If you were wondering how things went at the appearance at Word Brooklyn in Greenpoint yesterday, Alex Caprio has a report on it.
I loved the format for the "show." I was asked to pick a person to interview me, and I chose Juliet Linderman, a longtime fan of my songs and such and currently the editor of the Greenpoint Gazette. She had interviewed me before, and we'd been meaning to do it again some time, so it seemed like a good pick. She showed up wearing one of those old "it's hot on MTX Island" shirts, which was fun.
So there's this little stage in the basement, just big enough for two chairs and an end table, and the interview proceeded like a TV talk show. Juliet was Frost to my Nixon, Merv to my Zsa Zsa, Tom Snyder to my Gene Simmons -- if you know what I mean. (How do you describe Merv Griffin to the post-Merv generation? I gave it a shot, but, you know, they really broke the mold on that guy.)
Anyway, it's a terrific idea for author appearances because the it breaks up the usual monotony of reading aloud plus audience questions, and because (I would imagine) every one of the events would really be quite different because of the different interviewers. Juliet really knew her stuff, too, and asked great questions, and that was way better and elicited better answers-content than if I had just done my usual spiel (which is pretty much like me interviewing myself in a way.) I'm thinking maybe I could do something similar at an event in the future. The concept could definitely work outside of the Word Brooklyn basement.
Anyway, a cool idea, and a great afternoon.
Thanks to Word Brooklyn, Juliet, Alex, and everyone else who came out.
Posted by Dr. Frank at September 20, 2009 04:06 PM | TrackBack