Many thanks to you and Nicola for signing several books for me in the past few months. I gave them to my partner, Lisa, as a wedding present. We will be getting married next Tuesday, September 2nd, in San Francisco. She was terribly surprised and especially happy to receive a copy of Dangerous Space, a book she’d wanted since she found out it had been published.
I really appreciate you both going to such trouble to accommodate your readers. After Lisa told me how much she loved The Blue Place, I read it and the two other books within the span of a week. I just read your short story, “Strings,” that you mentioned in the past day or so on your blog, and I enjoyed it very much. I will read the rest of the stories after Lisa finishes the book, as well as your novel Solitaire.
Please pass my thanks along to Nicola. Very best wishes to you both.
Patti Weltler
And our best wishes to you! My apologies for taking so long with this — you’re practically an old married couple already (grin). I’m delighted for you and Lisa, and hope your wedding was absolutely splendid.
And you may have squeaked in under the wire on this incarnation of personalized books. I think we’re going to have to find a better system for the future. Since we moved, it’s very tough to get to University Books to sign things — we end traveling anywhere from 25 to 45 minutes each way, plus the time it takes to park and get into the store and sign, and then we get distracted by all the pretty books… It is a much larger cost in energy and time than it used to be. We may have to get people to start sending books to our post office box or something instead. We’ll see.
Because it pleases me to accommodate readers when I can. It’s a relationship, after all, albeit a distant and single-stranded one. It may only be a few words written on the title page, but I value it as the often most direct and personal connection between artist and art and audience.
And on the practical side, I think artists can no longer afford to ignore the importance — the imperative — of the direct and the personal. I imagine it’s a huge challenge for A-list actors and rock stars and mega-popular authors like Stephen King. There’s always been a cultural tension between privacy and access: the assumption that it’s okay to insert oneself into the private experience of famous people in a way that one would never do to some random stranger on the street. That’s been exploded by the internet — the ability to keep tabs on people anywhere in the world, to monitor everything they say and do in public, to “stay close” in a way that (I worry) feels “real” to people because it’s happening in real time. And I think the end result is that famous people no longer feel like strangers to us. We confuse (or choose to ignore) the difference between our personal connection to their work, which may be very deep, and our personal connection to them, which is usually none.
I certainly wish for personal connection with artists whose work touches me. But my mom and dad raised me right, so I don’t march up to celebrities in the middle of their dinner and demand an autograph. And it wouldn’t satisfy me anyway: that moment of interaction does not constitute a real relationship. It’s not a connection, it’s an encounter. It’s one of the unexpected consequences of art, I think, this blurring of the lines between art and self that translates into a desire to blur the lines with the artist. I don’t know what everyone else seeks when they approach an artist: I seek to touch them in an instant as deeply as they have touched me in hours or years. I seek to matter to them as much as their work matters to me.
Which is a fool’s game, of course. There is no way to re-balance the scales in an instant, unless you pull someone out of the way of a speeding bus or something. The truth is, I cannot have “a relationship” with these people. They are for the most part beyond the reach of the small-crowd appearance where everyone in the room is real to everyone else, the random-but-real moments of encounter, the situational golden moment.
But I’m not famous. I am a common artist, and it is both professionally important and personally rewarding to me to read for people, to sign books, to have the occasional beer, to have conversations here in my little corner of the internet about things that interest me. I’m glad I like it: not all artists do, and I think those who are not willing to create some space for connection with audience will find they have less audience as time goes by. This is the world we live in. And I’m glad to be in this world, Patti, to sign books for you and Lisa, and to wish you both a marriage full of joy and love.
You could use Margaret Atwood’s LongPen. *grin* It’s pretty awesome that you and Nicola go through all the hoops to accommodate your audience and give them front-row seat access.
Oh, I have so few things signed by their authors. I feel terribly guilty whenever I approach someone for an autograph. I think I only do that if they are my teachers and I see them three times a week. And with Martha Wainwright, because my wife was twisting my arm.
I’ve worked many years at international book fairs, sometimes my duties included driving and escorting the famous writers around. I remember Jaime Sabines in his wheelchair, a couple of years before he died, signing hundreds of copies. I remember Elena Poniatowska, staying for hours after her talk, to sign copies for the thousand or so people on the lineup. One of her friends kept telling her, “Let’s go, Elena. You are tired, you just got off a plane, you haven’t eaten or slept. Your hand is shaking. Let’s go.” And Elena kept replying, “But I can’t, they all bought my book. They’re all waiting patiently in line for their turn. I can’t just leave.” Oh, man, I just didn’t have the heart to get her book out of my backpack later at the dinner table with her and her party.
Now, the web… The sense of presence and proximity created through our virtual avatars is at once fascinating and scary. I can only imagine how hard it must be to handle it once it’s gone supernova through every possible medium, as is the case with famous people.
I love online interaction, mainly because it’s a stimulating (and sometimes even productive) way to procrastinate. As a translator and a student, I’m expected to be at the computer at least eight hours every day. That’s quite often an understatement of the screen millage I end up punching in by the time I go to bed. But I don’t fool myself into thinking that the people I exchange ideas with will become my friends beyond the Web. We may not have anything to talk about when we sit down at a table. We may hate the way we smell. We may not have time to even make it to the table, because I have to do my screen-time (and I assume they do, too).
Okay. Procrastination sounds bad… It’s not quite the right word, but I have to get on a bus in five minutes, so it’ll have to do.
Let’s just say I think of your blog and Nicola’s the way I think of the two classes I’m taking online. I have to participate regularly in the discussions and do all the required reading to get the most out of the experience.
Substitute “procrastinate” for “collaborative multitask-learning while coffee-breaking”. No?
Now I’m definitely going to be late.
