The New Yorker Festival: Love and Marriage

Last night I attended a panel on Love and Marriage, moderated by a senior editor from The New Yorker and featuring Lorrie Moore, Julian Barnes and Junot Diaz. If you’re familiar with these authors you know in advance that their outlook on the topic isn’t particularly sunny. Coincidentally, neither is mine!

It was an interesting panel, and I don’t mean that in a fully complimentary manner. The topic is obviously extremely broad and the moderator didn’t provide much steerage or direction to narrow the focus. Bad week for moderators, eh? Instead he tended to pull something one of the author’s characters said or thought on the topic of love and then asked the authors to speak to it. His introductions to the questions were rambling and unfocused, it was a bit painful at times. Luckily Moore, Barnes and Diaz are all well-spoken, witty people so it more than made up for it.

My favorite moment of the night was the moderator interjecting at the end, “Oh, and we haven’t even talked about sex yet!” Lorrie Moore and Julian Barnes in unison (with matching horrified expressions) said “It’s not in the panel title!” to which Junot said “You guys are like the Teamsters—it’s not in our job description!”

NYC book swap tonight.

7pm at Library Bar, details here.

• If you’re interested in coming but worried you won’t know anyone, this is not at all a cliquey meetup, plus you have a built in conversation starter—books! 
• Don’t let social awkwardness stand in the way of free new books. One of your New Year’s resolutions was probably to make new friends, and to that I say carpe diem.
• If you don’t want to part with any of your precious books, pick up a used one somewhere and come on over.

jennifer egan @ nypl.

usually at readings i take copious notes to try and hold on to the feeling i get from hearing writers i admire talk about their craft. tonight i skipped the note taking and just enjoyed listening to jennifer egan speak about a visit from the goon squad and her creative process. i was blown away by how articulate she is—writers aren’t always the most verbal and socially functional people. i was sitting directly behind hermione lee’s perfectly coiffed bob—her hair is the literary equivalent of anna wintour. also of note: jennifer egan has got some serious cheekbones on her. anyone else see a michelle pfeiffer resemblance?

leaving the reading tonight and walking through the marble hallways at the nypl and out into the mild spring night with the chrysler building in the background, i could not imagine living anywhere else.

patti smith @ 92y.

tonight the 92y hosted an evening with patti smith—writer, visual artist, musician, national book award winner and performer extraordinaire. smith read excerpts from just kids, some selected poetry, and performed songs off horses, the seminal album of the patti smith group.

of all the events i’ve been to at the 92y, this was one of the most memorable. i don’t think the 92y has ever housed that many leather jackets and aging hippies before. the people in attendance were a mix of older fans who knew her first through her music and a newer generation that found her through just kids. myself being one of the latter, the musical portion of the reading floored me, especially when smith was joined onstage by sam shephard and lenny kaye.

hopefully the 92y will upload the audio from tonight’s reading. it is well worth a listen, if only to hear patti smith rave about hickory, the deerhound she fell in love with while watching the westminister dog show under the influence of jet-lag. apparently she focused on sending mental signals to the italian judge because ‘she has always had a good relationship with italy.’ hickory the deerhound won westminister and tonight patti smith dedicated her poem about bob dylan’s dog to hickory.

jonathan franzen and lorrie moore @ 92Y.

lorrie moore was exactly as expected—warm, with a seductive and subtle wit. jonathan franzen on the other hand was much more animated and effusive than i had painted him in my mind.

what a great night at the 92y. i wanted to hear more about franzen’s unexpected birdwatching hobby that was a product of writing freedom.

moore’s reply to the audience question about how writers come to endings in their stories was beautiful and succinct—that short stories hearken back to the past when you have finished them, while novels drive the reader and writer to imagine the unwritten pages in the characters’ imagined future.