Editor’s response: thanks Amy…but while it’s true that where there’s smoke, there’s fire it’s also true that sometimes fiction is stranger than fact

Bob Kalb

Editor’s response: Thanks Rob, Mark has also weighed in with a herrings up sign. We should definitely get together to shmooze and shmear.

I just read and enjoyed your blog review of my book (Russ & Daughters). You get it. Thanks.

I am planning to break bread (or bagels) with your brother Bob. Perhaps you would like to join.

Mark
Mark Russ Federman, HME (Herring Mayven Emeritus)

Editor’s response: Thanks Mark, It was a labor of love, as was I’m sure your career as the Herring Maven First Class. I’d be honored to break bagels with you and Bob (especially if it includes some appetizer from Russ & Daughters!)… if only I could get some Farm & Sparrow bialys for you to taste (see blog in Issue 27) – I recently had 3 dozen shipped overnight from Asheville but the clowns at FedEx didn’t deliver them until they were 3 days old. Needless to say they were not at their best, yet still quite delectable… but as the 2000 Yr Old Man says, “I’d rather have a stale bialy from Farm & Sparrow than a fresh plum.” And perhaps we can also do an egg cream faceoff

Tonight I am going to a reading at Brookline Booksmith by Jane Gardam, amazing author of “Old Filth” . To attend, I will be missing a visit to my very own library by Andres Dubus III, author of “Townies” and “House of Sand and Fog”. On my Author’s Wall here at work, I have pictures of me with Roz Chast, Moira Kallman, Tom Perotta, Larry McMurtry, Andy Borowitz, Ron Rash, Walter Mosely, Lynda Barry, Russell Banks, Dave Barry, Elinor Lipman, Jane Smiley, David Rees, and Eric Kraft. If your guy’s idea comes to fruition, when will I ever get to meet and talk to these people who have provided me with so many hours of pleasure? Ron Rash even remembered me from the last time he swung by the Harvard Bookstore and said, “Oh yeah, you asked great questions both times.”

My last author encounter, justly undocumented, was at a local library with Marge Piercy, author of my most beloved “Small Changes”. She read some piercing poems about women aging and then refused my request to have her picture taken with me (” I never allow photos”) and was such a mean bitch. Without meeting her, how could I possibly have known that? What a loss for readers. I cannot abide.

Editor’s response: Well, I seem to have inadvertently touched a raw nerve here… actually I think “Raymond’s” invention will not spell the end of the interaction between author and reader but will in fact democratize the process by allowing those outside of the major metropolitan areas to participate. True you won’t have the celebrity photo op for your office wall but the advent of real-time audio-visual communication, once a Jules Vernian fantasy from the AT&T pavillion at the 1964 World’s Fair has in fact, become reality. While you can’t shake hands, hug, or have a Kodak moment, you are still free to exchange ideas and ask great questions.

But I think the question goes beyond book signings to the much larger issue of ebooks in general. Reading between the lines (electronic ones I might add), I’m guessing you’re not a fan… Barbara Kingsolver one of my favorite authors doesn’t allow her books to be epublished and while I still enjoy holding a hardcover book in hand, I am thoroughly sold on the benefits of ebooks. What say you on this?

Editor’s response: Hey, thanks much. Nice to know that when a blog falls in the forest somebody reads it.

Editor’s response: Way back when, there was no standing army so the framers of the constitution were attempting to preserve the right of the states to field militias for defense – legal scholars (check out Cornell Univ Law School web site, http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/second_amendment) refer to this as the “collective rights” interpretation. This approach was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1939 and stood until 2008 when a conservative Republican activist court overturned it and for the first time, proclaimed that the Second Amendment established an individual right for U.S. citizens to possess firearms. So I think the key is to go back and revisit what the founding fathers had in mind in the first place (state-run militas to protect the rights of their citizens)… but fanatical gun nuts only hear what they want to hear.

Editor’s response: Agreed, we need to stop this insanity … must have been extra emotional for Cheryl.

Editor’s response: Hmmm, very interesting. Considering the fact that the NWS is an official government agency I’ll go with them. Nemo Shmemo.

Editor’s response: Welcome aboard! And thanks for the comment. We also really enjoyed the play (your assessment was spot on) and my piece started out as a standard theater review but I got sidetracked and forgot where it was going…My sister-in-law, an expert in the field (See Understanding Dementia…) described the definition between normal aging and early onset dementia quite eloquently. She could address the potential impacts from smoking weed and I think the jury’s still out on that issue but my guess is just normal aging. As for the Mets, we suffer together, but I prefer to view it as a badge of integrity. Speaking of erasing bad memories,did you ever see that classic 2004 movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind? BTW, I confess I had to Google, “Movie about erasing memories” to come up with the title!

Editor’s response: Agreed, their presentation is exquisite (tastes good too!) Thanks