This
edition of the Log,
which due to time constraints is
a short one, revolves around Neal
Pollack's rising fame.
__________
[19.a]
Eggers was served a subpoena by a
man representing his former
literary agent, Elyse Cheney [8.b],
at FoE! Neal Pollack's
Thursday night New York City
reading. Inside.com [18.c]
initially reported:
There were a lot of
unexpected guests Thursday
night at Galapagos, a bar in
the Williamsburg section of
Brooklyn for the
McSweeney's-hosted Neal
Pollack author tour and
reading. Dave Eggers's former
agent, Elyse Cheney, wasn't
there, of course; the two
have been estranged since
Eggers fired her last spring,
just as his memoir, A
Heartbreaking Work of
Staggering Genius, was
taking off. But Cheney sent a
"friend": a process
server who handed the
startled-looking author a
subpoena. The emissary, hired
by Sanford J. Greenburger
Associates, was kind enough
to wait until the
intermission to serve Eggers
with the papers, and, as
Eggers later told the
audience, "he apologized
for serving me here."
Eggers seemed to be taking it
well, and even offered to
pass the summons around the
room for those interested in
taking a gander. (Guests
Zadie Smith, author of White
Teeth; Darrin Straus,
author of the recent Chang
and Eng; and Elizabeth
Gilbert, author of Stern
Men, were among the
witnesses.) And in a final
touch drenched with the kind
of crass American irony
McSweeney's loves: just as
guest-of-honor Pollack was
about to speak, a woman
stepped forward and handed
her card to Eggers. She was,
of course, a lawyer.
It
looks like Darrin Straus is,
indeed, a legitimate FoE!
now, as first speculated last
month [16.g].
Inside.com writer Allen Salkin filed a full story on
the event later
on the following day. Salkin
pointed out that:
On the copyright
page of...The Neal
Pollack Anthology of American
Literature [there] is a
message: "Nothing in
this book is meant to harm
anyone else. Please do not
sue." Turns out that
request came one book too
late.
The
literary agency Sanford J.
Greenburger Associates and Elyse
Cheney are contending that Eggers
broke his contract to pay a 15%
commission on sales of the book
and any future sale of movie
rights [8.b].
Eggers was pretty sure that the
subpoena would be served, but not
on that particular night. Salkin
wrote that Eggers claims to have
lost the summons after passing it
around during the reading for the
audience to gawk at (after he
himself turned the whole thing
into yet another literary stunt
by reading it to the audience).
On
Friday Eggers wrote about the
experience on Mcsweeneys.net.
After thanking "all who came
out," "our friends at
Galapagos," and "our
many volunteers," Eggers
explained:
As
those who attended witnessed,
during the show's
intermission, the M.R. was,
no kidding, served a summons
to appear in court. The M.R.,
it seems, is being sued by
his former literary agent,
and her agency, and just like
in film and television, the
summons had to be delivered
in person. In this case, a
nice man entered the club,
paid $5 to be admitted into
the room of the reading, and
then found the M.R. He
apologized profusely for
having served the papers at
that time and place, then
went on his way. This
actually happened. It was, in
a word, phenomenal.
So
of course, before Neal
Pollack took the stage, John
Hodgman and the M.R. read
aloud from the summons. We
found this to be a very funny
thing to do, and a very
timely thing to do, given
that John had, a short time
before, made mirth from his
having been, until recently,
himself a professional
literary agent. Could it have
been more perfect, more
poignant? It could not.
After
the reading, though, in a
happening very reminiscent of
an episode following a
previous reading and
involving a sum of rolled-up
money, the M.R., no kidding,
misplaced this summons, along
with a brand-new T-shirt
given to him by Arthur
Bradford. The M.R. had the
summons, then a young British
man named Edward was looking
at it, then Edward gave it
back, and at some point the
summons, and the T-shirt,
were put down, and now
neither can be found. This is
probably a bad thing. The
T-shirt was beautiful.
