Obama forum at the JFK Library

[Note: if this looks familiar to the, uh, one person who reads this, it's because it's copied wholesale from my livejournal. I guess there are only so many times I can do half-assed recaps of a particular event.]

So I made the joke the other day that I'd probably walk out of the Obama event talking about how dreamy he was. And while I'm better in my old age at keeping the gushing crushes to a minimum, my geeky adoration for Senator Obama is still going full force.

Friday night, he was very much doing the charming politico thing. It's a pretty good mark of popularity when a guy can walk into a room of people who have been crammed into too-close folding chairs for well over an hour and a half, apologize for being late, and get a standing ovation for his efforts. Bob Herbert, the moderator for the forum, joked after his own introduction that he knew the crowd hadn't lined up for him--and sad as it is that people aren't clamoring for seats to hear a NY Times columnist speak, he was right.

Thankfully, they didn't mess around too much with soft questions, and Herbert asked the necessary ones with good humor. Overexposure? Obama agreed that even he's getting sick of seeing himself (though not as sick as his wife, apparently) on magazine covers, but that it's an honor, yada yada yada. Then there were questions about the current political climate, and Obama spoke passionately for a while about the midterm elections. He also put in a direct plug for Deval Patrick, the Democratic candidate for governor here in Massachusetts. I don't know if Political Operative Mike was there at the forum or not, but wherever he was, I'm sure he felt a warm shiver of joy down his spine at the moment of endorsement. Anyway, Obama was very emphatic about creating change via the elections in three weeks.

Then, before the lame audience questions started coming in, Herbert asked the big question, the one that everyone from Oprah to Tim Russert has been asking: will Obama run for president in 2008? For over a year now, the stock Obama answer has been something along the lines of, "I will serve out my Senate term," "I will not be running for president," etc. Not so much anymore. His answer this time was a rather long soundbite about how a person needs to be completely willing to sacrifice himself to the country to be President (with some witty jabs at the current president's vacation time, I might add), and that such a sacrifice can't be taken lightly. But he didn't say whether he had done this kind of thinking. And when Herbert pushed the issue, Obama answered that he's concentrating so fully on the next three political weeks that he can't even begin to think about the presidency. Which all just means that yes, unless something drastic happens, Obama will be in the field in '08--probably being hip-checked by Hillary and John Kerry.

As things wrapped up, the Kennedy Library rep made an unexpected announcement: Senator Obama would be signing books in the I.M. Pei atrium. Chance to meet Barack Obama? Yes, please. So I fought the crowds making their way, books in hand, down to said atrium. The line was long, but not so long that the outlook was discouraging. After about ten minutes, though, museum employees started working the line, telling people that the senator was on a tight schedule and would have to leave soon. Disappointing, but not so shocking--I assume there was some kind of fundraiser or other media event going on in Boston. But then the senator himself stood up to address the crowd; and instead of sneaking out under security cover like a lot of celebrities would have done, he announced that he was sorry he had to go. Then he proceeded to greet and shake hands with everyone standing in line. So the flyleaf of my copy of The Audacity of Hope is unfortunately still naked, but I totally got to shake his hand. And got eye contact and a "Hi, thanks for coming." Yup. Dreamy.

Anyway, I'm really glad I went, and tried so stubbornly to get tickets. I don't think I'll do the whole "JFK T stop after dark, by myself" thing again, but, y'know, that's something you can only learn by experience. Between this and Bob Woodward last week, I think I've done my good liberal duty for a while. Until Election Day, at least.

Bob Woodward event at First Parish Church

You're Bob Woodward. You've been a respected Washington journalist for decades, and you've published many, many books since your career-making story. You're on Larry King about four nights a week, talking about current events. So when you come to Cambridge to talk about your new book, which criticizes a different scary Republican president, what do you do? Why, open with a Watergate joke, of course.

"I think G. Gordon Liddy did the sound tonight," Woodward quipped by way of opening. Oh, Bob. Crazy Bob. There was nothing wrong with the microphones, and certainly no clicky wiretap noises. Let's just assume he opens every one of his book tour stops that way.