It bugs me when I feel I’m not being honest with myself. So much that I had to log in while I’m at a lecture (most people are chatting on Facebook anyway, so I guess I won’t be punished with the flames of hell for this).
Confession time: After having spent so many hours, I do feel a sense of friendship here BUT I wouldn’t be heartbroken beyond repair if we never got to have a beer together. Why? I would certainly be totally heartbroken if I never got to hug my friends again. How to explain this? A-ha! I have an analogy (I don’t seem capable of understanding anything without them). Our ideas are friends and we are their parents. Our ideas hang out, they tease, bug, question or cheer each other on. They’ve become confidants. They visit each other’s homes every day. And as parents, we hope that the house they visit is neat (this blog is neat), that the other set of parents keeps an eye on the children. That the kids aren’t doing terribly illegal things together… And stuff.
In some very special occasions, the parents of the kids do manage to develop a bond between them and become friends, too. But it’s more common that one day the children pick a fight and the parents become involved. Then the kids make up but the parents keep hating each other. Okay, that’s too grim. Let’s leave it at, “the parents don’t have to sit down and have tea together every time their children decide to hang out for a bike-ride around the block.”
Makes sense? I hope so. Otherwise, I’ll have to come back later on with more of my self-discoveries and post-comment auto-edits.
How does âcollaborative learning while coffee-breaking in our pajamasâ sound?
—But Iâm not famous. I am a common artist—-
No, dear friend. You are not. Common, that is. (I’m not entirely sure there is such a thing as a “common” artist, but in your case it wouldn’t apply anyway.)
No arguments now. Just take the appreciation and live with it. 🙂
I continue to miss the coffee we didn’t manage to get around to when I visited Vancouver awhile back; even if one or both of us smelled I’m certain brain cells would light up in interesting ways. What a rich brain you have.
And that autograph thing. When I was a visiting artist in schools I never liked it when fourth graders started pressing their pencils at me for autographs. It seemed to become a kind of frenzied consumption. Hurry, get it while you can… And yet I also know it can be moving to feel like someone you admire is real flesh and blood. At a book festival here a couple of years ago, Li Young Lee came to fill in for the Poet Laureate who had to cancel on short notice. One morning I was eating a big burrito on a bench outside the Orpheum Theatre and he came along hungry and uncertain where to find a bite to eat. We sat and chatted and ate that burrito together waiting for events to start and now many times when I bicycle by that bench I feel pleasure to imagine the world of writers and artists being small, tender, inclusive. Oh, that’s what I frequently feel after time at this site, too…
Karina, I go away for a little while and come back to find you having a whole conversation over here (grin). It’s great.
Yes, of course we have a friendship, the particular friendship that used to be called “pen pals” when I was growing up (perhaps we are pixel pals…) We communicate about ourselves outside of a daily context. We exchange little pieces of self in words, and we keep doing it because it feels good.
“Friend” is a tricky word (so many words are…). Although English is a vocabulary-rich language, it is poor in words that delineate the nuances of personal relationships. Friend, BFF, acquaintance, lover, boy/girlfriend, husband/wife…. oh, and fuck buddy (let’s hear it for nuance). But where are the words that describe the connection that is brief but deep, like the six-hour conversation I had one night on a train with a young man. I was moving to Chicago and he was going to boot camp and we were both terrified and so we talked and talked. I don’t remember his name. But that conversation mattered to both of us. Is he my friend? Well, no, but for six hours that night we did what friends do for each other. What the fuck is the word for that?
oh, I know. It’s human.
And now we have the internet, where the meeting of minds is possible as never before. And more than minds. The pleasure I get from your company and the company of all the commenters here (the writer waves hello to you all, every single one) is, at the risk of sounding like a complete wanker, the meeting of spirit. The meeting of essence. Whether it’s deep and meaningful or just silly stuff, or just saying hello, all of these conversations at my virtual table — every single one of them — feel real to me in that way. I like them very, very much, and I appreciate every single person who participates in them either by talking, or just by reading. Just by being here.
Oh, and I have no problem with being anyone’s procrastination. I assure you, my ego is sufficient to withstand the knowledge that I am not the most important use of everyone’s time (grin).
Mark, you’re a sweetie. I am not going to argue, just point out that I mean no disrespect to myself with the word “common.” That’s what I am, after all, an artist here on the ground with everyone else, and I hope even if I do get all famous and shit that I will still be common in that way.
Although of course I understand why people finally reach the point where they turn turtle, pull themselves in until there is a safe distance between them and all those other people. But if I ever start acting like one of those jerkoff writers who makes people pay for autographs, please, someone take me to the woodshed, okay? Yeesh.
Jean, that’s a lovely story. One of those situational golden moments… they are always to be treasured. Small and tender, indeed.
Kelley, pixel pals. Love it. Thanks for having us over at your virtual table every day. And for letting the voices in my head have conversations with each other while they wait for more people to join in.
Jean, I may have a rich brain, but I’m also a creepy first date. People can walk away from our meeting thinking I’m as interesting as a doorknob (I don’t mind silence if the conversation runs out), or that my ability to speak is close to none (I have those terrible ESL days when my vocal English abandons me almost completely). Then, sometimes things go really well and it’s even creepier. Then, people walk away with keys to my house and a schedule of where I can be found around the clock. And a GPS tracking device, just in case I become distracted by shiny pretty objects and wonder off my regular path.
I think you and I would have had a good laugh and lots to talk about. There’s Dangerous Space and Vancouver and how different it is from the deserts where we each grew up. I’m also sorry we didn’t get to have coffee together when you were around. But you did do a lot of camping, which is sweet in summer (or was it spring?). And you’ll be back one day. British Columbia is like that.
Eek. Substitute “wonder” for “wander”.