So.
We are asking here if anyone
out there picked up or found
the summons or the shirt, and
if so, we hope they will
contact us at diane@mcsweeneys.net.
The summons is about 40 pages
long, and has a blue cover
sheet bearing official
numbers and words. A small
reward will be given to the
finder. We promise to be more
careful in the future.
One
wonders what Sanford J.
Greenburger Associates and Elyse
Cheney think of Eggers's antics.
[19.b]
FoE! Neal Pollack
published a piece at
Mcsweeneys.net on Tuesday,
September 5th (the day of his
first reading at the Coolidge
Theater in Boston) entitled "The
Unusual History Of My Impending
Prominence: A Book-Tour Timeline
From The Future." The
piece, which is a satire on
Eggers's rise to fame, makes
numerous allusions to various
events and people (including
myself and the FoE! Log).
Perhaps
the most advantageous aspect
of literary celebrity, as I
am now learning, is that you
can control every single
thing that happens to you.
The world bows prostrate at
your holy feet, and your
mandates are close to, if not
actually, words from God. I
have realized that, when you
are a famous writer, the
magazine and newspaper folk
cover you not because they
want to, but because they
need to; they are gripped by
a moral imperative stronger
than anything in their
previous experience. Indeed,
over the last few months, I
have felt like the boy in
that legendary episode of The
Twilight Zone: Whatever I
imagine comes true.
Therefore,
what you are about to read is
a reliable guide, because I
have deemed it so. It is, or
will be, my life, writ. Not
everything predicted below is
happy fate, because fate is
not always happy. But fate it
is, and I am fated to it. So
read this and understand, my
friends, for my destiny is
that of every writer.
Sept. 5
- My debut Boston performance
at the Coolidge Corner is
pronounced a success
[9.c] by all who
witness it live, and by those
who watch it on
closed-circuit television in
more than 1,000 New England
taverns. I meet Zadie Smith.
Sept. 6
- Zadie Smith and I get drunk
in Cambridge before and after
my reading. We consolidate
our hotel rooms [19.d].
Sept. 7
- Photo shoot for Spin [3].
Guest shot for CNBC from
floor of NYSE. I am mobbed by
sycophants and well-wishers
at Galapagos, in Brooklyn. My
reading cannot be heard over
the screams of several
hundred teenage girls in the
audience. "Sorry,
girls," I say. "I'm
with Zadie now."
Sept. 9
- Salon Table Talk discussion
board rolls on: "Neal
Pollack: Greatest Living
American Writer, or Insidious
Monster?"[19.e]
Also, I have a chance
encounter with Heidi Julavits
at a wedding.
Sept.
10 - Zadie flies back to
London to lobby for Booker
Prize.
Sept.
12 - On camera, Charlie Rose [g] asks
me if I'm happy.
"Ecstatic,
Charlie," I reply.
Later, Heidi Julavits and I
are overcome by passion for
each other at New Yorker
cocktail party in our mutual
honor.
Sept.
13 - The kindly, simple
people of Philadelphia receive me in
their hard-working arms.
Sept.
14 - In Washington, my
meeting with the editorial
board of The New Republic
[18.h] falls
apart after partisan
bickering. My lunch with
George Stephanopoulous
suffers a similar demise. I
reject an offer to become Al
Gore's chief speechwriter, as
I believe that a vote for
Bush is a vote for Nader.
Sept.
22 - Chicago Mayor Richard M.
Daley attempts to present me
with the key to his city. I
punch him in the face. He
cries.
Sept.
25 - In Madison, Wisconsin, I
am photographed by the
Associated Press while
weeping at my
great-grandfather's grave. I
meet Lorrie Moore [3.e],
who praises me.
Sept.
26 - I appear on all three
major morning talk shows to
talk about my
great-grandfather. Mayor
Daley declares imminent
construction of 100,000 units
of low-income housing, citing
my "unique moral
influence."
