The Technological Habit
The Museum Legs book tour officially began in mid-September. It is now early November as I begin to share the chronicle. The choreographer Twyla Tharp has a book The Creative Habit about her process, which includes daily disciplines and routines. I am hopeful my inner Luddite will turn a corner and start faithfully keeping this blog accordingly. Part of the delay has been that, truth be told, I don't understand blogging. The word sounds as melodious as Book Legs, the 'bleg.' All that said, I have undertaken to drive a big clockwise loop around the country, both a Museum Legs book tour and a 'where to live' project. I would like to record it and share it with friends.
From here on out, I will call this a travel journal.
The trip began September 10th in Fairfield as my brother's wife Alexi picked me up at the train station and delivered me to Hertz to get the rental car. This car is my home for these three months and I can pay it the best compliment of rental cars everywhere: It is innocuous. And fuel efficient, and safe. Auspiciously, it is exactly the same kind of car I almost bought from Pete and Becky, that Pete paid the high compliment, "It's not a car I worry about ruining a friendship over." Also, auspiciously, it has Pennsylvania plates, the first stop on the tour.
The book launches. . .
Museum Legs debuted at the Brooklyn Book Festival on Sunday, September 13th. Greg Albers, the publisher of Hol Art Books, was also debuting the press and came out to New York from Tucson for the occasion. We sat at a pink (signature press color) table and greeted readers.
My mother came up from Georgia for the events. She was the first person to buy a copy of Museum Legs, and proceeded to walk around the fair with the book in hand, facing outwards, and a Hol button on her lapel (motto: Art Books for Book Lovers). I saw her again a half hour later and she confided, "I changed the button. I thought it was a little obvious."
The Book Festival was a glimpse at the first truth of writing a book: It is so nice to have those kinds of gatherings of people that it's almost worth writing a book just to have them. Maybe some people feel this way about weddings.
Jen Rork and Tom Craig drove down from Williamstown with Maddy.
Maddy is a very serious and pensive reader of Museum Legs.
Darby and Juliette and Galen came over too. Galen is a Hol button man, though subtle by my mom's standards since he's not carrying the book too.
Lots of other people stopped by, some by accident and some on purpose -- Jorge Just, Alex Tilney, Alex Carroll, Stacey and Paul, Kari and friends. . .
Two of my favorite comments from the festival, from people I didn't know:
1. One girl to her friend, “I really want to read this but I don’t want to pay for it.”
2. A lovely, dignified, warm man in a houndstooth jacket who leaned against the post of the booth reading Museum Legs for a good long while. He was still wearing his nametag from church. I kept watching him, somewhat surreptitiously. He would occasionally chuckle. Then he looked up and said, “You write very well. But I would never read a book on this subject.”
Book festivals have the same energy of retail where people can sense desperation and go to great lengths to avoid it, so reaching out to the public is a delicate combination of enthusiasm and leaving people alone. . . .
The book festival actually kicked off the night before with a "gala" at St. Francis' College. Greg the publisher invited me to come along. I brought my mother.
We were handed glasses of champagne and then summarily asked to chuck (or down) them to gather in the auditorium for an awards ceremony. Edwidge Danticat received the first St. Francis College writing prize, a couple of weeks before she became a MacArthur fellow. And Marty Markowitz, the incredibly entertaining borough president of Brooklyn, talked up the literary occasion. We adjourned to the lunchroom for the reception, where I ran into Evan Hughes, writer and brother of Claire Hughes Johnson. Evan would later send pictures of Museum Legs in a bookstore (McNally Jackson), next to real other books.
As Claire rightly pointed out, I had achieved notice by the biggest bibliophile on earth.
The official party for the book was Monday, September 14th, graciously hosted by Rory Riggs, an old friend and my current boss. Rory is a longtime biotech entrepreneur, among other things, and embodies a sort of artistic practice in his own work. He is also a great champion of other people finishing creative projects and had watched this one through some of the final hurdles.
The party was originally planned for Monday because the US Open finals were to be played on Sunday. Because of rain delay, the finals got bumped to the same day as the party. So, Rory left the US Open finals in the second set to come host the Museum Legs book party. And thanks too to Margaret and friends who left in the fifth set to be there.
The more I see sports played up close at that level, the more I think art has nothing on sport, or that they are part of the same thing. So, I am unduly honored that the Federer upset occurred during the Museum Legs party. Arguably harder to tear oneself away from than, say, "rapt contemplation of a Raphael."
The party was a gathering of friends from a lot of different areas of my life -- getting people together like that is a huge and rare gift, and I had a great time. My brother and sister were there. My mother missed class (anathema to her conscientious approach to teaching and running an English Department). I'll insert a bunch of photos here. The last is a very artistic shot: me, brother, and hand.
In Rory fashion, "my old friend Alison" is going to put the party together. Alison turns out to be a brilliant well-known chef, who in turn brought in a friend Robert who is also a foodie magician, for a delicious and comfortably wonderful spread. Louise Mai, who was in from England, and her sister Bee made a cake for the occasion -- with my picture on it. I must confess, I am not used to seeing my own picture on a cake, but I am learning to get used to it, since the book tour involves walking into venues where my picture is on the door -- or even on the flyer on the wall of the ladies' room.
I spent the day after the party moving into storage and packing up the car. (Note to readers: the car is not yet named and I am taking suggestions. Lou Cecil in Birmingham pointed out that it looks like a polar bear.)
So, on September 15th, I moved into storage in the basement of the Gutman's (my sister's in-laws) building in New York, with the help of kind and incredulous doormen. At about 7pm, I rolled out of town, en route to Philadelphia.
I took the first night as an 'in-between' time and headed for a bed and breakfast near my first top the next day in the Valley Forge National Park area. At around 11pm, I overshot the Pennsylvania Turnpike and took a 'scenic' commuter route from Philly out to Phoenixville.
Phoenixville is the kind of place you can get directions from a guy in a dirt-covered 4x4 outside a gas station late at night with no concern for your safety but awe at his manners. Meanwhile, a police car drives up and the officer (Sergeant Wakeley) stands outside his squad car staring at a maimed hawk jumping around in the parking lot. As he said, animal control won't help you with raptors. I am hoping the injured bird is neither omen nor metaphor of any kind.
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