Take That, Pete Townshend. With Respect, Kenny G.

Fedward and I went to see Dave Eggers read tonight at an Episcopal church just north of Dupont Circle. (Did you know that the Book of Common Prayer contains a prayer for the President of the United States? I had no idea!) He mentioned that Justin Timberlake of N'Sync is slotted to portray him in the movie version of A Heartbreaking Work... I'd pay real American dollars to see that.

Eggers reads well, and he knows how to work a room, I'll give him that. He had two other writers with him, the first guy, Arthur Bradford, read a story from McSweeney's No. 1, which was an interesting little story, but I didn't think it showed much promise for the writer. On the other hand, near the end of his reading he smashed the acoustic guitar he had been playing. I dare say that was the first time a guitar had been smashed in St. Margaret's.

The other writer was Amy Fusselman, who won a McSweeney's contest to submit a book proposal about electrical engineering on boats. Eggers indicated that this contest was the result of spending too much time in Iceland, which I imagine would drive just about anybody to do something nutty like becoming a transplant surgeon. In any case, she didn't read particularly well, but her writing was interesting. The book sounds like it's destined for Oprah's Book Club, but that's not all bad. It's called The Pharmacist's Mate and will be available later this summer.

After the reading was over and people had asked their silly questions (yes, they were silly) Ed wanted to stand in line to get things signed. Since I spend entirely too much time by myself, I decided I would stand, too.

We stood for almost two hours. Near the end of our standing, the organizer lady from Vertigo Books said we were being kicked out, so the whole shebang moved out to the porch. Eventually, he signed my IKEA shopping list and then asked if he could also sign my copy of McSweeney's No. 6. I couldn't come up with any reason why not, but I found the whole thing amusing.

Ed had intended to have his scooter signed, but ended up having books signed instead, which was fine. By now it was too late to get anything to eat around Dupont Circle, though I thought Luna was open later than it actually is. After walking to Luna and finding it closed, Fedward scootered back to Columbia Heights; I got a cab back to the Hill. It was too bad, really; I wanted tomato soup in the worst sort of way.

By the way, the title of this entry is comes from Ben Dellavedova, who was seated next to Kenny G. on an airplane and had Kenny sign the Who CD he had been listening to. Ben suggested the first part of the inscription, but Mr. G. added the last.

before - after