Anyway, he continued by talking about State of Denial's main themes, and the Bush administration in general. Donald Rumsfeld bore the brunt of Woodward's abuse, although it was still kinda mild. Because if those Larry King apperances have taught us anything, it's that Bob Woodward is more concerned with the sound of his own voice than with political posturing. Although now he seems to be acknowledging that the days of getting inside access to the administration have probably ended, after three books of increasingly strong criticism. So the tone is sharpening a bit. And the man is a shrewd book salesman: he'd offer some anecdotes, but always, always point out that the book had more. He made some publicist at Simon & Schuster very happy. His points, however, were pretty interesting. For example, I didn't know that former Chief of Staff Andy Card had a "hit by a bus" list of possible replacements for various high-level positions, or that the replacement list for Rumsfeld had ten people on it--including Joe Lieberman. Lieberman? Lieberman?! Who would want to be sent into battle by a whiny senator from Connecticut? He can't even get all of Connecticut's Democrats behind him, but effectively marshalling the armed forces? No problem.

For once, the audience Q&A was the best part of the evening. The crowd, as you might have guessed, was pretty liberal. That made it all the funnier that the setting was the First Parish Church in Cambridge, with the effect that Woodward was preaching anti-Bush sentiments to godless blue heathens. Anyway, people lined up to ask questions. Here are some approximations of what was said (re-enacted for your pleasure):

Audience guy: In your last few books, some say you perfected the art of the reach-around in order to get access to the Bush administration. How do you sleep at night?
Woodward: Did you read my previous books?
Audience guy: Well, no.
Woodward: You're dismissed.

Audience chick: Thank you for all of your wonderful journalism.
Woodward: Thanks. Is there a question in there?
Audience chick: Uh, yeah. Is Bush the stupidest person who ever lived, or just run-of-the-mill retarded?
[Editrix's note: about six different questions were variations on the stupidity issue.]

Audience guy: Records have shown that two years ago, Karl Rove and Jack Abramoff attended an NCAA game. Basketball, I believe. Karl had the nachos. Anyway, Abramoff was later found to be corrupt. White House transcripts....[talks for five more minutes without getting anywhere]
Woodward: There's a one-minute limit on the questions. Is there a point to this?
Audience guy: ...Abramoff...White House...Abramoff...[insert "adult talking" noise from Charlie Brown TV specials]
Woodward: I'm sorry, if you don't bring this to a question, I'm going to have to move on.
Audience guy: But Abramoff....
Woodward: You're done.
[obnoxious guy stomps down the aisle and out of the church]

But somewhere in the audience members' grandstanding, Woodward had some entertaining responses, and anecdotes about the war. I don't remember many of them specifically, but he did apologize for the media's lack of balls on the pre-war issues and the lack of follow-through that would have exposed the WMD/lying issues sooner. So, you know, there's that, even though none of us will get our three years back.

I am, however, disappointed at the overall lack of Carl Bernstein gossip. Nora Ephron totally had Woodward beat on that count.

"And now, Maya Angelou for Butterfinger"

Slate has an interesting article today about classic authors and self-promotion. Apparently the editors of a new book, about Hemingway's penchant for peddling his own name, see product endorsements by Hemingway as signs of incipient madness. Sounds to me like someone (looking at you, Matthew Bruccoli) is a little bitter that no one invited him to endorse beer after he published his definitive edit of The Great Gatsby. Anyway, Slate's Paul Devlin scoffs at the humorlessness of the the book's editors (Bruccoli and Judith Baughman), and provides several amusing anecdotes about writers' writers pandering to the bottom line. Some names are not so surprising (Truman Capote), while others are definitely out of character (Frederick Douglass totally James Frey-ing his story for different audiences, for example).

