24 October, 2007

Where to start?

Here I am in New York, in an apartment on the Upper East Site that reminds us of nothing more than our own saggy, down-at-heel house back in Lewisham, only with more traffic noise echoing down from 2nd Avenue and taller neighbouring buildings.

It's our second full day in New York - a rest day after yesterday's fol-de-rol. Brunch with the Click authors was wonderful - there we are in the photo, full of brunch. (Click on it to be dazzled by my teeth. Tim Wynne-Jones is there, too, hiding behind Linda Sue's head.) And then the event itself, at Borders, went really well. There were paparazzi, even, because of Colin Farrell, and that was an experience in itself - my retinas have never been peppered with the after-images of so many flashes going off. The photographers were piled up at the back of a large crowd of more normal people, not all of whom were there to ogle Colin, and he gave very gracious speech for Amnesty and then handed over to Arthur Levine, who introduced us one by one, when we talked a tiny bit about what we'd done and read a couple of pages from our chapters of Click. Then he asked us a few curly questions, and allowed the audience to ask us one or two, and then we signed, signed, signed - it was amazing and delightful how many copies of the book we signed.

(Here is a really-quite-gross account of the event, which, the authors might as well not have attended, from the socialite's point of view. Gawd. At least you can see the book in a couple of shots, eh.)

Then Steven and I Walked in New York; we'd been through the bottom half of Central Park on the way to the event, and we continued on down Broadway until Broadway got too crowded - and it was hot! - and down 7th Avenue. We finished in Washington Square, which was all squirrels and musicians, and rested our sore feet for a while, then went on to Lupa, a Roman restaurant, where we had a fan-bloody-tastic dinner and way too much wine and laughter with Linda Sue and Tim. On to drinks with some children's literature professionals and then we rolled home across the Park, in the near-dark, and weren't attacked once - not even by squirrels, and we knew there were a lot of them around.

Today we breakfasted and went up to the Guggenheim, which was spectacularly invisible inside hessian and scaffolding, and had a queue of dozens outside, who were only being let in in dribs and drabs. We jumped the queue by going straight into the shop, then took a few photos up the middle just to show we'd been there, but we didn't look at any pictures, just scooted out again and across to the Reservoir in Central Park, and walked back down to the barber and the coffee shop before coming here and flaking for a couple of hours. Oh, too much wine last night...

And now we're going to try out the subway and head out to dinner again. It's even more summery here than at home, except for a few trees beginning to change colour. And New York is full of wonders.

4 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Oh my goodness, am I happy to see this post. Because after I got back to my hotel on Monday, my head finally cleared enough to think--How could I have let them walk back through the park after dark!?? I'm an idiot! And now I have no way of getting in touch to find out if they're OK!

So here I am back home and the first thing I do is get on line and check your blog. GOOD GIRL. Posted just for me, didn't you.

LOVED getting to spend a little time with you, and meeting Steven too. Hope next time is soon. xo, LS.

24 October, 2007 08:50  
Blogger Anne Rettenberg LCSW said...

I just wanted to tell you that I attended the event at Borders and it was very entertaining! Yes I was one of those people who went to meet Colin Farrell (and also I have been involved with Amnesty International)but I enjoyed listening to all the authors! It's been many a year since I was a "young adult" but I started reading "Click" and I am enjoying it...
I found your blog after I decided to google all the authors from the book.

24 October, 2007 10:56  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This makes me homesick! But I'll be over soon to promote Junk Jewelry.

Enjoy it all!

25 October, 2007 12:56  
Blogger Among Amid While said...

Linda Sue: We followed the road across the middle of the Park - we didn't meet a soul all the way, and there was lots of traffic. No problems! It was great fun, all of Monday, wasn't it?

Hi Elizabeth! Thanks for going beyond Colin-fandom and googling us all! I hope you enjoy the rest of CLICK - it's a unique project, and the end product I think is fascinating!

Jane, we have your list of things to do and see with us. I don't think another week will be long enough to cover them all, but we're having a good time trying! NY says hi!

25 October, 2007 18:10  

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