Author: Michael

June was a crazy month, with me being away from home for 18 out of the 30 days in June. Work kept me busy at two Conferences, a Leadership Institute, and then our annual pilgrimage to the Provincetown International Film Festival. While all of the things that took me away from home were worthwhile, I think I’d like my business travel to be a little more spread throughout the year.

The first week of June found me in New York City for BookExpo America, the national conference for independent booksellers and librarians. The conference was great; it was so nice for this librarian to spend an entire conference focused on books. Believe it or not, that’s pretty unheard of for librarians nowadays. Even better was getting to spend so much time with two good friends who I don’t get to see very often: Daniel from Milwaukee, and Ren?e from New Jersey. Ren?e is the editor for Rutgers Magazine, the publication for Rutgers University. Daniel is a buyer at Harry W. Schwartz Books, Milwaukee’s largest independent bookstore chain. It’s great doing the BookExpo with Daniel, because I swear, he knows everyone in publishing. AND everyone likes him. Daniel took me to a party in Brooklyn on the first night where much to my surprise, I bumped into Ren?e , who I wasn’t expecting to see until Friday. The party was great, and I met lots of very cool people.

Ren?e and I joined my friend Talia Ross of, director of Library Marketing for Holtzbrinck Publishers, for a tour of their offices at the Flatiron Building. Afterwards we (and the dozen or so librarians who were invited) enjoyed lunch at Bobby Flay’s new restaurant. I was thrilled to be have as my next door table mate, none other than Nancy Pearl, the most recognizable librarian in the country. Why is that you ask? Why she is the model for the librarian action figure.

Conference stuff was lots of fun too. I got to meet two authors whose work I have admired. The first was a total surprise as I had no idea that he was going to be in attendance, or that he had a new book coming out. Michelangelo Signorile wrote the life-changing (for me) book Queer in America: Sex, the Media, and the Closets of Power back in the 80’s. It was the first book that made me think about activism in a serious way. His new book is a collection of his more recent essays entitled Hitting Hard: Michelangelo Signorile on George W. Bush, Mary Cheney, Gay Marriage, Tom Cruise, the Christian Right and Sexual Hypocrisy in America. He was soft-spoken and friendly.

I was also pleased to be able to meet and spend 30 seconds (after standing in a rather lenghty line) with Pulitzer Prize winning author Michael Cunningham. I tore through his terrific new novel Specimen Days (you can read my review here and told him that we wanted hom to come to our next State Association Conference. He said to keep contacting him. I certainly will.

Other things I did in NYC. I saw the film PALINDROMES with my pal Bruce Kingsley (who then brought me to a really cool bar/restaurant, but unfortunately I can’t remember the name. Bruce, if you read this could you let me know?) I also saw BKLYN: The Musical on Broadway. It wasn’t my first choice (Doubt and Avenue Q were sold out, no big surprise.)

Wow. I thought I was going to talk about all the things I did during the month of June, but I ended up going on and on about BookExpo America! Guess I’ll colme back another time and talk about the rest.

I was reading Meryn Cadell’s blog (you know, Meryn Cadell… The Sweater Song?) where he mentions Katie and Tom. It seems that Katie was in line to play one of Andy Warhol’s Superstars, Edie Sedgwick in a film called FACTORY GIN. It seems that her new beau (we all know who that is!) has advised her to drop the part because “portrayed her as a victim and she should only take strong roles.” It couldn’t be because Edie was in and out of mental institutions and on a variety of psychotropic drugs, and Tom doesn’t believe in those drugs because of his belief in Scientology, could it? Katie has turned down the role.

So I’m sitting here enjoying the wacky evening gowns worn by the contestants in the Miss Universe pageant, and now they’ve started the swimsuit parade (in which they’re scored among other things, on physical fitness). Okay, I’m done. If I had forgotten how borderline offensive beauty pageants were, I just remembered. And let me just say, of the six women who have paraded by in their swimsuits so far, I could see all of their ribs. I’m officially appalled. (Of course, I’m also a little tickled at how similar this all seems to the film SMILE starring Bruce Dern and Barbara Feldon. ) Oh, and I’m please to say as I typed this, Miss USA pranced by, and I couldn’t see her ribs! She actually had a tiny roll of flesh that showed up under her bathing suit top when she twisted! You go, girl!

Yesterday, a friend asked me if I was going to see the new STAR WARS movie. I replied in the negative. She seemed surprised. She asked why not? I said THE PHANTOM MENACE convinced me that I didn’t need to go any further with this particular franchise. By all reports, the second film (whose name I can’t even remember) was abysmally worse. Why bother going back for more just because it’s the finale? My friend said she might go see it. I asked her if she’d seen the last two and she informed me that she hadn’t. I asked her why in God’s name would she want to go see this one if she hadn’t even bothered to see the last two. She replied, “It’s STAR WARS.”

Which seems to be the prevelant motivation for a lot of people to see STAR WARS, thereby making it the highest grossing opening day film in history (about $50 million.) Reviews have been generally positive, although all the ones I’ve read also talk about how it’s not really a great film, just much better than the last two… big accomplishment there. I suspect that reviewers, much like many viewers, are going to see this final installment, and enjoying it, because of their intricate memories/involvement with the entire series. So many of us grew up with the first three STAR WARS films, and they are so etched into our public consciousness that we have to keep heading back for more despite the infinitely inferior quality.

Hey, I should talk. In truth, THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK is the only one of the STAR WARS films that I really enjoyed.

Yep, I celebrate the 43rd anniversary of my birth today. I was talking with friends recently about internally, we all have a certain age that we reach, then remain there for the rest of our lives. My internal age is 30. I feel 30. So yesterday it hit me: I’m 13 years older than I think I am! Ironically, Scot, who’s going to be 37 in August, has an internal age of 25, so he’s going to be 12 years older than he thinks he is. So really, both internally and externally, we are a pretty good match agewise.

Here are a couple of pictures from a birthday celebration I had at The Red Fez recently. We had a lot of fun. On the left it’s me with the lovely Esme and Beth. On the right, it’s me and Scottie!

Anyway, Happy Birthday to me.