National Book Award Podcasts, W/ Update

For anyone who may be interested, the National Book Awards are happening right now, I think somewhere around Wall Street. Anyway, Ed Champion’s podcasts are quite entertaining — particularly this one with Candace Bushnell (#5). Hmmm, I wonder if Mr. Bushnell is there…

Update: Had a little too much fun reading all the tweets last night during the national book awards. I was following three journalists covering the event — one kind of curmudgeonly (but aren’t the smart-asses always the most fun!), one serious, and one all genuinely excited about everything. So, something would happen — dinner break, a winner announced, an interview with literary bigshot at the press table, an announcer who got a little carried away with an introduction — and you’d get three completely hilariously diverse perspectives:

“B giving speech” / “B giving emotional, compelling speech” / “B ‘more inflated than a helium tank.'” (that one, my fave of the night, is an actual quote).

Or, “going to interview B from C publication” / “shit, here comes D w/ camera; am trying to look busy.”

Or, “time for dinner, be back soon” / “oooh, caviar and whipped butter atop little toast points!” / “cream is rancid, bread is stale; journalists seriously pissed.”

Anyway, how funny would it be if dance writers did the same covering some dance event — a gala, or opening night extravaganza of some big, much-touted company. Of course a lot of interested people might actually be at the event and wouldn’t need to read via computer. But no matter, we’ll all just whip out cellphones during intermissions, or carry them around with us if at a party, bumping smack into each other while laughing or rolling our eyes at each other’s quips as shown on the faces of our Blackberrys and Iphones. I mean, when you think about it — how much better than actual talking. Human vocal chords can only reach so far. With a mobile, you can be heard easily by all in attendance, even rooms away, and of course by those not at the event as well. This is how people will communicate in the future — no words spoken with actual mouths; the room will be pure silence, save only the clicking of cell phone type pads. I’m a better writer than talker anyway, so fine with me…