Oct. 1 -
Time [6] cover
story: Is Neal Jesus? Newsweek
[5.c] cover:
Does Neal Take His Vitamins? US
News and World Report [14.d] cover:
Nader Pulls Ahead!
Oct. 3
- Zadie Smith is sought in an
assault on Heidi Julavits. A
photographer for the Sun
spots me nuzzling Lorrie
Moore in a Toronto café.
Oct. 6
- "Neil Pollock," a
mysterious figure who will
only admit to living in
Chelsea, begins publishing
highly-imitative fiction at
his new website,
"neilpollock.com." [14.b]
Oct. 9
- My sister Margot admits in
a phone conversation to a
friend that, in 1982, I
called her
"stupid." [6.a]
Oct. 11
- A 15-year-old high-school
sophomore from Laughlin,
Nevada, reports on the
Internet that I had sex with
my intern, Matthew Fogel, and
attempted to cover up the
affair. [18.d]
Oct. 12
- I hold a press conference
in San Francisco. "I did
not not have sexual relations
with that man, Mr.
Fogel," I say.
Oct. 13
- Powell's Bookstore, in
Portland, Oregon, cancels my
appearance, citing my
"unique lack of moral
influence."
Oct. 14
- Matthew Fogel holds a press
conference in New Haven,
Connecticut, saying that he
has never met me, much less
had sex with me. I sell
75,000 copies of my book in
one day. The people of
Iceland work overtime.
Oct. 17
- In Vancouver, I hork a
bongful of primo B.C. bud.
The New York Post does
an article on "Neil
Pollock—America's
Hottest Writer."
Oct. 20
- A 9-year-old girl from
Wheeling, West Virginia,
prints, on her website, a
transcript of my sister
Margot's phone conversation
with her friend. The girl
calls me a "sinister and
dangerous force—an
American cancer." [6.a]
Oct. 21
- Margot holds a press
conference in support of my
book. Sales soar above the
500,000 mark. The people of
Iceland are getting very,
very tired.
Oct. 23
- "Neil Pollock"
admits to the New York
Observer that he is an
unsuccessful performance
artist named Jeremy Puccini [14.b],
and that his website is his
revenge because I refused to
have an affair with him.
Oct. 25
- Zadie Smith is arrested
trying to sneak into my hotel
room in Albuquerque. Heidi
Julavits is arrested with
bomb-making materials in
Chicago. I am arrested for
making harassing phone calls
to Lorrie Moore. Joyce Carol
Oates arrests herself and
writes a novel about the
experience.
Oct. 27
- Harper's
reprints Margot's phone
transcripts, and spells both
our names wrong. [13.all]
Oct. 29
- "Kneel Pulak"
begins publishing
highly-imitative fiction on
his website,
"kneelpulak.com."
It is immediately obvious to
everyone that "Kneel
Pulak" is really John
Irving.
Oct. 31
- My book tour ends as I make
sweet, strange love to Anne
Rice in a New Orleans
graveyard.
Nov. 7
- Ralph Nader is elected
President of the United
States and announces a
"Neal Pollack
backlash" [8.a] in
his acceptance speech.
Nov. 8
- The New York Times
publishes a profile of me
headlined "Old News, and
Not So Funny."
Nov. 18
- Sales top the one million
mark. I move to Finland.
Dec. 24
- Disguised as a minor
Christian saint, I deliver
presents to your house with
my team of flying reindeer.
Jan. 1
- The millennium turns, for
good this time. I am never
heard from again.
[19.c]
Josh Glenn, who has had his own
history with Eggers [7.h],
reviewed
the Boston
Coolidge Corner Theater event in
the September 6th edition of his
magazine Hermeanut's [i]
online newlsetter:
Last
night, the editor of
Hermenaut magazine attended a
literary event at the
Coolidge Corner Theater in
Brookline, Massachusetts.
