Live from the 57th Street McDonald’s

posted by Emily Gordon

Jonathan Franzen: “Sometimes we worry that the novel will become like poetry in a few years.”

Cressida Leyshon on Zadie Smith: “When you read her, you feel as though you’re in a warm bath drinking a shot of tequila.”

Franzen: “Hello to all the therapists in the audience!”

Zadie Smith after Franzen draped his jacket over her shoulders, like the secretly hot captain of the chess club with the secretly brainy cheerleader: “Oh, that’s very gentlemanly!”

23 September 2005 | uncategorized |

Ready, Set…

Emily Gordon: …go forth into the New Yorker-ness of it all! Here’s the lineup—the sparkliest bunch of people I’ve ever been around in the course in one weekend, except maybe for the Saturday Night Live cast party my friend Scott, a tall short-filmmaker, took me to a number of years ago. The place was lousy with Jerrys and Claires and Leos and their ilk, and that night I thought, Well, I can safely move to Scotland now; I’ve seen enough celebrities to last me forever. What I didn’t understand at the time was that I had to wait just a little bit longer so that—and I’m sorry to spoil the surprise—Mikhail Baryshnikov and I could finally elope and defect. To Scotland. It’s very romantic and although I’ll be giving up my American citizenship and my tap shoes, I think, for Misha and freedom, it’s worth it.

I’m enjoying your Q&A questions, so keep sending ’em. Tomorrow night: live blogging! You’ll feel exactly as though you’re there; it’s like reality TV without the unbalanced drunks in the hot tub. In case you were wondering if I know how lucky I am to be doing all this, yeah. Totally.

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22 September 2005 | uncategorized |