nuclear landfill doth intervene...

quote:

Originally posted by skydancer:

...Which I am, and will, until fate, armageddon, Jeremy Norman, or a post-apocalyptic nuclear landfill doth intervene...

Oh, actually, I meant yeah, I'll keep using it, but only until Gen 2 of the iPhone comes out! Silly me. Then I will certainly retire it to a hermetically sealed mount on my bedroom wall, until (see litany of entropy above). (demure blinking)