He'd heard that the featured
writer and his writer friends
were going to put on quite a
show, and in this he was not
disappointed. Nor was the
audience disappointed, for
they had come ready to be
entertained. They hooted and
guffawed during the theater's
previews for the films
"Escape from New
York" and "Robin
Hood", and they just...
kept... laughing. One
guy—who was wearing a
smoking jacket and holding a
pipe—stood up on the
stage in front of the screen
and claimed he was a former
literary agent; he poked fun
at the New York publishing
scene in a mock-serious
fashion, and plugged the
independent efforts of the
featured author's publisher.
He then invited the
publisher—himself a
literary celebrity—to
read aloud questions from the
audience about the book
publishing racket, which he
(the ex-agent) then answered
in a mock-serious fashion.
The publisher mock-seriously
instructed one of the
question-askers on the proper
use of semi-colons; this was
greeted with a great deal of
laughter and applause. The
ex-agent introduced a writer
who played a guitar and then
smashed it, and then smashed
another one, while reading
some story. Then the ex-agent
introduced a writer who read
a mock-serious speech about
her love affair with the
featured writer, about whom
she made extravagant claims
of various sorts. She then
asked the audience to cheer
for the featured writer, who
ran around the theater in
sunglasses and a silver
jacket pumping his fist in
the air; meanwhile, a band
played a James Brown-type
entrance number. The featured
writer then sang "God
Bless America" in a
mockingly serious way,
praised himself extravagantly
with mocking seriousness, and
read two mock-serious travel
narratives in a mock-serious
fashion. The New Yorker was
mentioned a couple of times,
and large international media
corporations were denounced;
also, many jokes were made
about bodily odors. The
ex-agent put a cape over the
featured writer's shoulders
and tried to lead him off the
stage. Also, a member of the
publisher's entourage asked
everyone in the audience from
Massachusetts to stand up and
cheer; then he read the comic
strip "Curtis"
aloud while the featured
writer laughed uproariously.
Eventually everyone got back
on stage and swayed back and
forth while the featured
writer sang
"Tomorrow" in the
voice of Dan Aykroyd. The
whole thing was like an
episode of "Mystery
Science Theater
3000"—only it was
LITERATURE that was being
projected...What a hoot!
[19.d]
Zadie Smith e-mailed me a week
ago to state that there had,
indeed, not yet been a hook-up
between herself and Eggers
[18.k].
In her e-mail on September 3rd,
entitled "Rumours of
copulation greatly
exeggerated," she explained:
Since Neal Pollack,
there has been nobody else in
my life. A literary
"hook-up"
therefore, would seem
unlikely.
That is all,
Zadie Smith
It looks
like she already knew about
Pollack's September 5th piece [19.b]
before it appeared -- and was
willing to help him out with his
own story. Anyway, the next day
she explained:
...I haven't even
met Mr Egg yet and if there's
any danger of sexual activity
I'll be letting *you* know
and not the other way round.
That is all.
Zadie Smith
[19.e]
The Salon Table Talk thread,
"Neal
Pollack: Greatest Living American
Writer, or Insidious Monster?," is real.
Its first post was made by a
'Ruben S' on September 4th -- the
day before Pollack's piece [16.b]
was published on
Mcsweeneys.net. Ruben's initial
post itself was a take-off of on
Bob Wake's founding post in the
Dave Eggers thread [11.a].
Ruben's post read:
If the Neal Pollack
Anthology of American
Literature isn't the funniest
book of the year, I'll blind
myself with left-handed
scissors. But the author also
has a reputation for
unbridled boorishness. Does
anyone have a story about a
personal encounter with Neal
Pollack? Can any amount of
talent excuse such wanton
disregard by an author for
his readers?
Bob
Wake's post read:
If Dave Eggers's
memoir, A Heartbreaking
Work of Staggering Genius,
isn't the most dazzling
literary debut of the year,
I'll eat my review.