It becomes way too easy, post-lionization, to forget that these guys had to move books--and if they'd never sold much of anything, we wouldn't know who they are. The academic fantasy is nice and all, but it's good to know that book publicity has always been the seedy little sidekick to publishing. It's rather sad that the unorthodox methods (airline ads, circus programs) have dropped out almost completely. Wouldn't you take notice if your cereal box had a brief-but-punchy essay from, say, Philip Roth?

Also, thanks to this article, my new mission is finding "Hemingway paper dolls...featuring him as matador, caveman, bon vivant, fisherman, and soldier" from 1934. I would assume different paper drinks come as accessories for each Barbie-style vocation.

And because I never miss an opportunity to abuse this clip, I give you another dark side of celebrity endorsement.

New Yorker Festival 2006

So this weekend may have been the national observance of some smallpox-bearing Italian dude, but it was also a celebration of something much more entertaining than native displacement: the New Yorker Festival.

Despite missing out on tickets for the festival's marquee Jon Stewart/David Remnick duet, Jacob and I managed to score tickets for other appealing events. The first of these, part of "Fiction Night," was a standard-structure reading with authors Lorrie Moore and Julian Barnes. Sadly, both writers were too nice to turn it into a literary throwdown, but what are you gonna do? Ms. Moore was a bit of a revelation, actually. She read a semi-autobiographical piece about middle-aged divorce. I wasn't expecting her personal style to be as sweetly twisted as her prose; and the NPR-ready voice was surprising as well. The piece itself was probably as rough as she claimed it to be, but her word choice is always so sharp and right that it was easy to miss the flaws, especially with the reading done aloud. (I totally fell for her style last year when I realized that her story "People Like That Are the Only People Here" sounded every bit as good as it looked on the page.)

Julian Barnes went next. I'm not familiar with Mr. Barnes at all, 'cept for a nagging feeling that I've seen him somewhere before, probably flogging a book on TV somewhere. He did an even more autobiographical piece than Moore did, but began with the smart memoirist's caveat: all memories are probably fake anyway. He was amusing and the story was enjoyable (though kinda long), but the clipped British thing discouraged real engagement. He never stopped being Julian Barnes reading Julian Barnes. Afterward, the audience questions/requests were surprisingly not bad--or at least no worse than the average event. The crowd was relatively young and hipsterish, so there wasn't as much open fawning. Just the usual call for writerly advice and and obligatory "let's be whimsical and make you think on your feet" question, this time about which music the authors would take with them to a desert island. This is less random than it sounds, since the topic in general was brought up by Barnes earlier, but it's still kinda cruel to put people on the spot like that. At any rate, neither Moore nor Barnes slipped up and said that they'd take the Spice Girls or anything, so the outcome was bittersweet.

Sunday's event, a preview of Man of the Year, proved to be educational. For instance, did you know that Lillian Ross is still alive? I certainly didn't. I've been reading her assembled New Yorker anthologies for a long time now, and just assumed that someone hired by the magazine's founder would have gone to the great editorial board in the sky by now. Anyway, the still-kicking Ms. Ross led a small panel after the movie, asking a few introductory questions of Barry Levinson and a newly sober Robin Williams before Williams completely took over with his high speed impressions and political punditry. Ross might not be so spry anymore, but she's still pretty sharp--more so than most 80-somethings, I'd bet. And back in the day, she had an intriguing relationship with former New Yorker editor William Shawn. So we'll forgive her for suggesting that Robin Williams actually run for president. To be fair, Williams deferred by saying that his past would make Clinton look like a nun (or something to that effect). Just as well that he won't be vetted in the press--I don't think we really need to know just how much cocaine a standup could ingest in 1983 before heading out onstage. But the movie was good, the post-film conversation was entertaining, and the French Alliance theater did not serve crepes. Also a bittersweet outcome.

All in all, the festival (at the events and at its Union Square headquarters) had a quality literary buzz. Of course, we didn't make it to the one event that could have killed said buzz: the New Yorker dance party. I think we're better off that way. Lots of bookish fun was had in the name of Harold Ross's brainchild, and I can't wait for 2007's. Next year in Union Square!