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« LIVE FROM UCLA - LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK AWARDS | Main | LIVE FROM UCLA »

April 22, 2005

UPDATE AND AFTERPARTY

We're home once again, tired little bloggers, indeed ... After our battery gave up the ghost, the legendary Mr. Wasserman himself took to the stage to say a brief good night, trademark white suit in place - even Evans felt compelled to note it.  (We've always been a bit suspicious of sartorial affectations ... the best we can say is they do seem rather easy.)

As advertised, we raced to the men's room, but not before overhearing Colm Toibin telling de Kooning authors Stevens and Swan how genuinely he'd enjoyed their book, having recently read it in Spain ... Our bathroom mates included Russell Banks and Chris Abani ... We can usually count on being the best read guy at the urinal but not in this room ...

The afterparty was a swank little affair ... lots of well-placed food stations with surprisingly good food ... We wandered the floor a bit aimlessly but visited with a number of authors, including Janet Fitch (with whom we discussed the recent Open Letter to Oprah) ... We made a point to say hello to Carol Muske Dukes and to tell her how much we enjoy her column ... and which point she told us that our LATRB Thumbnail had been a topic of discussion earlier in the Green Room, and that we had a reputation for being "tough" ...  We invited her to stop by TEV in the future and help educate us a bit further about poetry ... We need all the help we can get ...

As we headed out to call it an early night (we have a 7a.m. bike ride ahead of us), we were stopped short by the apparition of The Man in the White Suit.  We couldn't resist, and we marched right up and introduced ourselves to Steve Wasserman.  He was extraordinarily genial, said he admired our "passion" and that he hoped we'd find more to be enthusiastic about in the Book Review ... We told him we planned to attend his panel on Sunday (to give him a fair shot at barring us at the door) but he seemed pleased at the notion ... We admit we were slightly disappointed to not even perceive a narrowing of the eyes, a slight hand movement toward his holster ... Instead, he did make sure that we knew that the White Suit had been purchased in NY, not LA, and that fifteen years later, it still fits.  Duly noted.

On the way out, SF Chronicle critic David Kipen accused us of being swayed, of going soft and falling under the spell of Wasserman's charm ... We assured we were the same uncorruptable, smart-mouthed ruffian we've always been.  Then we ate some more of the L.A. Times' food, and called it a night.

Posted by TEV at 11:55 PM in Events |

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Comments

Fifteen years! any signs of yellowing?

Posted by: genevieve | April 23, 2005 at 12:30 AM

Christ, you're a name-dropper...

Posted by: ROBBIE | April 23, 2005 at 02:50 AM

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