In
the 36th post (published on
September 6th) on the Neal
Pollack thread someone, who
identified him/herself as
"nealpollacksister,"
explained:
Neal doesn't have
any friends and the friends
that he has are all losers.
If you wnated you could do a
web pahge witrh all the
Friends of neals, accept
there wouldn't be any web
page because therearent any.
if there's like, a 16 year
old boy who wants to put up a
loser friends of neals page,
he shoudl email me and i'll
give him lots of stuff to put
up on his web site. or if
there's a 16 year old boy who
doesn't want toi put up a web
page but is built like a
swimmer, he should email me
anyway.
Well,
nealpollacksister: I have done my
best. This edition of the
FoE! Log revolves entirely
around Pollack.
[19.f]
Simmons O'Hara, who
previously wrote the satirical
interlude in edition #17, sent the FoE!
Log the following report on
the Brookline Booksmith event:
"I
Cheated Neal Pollack, Dave
Eggers, McSweeney's Books,
and the Future of Independent
Publishing As We Know It Out
Of Three Bucks, But My Soul
Is Still Honest And
Pure," by Simmons O'Hara
So. Here
we are, waiting in line at
the Brookline Booksmith to
get our books signed.
Gosh, wasn't that a fun event
we just went to across the
street? Sure, there
were no cartoons as promised,
but there was the original
trailer for John Carpenter's
Escape From New York that
opened the show, left over
from the days when the
Coolidge was a movie house
and not a
theater. Not that
the Coolidge still doesn't
show movies, considering we
were kicked to the curb at
7:30
sharp becuase of a
7:45 screening of The Tao of
Steve, but let's face
it--Jimmy the Cab Driver's
indie film comeback has
nothing on a man in a
smoking jacket sitting
onstage in the shadow of
classic Robin Hood, reading
America's newest book best
referred to as an acronym:
The Neal Pollack Anthology Of
American Literature.
We--and
I use we, because after two
hours, hasn't every
individual reader been joined
together in the spirit of the
evening to become a family?
Look, there's Uncle Todd
Pruzan! Cousin Laurence
Krauser! Nephew Eduardo
de la
Manzana!--wait behind
the empty signing
table. And wait.
Perhaps Neal is paying off
the man in the smoking jacket
for a performance well
done. Yes, the man
did stand from the chair,
remove the pipe from his
mouth and introduce himself
as John Hodgman, Former
Literary Agent,
but considering he never
showed two forms of picture
identifiction, he might have
just been some guy Neal
and Dave found at the
McDonald's across the
street. Will the John
Hodgman at Galapagos look the
same as the John Hodgman at
the Coolidge? A
question For Nowhere, not
here. For here we
believed John
Hodgman when he
announced that he came out of
retirement to emcee the
activities for the evening,
poking fun at Big Publishers
before turning the stage over
to someone who just sold
his own book to
one--Arthur Bradford.
The applause following
Arthur's guitar-smashing
reading of his story
"Insects" was
matched a few minutes later
when John Hodgman reappeared
on stage to explain, with
Dave's assistance, why the
Red Sox are a spiritually
superior team to the
Yankees. He couldn't,
though, so he invoked the
name and wisdom of Neal
Pollack, whom none of us had
yet laid eyes on at that
point, but we sure were
having a good time in his
honor. His honor, and
the honor of his book,
The Neal Pollack Anthology Of
American Literature.
We're
still waiting. The
table itself is not empty, as
piles of The Neal Pollack
Anthology Of American
Literature, A Heartbreaking
Work of Staggering Genius,
and White Teeth have been
neatly stacked in front of
their respective author's
unoccupied chairs. We
waited in a similar line two
months ago, when Zadie Smith
sat at the same table solo,
signing copies of White Teeth
on her own North American
tour. When we--and
I use we, because it's
the same audience
tonight as last June,
as every one of us sees
a young literary
hipster mentioned in the
New Yorker and circles the
date of his or her in-town
appearance on our calendar
like the must-see event that
it is--first saw her on
stage tonight, we didn't even
recognize her. The last
time she read at the
Brookline Booksmith,
she announced she had just
rolled out of bed to come to
the reading. Considering
she looked more together than
anyone in the room at that
time, we wondered what she
looked like when she
knowingly dressed for the
occasion. Well.
