I have to say that New York loves a free outdoor event and there are so many of them I'm truly excited about the cultural excess of the next few months.
Yesterday I grabbed some lunch with pals and we walked to Bryant Park and listened to author, Augusten Burroughs, speak about his childhood and his new memoir about his father.
An area of Bryant Park is the Reading Room, an outdoor newsagent & bookstore that caters to people who want to buy a read and sprawl in the grass or grab one of those chairs with the attached table top (is there a name for those?). This is where people flocked with their lunches to hear Augusten outline his eccentric upbringing.
He looks quite different in real life to his author's photo on the back of his novels. Based on his author's photo I was expecting a pale, softly spoken, cuddly, neurotic guy with a bit of a paunch. In the flesh he was tanned, jutting cheek and jaw bones, truckers cap and reflective aviators. He looked more like someone weathered by drugs & alcohol than perhaps the bloated post-rehab dough boy I was expecting.
Augusten was articulate, passionate, loud, a little angry maybe, extroverted, evocative vocab. A great speaker. I shall rush to buy his new book.
1 comment:
Guess who's seeing Augusten in August?
Yep, Boris beholds Burroughs, at the Melb Writers Festival.
Ok, it's not free, but its only fare we cover his petrol costs.
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