A photo Sonya Worthy of the blog People Reading took of me on BART tonight.
As I was taking BART home tonight I met a woman named Sonya who runs a blog called People Reading. I overheard her doing this funny, very informal interview with a guy reading a computer programming book in the Montgomery Station about what he was reading and what he likes to read. She took his picture, and a picture of the book and then got on the same train as me. As soon as I sat down and pulled out my book–Wuthering Heights–she started craning her neck to see what I had. As she was rather near, I held it up so she could have a look and before long she was sitting next to me asking me the very same sorts of questions. Suffice it to say, soon I was posing for a photo and discovered tonight that I’m now on her blog.
I think it’s a great idea, figuring out what people are reading and trying to engage them about books. We both rode BART to 24th St. and chatted about Cervantes and Witold Gombrowicz and then went our separate ways, but I’m so thrilled to learn of her blog. I confess that I’m rather like Sonya, very curious about others’ books though rarely do I jump right in to ask them anything. Good on you, Sonya. Here’s the post she did on me.
I wanted to post quickly to say that I’ll be in Washington DC next week for two events, one of which is listed above. I’m really excited to come back to the District and expect more to come on the other event, a walking tour of modern embassies. I hope to see you there.
Fida, Jordan and I dropped into the Kilian fragrance party tonight at the Serge Sorokko Gallery on Grant St. Kilian Hennessy, parfumier, was on hand to hawk his latest line of wares including the men’s scents Straight to Heaven and A Taste of Heaven, each of which had a strong, clean masculine smell. The usual battery of black-clad waiters wandered around with boat-like endives and glasses of bubbling Veuve Clicquot rosé, no great surprise considering Hennesy’s the heir to the LVMH empire.
The Sorokko Gallery was an apt space considering the chichi nature of the whole affair, but the usual crowd of pricily-coiffed society types trotting out the latest cotoure and spikiest heels left one rather pleased to be left out of that particular demi-monde. I did wander off with a gift bag, though, and appear to have my choice of perfume samples. I don’t typically wear the stuff, so we’ll see how a splash tomorrow morning goes over. It will have to make a pretty big impression, however, because at $225 per overwrought bottle–an exercise in useless luxury design if I ever saw one–I’ll happily stick to the Old Spice. To Hennesy’s credit though, the bottle is made to be refilled, sparing the consumer the need to buy a whole new bottle when he’s simply out of cologne. Justifying the rest of it is on your soul.
After the party we three then hopped on down to Camper where I spied, for the first time in the flesh, the pair of plimsolls that have captured my heart. Mediterranean Sneakers, you shall be mine.