Between her dress and Dave's
jacket and tie, we wondered
if "Tao of Steve at
7:45" was McSweeney's
code for "dinner
reservations for two on
Newbury Street."
But no, no, this was an event
for Neal Pollack, and both
were showing the formal
respect he deserved.
Never mind that Neal ran down
the aisles of the theater and
up on stage in wearing a
mylar jacket that he rented
for forty dollars at Boston
Costume (full price
disclosure now being the
policy at McSweeney's
Publishing, as seen in Issue
#5) that he took off to
reveal a t-shirt and
jeans. No, no, Dave and
Zadie merely dressed up for
this
History-Making Event.
Yes.
We wait and
wait. We're getting
hungry. We're so used
to waiting that when Neal
suddenly bursts through the
door, we barely notice.
Zadie does as well few
minutes later, minus the
burst. Finally the line
is going to move.
Finally, finally, finally.
The line doesn't
move.
Maybe those of us at
the front of the line are
asking questions, as there
was no time for a Q&A
period with the Tao of
Steve/dinner reservations and
all. There was Todd
Pruzan's attempt for a
standing ovation or
something, followed by his
reading of today's Curtis
comic strip or something, and
some other stuff that we
don't quite remember or get,
because frankly, we didn't
feel much like a we at that
point. Okay, maybe we
were never a we to begin
with. Oh, we know that
McSweeney's has drawn us a
graph in Issue #5 to show us
that 48 percent of its
stories were written by
people unknown to the editor
and his pals, but that
admission (and "Death
Star"
circle-within-circle drawing)
made us feel even more, well,
confused. Who is the
real audience here? Are
we the true stars of this
evening's performance? Watch
us laugh, watch us buy, watch
us try desperately to get in
a circle all of our own?
The line doesn't
move.
"Is there
anyone here not waiting for
Dave?" Neal yells out.
The line doesn't
move.
Minutes pass,
half-hours pass, and we
remember the finale, when
Neal called the evening's
participants on stage to sing
"Tomorrow."
We think that tomorrow we are
still going to be waiting in
this damn line. But now
we can look at Dave while we
wait, playing with his
cousins (McSweeneys but not
THE Massachusetts McSweeneys,
who are waiting as well) over
by the remainder table. Isn't
that cute?
This isn't working.
So if he won't come
to us, we'll go to him.
We have Neal and Zadie sign
whatever we think will rake
in the big bucks on ebay,
then stand in Dave's
receiving line. No
wedding has taken place, but
we think that it's the
shameless, blatant attempt of
some women trying to arrange
one that is causing this
second line not to move.
Yes, that's right,
we're waiting again.
We're hungry.
We came directly from work to
this event and have not eaten
since noon. One of us
puts his or her hand in his
or her pocket and knows that
he or she has three extra
bucks there, because he or
she had the good luck to stop
by the Booksmith on
the weekend that the
fall schedule was announced
and tickets were a mere five
dollars. Is he or she
Neal Pollack's number one
fan? No, more like
twenty-two or twenty-three,
but three dollars richer
nonetheless. So one of
us decides to leave the
Booksmith, wondering if the
T-shirts went the same way as
the cartoons, and walks to
the Star Market for a
Healthy Choice Chicken Parmigiana
Dinner on sale for $1.69
with the Star Advantage
Shopper's Card. A can
of Pringles and a tube of
Colgate Whitening Gel
toothpaste brings the total
to $5.03.
I shall now eat.
Oh, Neal Pollack
read a few pieces from his
book at one point, and
everyone laughed. He
was quite funny.
That is all.
