“So was it the greatest night of my life?”

posted by Emily Gordon

It was pretty damn great. Seeing and hearing Earl Scruggs and Steve Martin (pictured, with Pete Wernick; all the musicians there were fantastic) playing banjo together did indeed turn out to be sublime, as sad as Martin happily advertised the banjo sound to be, and transforming for an audience that needed some lullabies. I found myself tearing up again, but not about mortality—just in that pleasurable/bemused wrench of recognition because the songs tap into such essential human problems, states of mind that don’t have much to do with trivia, posturing, or irony. Plus, it was sweet to see New Yorkers left so in the dark about steamboat paddle-wheel and fox-hunt imagery. For once, we aren’t the last word.

I think it was like a little vacation to feel that way for a few hours. I wished my mom, who introduced me to all of this great music, could’ve seen it, but I recorded a tiny bit of “Earl’s Breakdown” on my phone (sorry!) to play for her. The crowd, afterward, echoed my thoughts: Isn’t it something that Steve Martin, who writes plays and acts and contributes to the art world and seems to do everything so thoughtfully and stylishly, decided to learn this incredibly difficult instrument as well, submitting happily to the ribbing of his superiors? Huh. Cool guy.

After a drink at the Algonquin (no apologies) with real journalist Simon Houpt, I sneaked over to Ricky Gervais for a while after all, and I dig Nancy Franklin even more now that I’ve seen her in person. She played the straight man to Gervais so slyly and with so much humor of her own that I do believe he didn’t even get that she was setting him up for about ten minutes. Then they were an ace team. Gervais seems to have mellowed since the Office DVDs, and that’s nice to see. The new show, Extras, looks pretty good—a little Curb Your Enthusiasm-y. Which is fine. It’s not Tim and Dawn having the gaze of the century, but it’s fine. It’s a pretty funny title for any post-Office show, come to think of it. After a masterpiece like that, maybe everything is just an extra offering, take it or leave it, may as well enjoy it. (That sentence was typed in Gervais’ accent.)

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25 September 2005 | events |

That’s Me in the Spotlight…

Next month, I’ll be appearing at Fall for the Book and James River Writers to speak about bookblogging on panels with Happy Booker, Reb Livingston, and Caroline Kettlewell. The Richmond Times-Dispatch generates a little advance buzz for the James River Writers festival by emailing me some questions, including one that allowed me to muse about the impact of blogs on newspaper book reviewing:

“Before blogs, if you hated your local paper’s book section, you might write the editor a letter, where your complaint was probably seen by one person, maybe two, and then disposed of. Now, the complaints—and the praise—are out there for the entire world to see. Every book review editor can, if they want to, find out what readers think not just of their performance, but that of every other major review department. How seriously they take that, though, remains to be seen.”

29 August 2005 | events |