I loved him before, and I love him now. Only a little bit more now.
I arrived at McCosh Hall at Princeton University at about 4:15 - the talk was due to start at 4:30, and as I walked up the stairs, people were walking down saying: "Don't bother - they're turning people away; the hall is full." Little did they know that I had reserved press tickets - yahoo. (not that i was writing an article about the talk - my editor and i were just being press-sluts: using our press credentials to snag good seats!) (i almost felt bad about it. but not enough to give up my seat!)
And the place was, indeed, full to the brim. But we had our reserved spot - third row center - brav-a-licious.
A few minutes before 4:30, Steve walked in, and the room broke out in applause. He was lead to a seat, just two rows in front of me (i could've reached out and touched him) and even though I thought it was slightly gauche, I took a photo of him as he sat there while Joyce Carol Oates (looking like a good hearty meal wouldn't be a bad idea) introduced him. (as if he needed an introduction.)
He talked for just a minute (nice to be here, blahblahblah) - and then dove right in to reading from a variety of his work - comic essays including Cruel Shoes (from the book of the same name) and Pure Drivel; scenes from plays like Picasso at the Lapin Agile and WASP; one of his many essays that had been published in The New Yorker; and excerpts from Shopgirl (his sad/sweet novella that's been made into a movie starring himself and claire danes that's being released in a couple of weeks).
He's wonderful. His writing was wonderful. He reads with characters and voices as you might expect - but it's not all funnyfunny stuff. Much of his writing is thoughtful and wistful and full of longing (for intimacy and passion mostly, it seemed to me), and slightly sad sometimes too. He has this way of being specific and slightly 'off' at the same time in his observations. In an essay about an intense love affair that ended with the woman walking out the door, he offered: "I wanted to run after her into the night, even though it was day." And in WASP, a father explains to his 14 year old son why he takes such pain with his lawn: "It's a luxury item. A luxury item is a thing you have that annoys other people that you have it."
He read for almost an hour. And then he graciously stuck around and answered some questions.
I thought, since the event was part of the Princeton Creative Writing program, most of the folks would ask questions about his writing, but most of them were the "what was your favorite movie" types (he said he didn't have a favorite - that asking that was like asking a parent to choose a favorite child), and when one person asked him to comment on his experiences hosting the Oscars, he talked mostly about the second time he hosted - which was the day that the US began the war in Iraq.
He said he'd turned on the television that afternoon, but almost immediately turned it off; he said the experience reminded him of the day when, as a young man, he was working at a show at an amusement park and right before he and his fellow cast mates were due on stage, they learned about President Kennedy's assassination. He said they debated about doing the show - wondered how you go on in the face of such things - and said that this is precisely why they did. And why he went on with his script pretty much unchanged from the way he'd planned it that night at the Oscars. Because, he said, you can't let the bad stuff derail you - you have to keep on going. And in that case, keeping going for him was about connecting people, making them laugh, and lightening the load.
And when he said it, damned if he didn't seem like he was kinda choked up. Maybe it just seemed that way cause it got me sort of choked up, but I don't think so.
After the Q & A session as he left the auditorium, he carried his papers and let them spill out of his hands in this great comic schtick, but what I was left with was not his goofiness, but his incredible way of seeing the world - funny and poignant, his great delivery, and his obvious heart.
Steve Martin, a sweet and witty guy.
Love him. (heavy sigh...)
Wow -- sounds like you had such a great time! How wonderful for those seats, huh? Don't feel any guilt about being a 'press slut,' my dear. It's just a little perk to make up for the fact that you don't get paid as much as you deserve to for the great features you write.
I just LOVE The Jerk. So funny!! I need to rent it again.
Your posts (and Marilyn's comment) really make me want to read his writing now ... so lo and behold, I went on the Bernards and Clarence Dillon (Bedminster) library sites and they have a bunch of his books! Of course, I'm already simultaneously reading The Time Traveler's Wife (per Jamila's recommendation), Escape Adulthood (by the blogger Jason Kotecki), How Did I get Here (Barbara DeAngelis' latest ... once a self-help junkie, always a self-help junkie ... ), and about a 100 magazines. But, they have Pure Drivel, Shopgirl, The Pleasure of My Company, and Cruel Shoes. Is there one you would recommend to start?
Posted by: maria | October 10, 2005 at 11:13 AM
Note to self: Get every Steve Martin book available next time I'm at the library. So glad you had such a wonderful experience...and it sounds like it was truly that...wonderful.
Posted by: Marilyn | October 08, 2005 at 10:01 AM