Tonight, in Brooklyn, talking HBO
I'll be the one in the mask — OR WILL I.
It’s an exciting moment for text delivery methods that are not tweets. Perhaps I will make all my mistakes in this “email” venue going forward? The Twitter situation is evolving quickly.
If you are a person who goes inside, with or without masks, to attend small events, you are invited to join us at McNally Jackson in Williamsburg, Brooklyn tonight. (That is Thursday, November 3, 2022.) I will be briefly interviewing Felix Gillette and John Koblin, the charming authors of the new book about HBO that has already gotten legendary TV exec and serial woman-choker Chris Albrecht suspended from his job. This is exactly what we love to see. “The profitability — and cost — of male fantasies is a running theme,” says The New York Times; Here’s an excerpt in New York Magazine today. You are welcome to purchase it.
I do not know the status of this bookstore’s ventilation; if you cannot attend this event for health reasons but would have liked to, drop me a note and I will send you highlights from the evening personally. Yes, I am serious; but also, that is the only accommodation I can make in my limited position as “short Q&A moderator.”
I spend a lot of time indoors with mediocre ventilation with people, at my delightful job, at social activities, and in volunteer work. People here in the great semi-liberal elite mish-mash that is the New York City Metro Area are very strange about masking and are not afraid to let you know. (One guy asked me if I was hoarding M&Ms in my mask. Honestly, I truly could fit some snacks in there, why not.) I get it: We are in a science experiment. We are all making constant personal risk assessments based on limited, stupid, observable data, which is a very bad health practice. We are choosing how to act indoors basically on the same thoughtful level as “Well I’m gonna have condomless sex with this fella because he ‘looks clean.’” And so your brain is working out in real time: Is this person in a mask a threat to me? (Instead of, you know, the opposite.) This sucks and I hate it for all of us — because I “assess” people too for their danger levels, in many dumb ways — but also I hope before this pandemic cruises into its second or third decade that, if we don’t learn to do this calculus more smartly, at least we learn to do it more quietly, inside our own heads, without any noise coming out.
Have I told this anecdote before? Probably. Anyway I was in the New York Times cafeteria one day and I was doing my awful nonstop banter thing I do with strangers (I’m aware! Very sorry!), and I was like “HEY PAL, DOING EXTRA PORTIONS TODAY? NICE WORK, GOOD LOOKING OUT” or some stuff to a fella. And later he was like “Hey, politely, some of us have eating disorders, don’t talk about people’s food.” This was a very good point and I like that he said this to me, and I have doubled down on the principle of minding my own fucking business. It never goes wrong when you mind your own business! Except if someone is getting harassed on the subway, that’s everyone’s business, let’s keep our heads on a swivel out there, we only have each other, the cops are not the answer.
Thinking about cops a lot because I’m watching an incredible Facebook community group thread rage, because some middle-school students are being jerks in a store on the weekends and store employees had to … speak to them sternly. And nearly every parent on Facebook is like, CALL THE COPS, WHERE ARE THE POLICE, GET THE COPS IN HERE. Ma’am … these are your 11-year-old children, what the shit are you talking about? Let’s lock them up! Besides, just call me, there’s nothing I love more than yelling at other people’s children. Do you have children? Bring them unto me, I will belittle them.