That sounds bad ... hear me out! While it's always slightly scary to hold events such as this without your friendly faces in the room, it's also quite exciting. A room full of new faces means a room full of the uninitiated. Time and again this past week I heard "Oh, this is a perfect gift for Relative X! I didn't know this existed. Great!" and "I can't believe someone has finally done a film music book like this! I've been looking for something like this for years!" I love to think that each time we head out into the public we're reaching a fresh group -- readers/listeners for whom we're illuminating Howard Shore's work anew.
Now this said, there's 'uninitiated,' and there's 'UNINITIATED." Friday's event at the vast McCormick Place was full of the former ... musicians young and old who may not have known that the book existed, but who knew what Howard Shore had accomplished with his music, and who understood how this book was relating to it. Wednesday, on the other hand ... ah, Wednesday ... While I can't speak for the majority of Wednesday's crowd at Borders, I can, without the faintest shadow of a doubt, assure you that one or two attendees fell into the latter, all-caps 'UNINITIATED' camp. I say that with a bit of a chuckle, but I was sweating up there!
I think the experience is, perhaps, best summed up by the embedded video below. Please let me point out, I am not posting this to mock the unseen individual who is asking questions. I'll let you decide for yourselves what may have inspired his less-than-keenly-focused queries ... I certainly have my suspicions. But frankly, with my deer-in-the-headlights deadpan and nervous cackling, I don't know that I come off any better than he does! Enough preamble, here you go:
Ah, showbiz ... will the glamor never end? I'll be honest, I walked away from the event muttering to myself, "What just happened!?", but now I find the whole thing pretty darn funny. And since the week ended on such a overwhelmingly positive note, I'm really just glad to have accumulated such an excellent anecdote. I think the crowd back in New York certainly got a kick out of it. At least one email appeared with the subject "Are You Tony Blair?"
Speaking of New York, we're now locking in the final details for our January reprint. There's some amazing news coming up regarding next year. Those worried that this project will fade into the background until The Hobbit emerges will have to think again. It looks like 2011 will keep both projects running full steam. It's a good time to be in Middle-earth, let me assure you
Back soon with at least one more pre-Christmas post. See you on the boards in the meantime!
D
