Reply To: JoCo in NYC!
I went. What you don’t understand is I’m not very good at “last minute” things. I plan meticulously. In addition, I have my son at home 50% of the time, so I really only have every other week to do things; even minute things like laundry and such. But regardless, I convinced myself to head straight from work to the PATH train and went over.
Hodgman’s blog indicated that the reading was 7 to 9. I got there and ate pizza, and was there by 6:15. I was paranoid about walking in and being the only random person not involved sitting there in a small room, so I walked 10th, continuing past the location to attempt to look like I had an actual destination. I go 2/3rds the way down the block when I notice coming the other way, a man with a guitar .. Mr. Coulton. O_O He kinked his head to the side with a “why are you walking AWAY from the place?” look. I tried to avoid being embarrassed by walking in too early, and instead I got embarrassed by being caught in my little OCD plan. 😛 I indicated to him that I’ll be right there. I went to the corner, picked up some tic tacs, and went back and walked in.
Apparently, Mr. Strauss was already doing something before 7, apparently to mostly his students; a little pre-reading and Q&A. I looked around and the 30 or so seats in the first sections were mostly taken and cramped, but there in the back corner was Jonathan and a seat in front of him. I sat and listened to Darin read off his last 3 blog entries, which describe his tour. He cracked a few jokes, and Jonathan was probably laughing the loudest. At one point, I turned to him and said “He’s clearly your friend; same kind of humor.” Anyway, that broke up around 6:45. I found a seat up near the front, and waited. Very shortly, John Hodgman, Jonathan and Darin took seats.
Darin started, reading what he called “the shortest chapter of his new book, and the one chapter the reviewer from the Chicago Times didn’t like”. It had several good lines, though it wasn’t about the main theme of the book. I had to laugh because for a white married man, he seemed to really get the feeling and emotion of being a divorced single parent (though his character was a female black doctor, none of which I know anything about either).
Then came Hodgman, who brought down the house. Clearly everyone knows what a big JoCo fan I am, but Hodgman stole the show. After explaining that he “asked the internet” what page of his new book he should read (he Twitter’d), the first person wrote back page 86, so that’s what he read; a list of myths about babies. At one point he explained a scenario where your baby was going to grow up to be a cartoonist (I was continually laughing so hard, it all blended together) and I guffawed; I know a few cartoonists. Hodgman pointed out my noticeable laugh and commented how self-loathing cartoonists were. 🙂 He then gave a somewhat full dissertation about one of the new book’s main topics: the Molemen and how they’ve affected history. He relayed the story of how their friendship truly affected Thomas Jefferson. Line after line of brilliance. The crowd was pretty NYU (hip college student) so I don’t know if they were usually his crowd, but they absolutely ate it up.
(to be cont’d. post too long)