Rose is almost always impossible to photograph. She always looks away from the camera. Not the last few days. She seems willing and comfortable posing, and her face is so expressive it’s a pleasure to photograph.
Digital photography is literal, but shadows are figurative, and they often show more than the actual images. I have already met a bunch of photographers at my readings who say they were inspired or encouraged by Bedlam Farm photos. If so, it might be nice one day to have a page on this website, where Bedlam Farm Photographers can show off their work. When the book tour is over, I’m going to explore this with Mannix Marketing.
It was gorgeous in Saratoga Springs this afternoon,and it was jammed. There were thousands of people out picking apples, going through Halloween Mazes, riding in motorbike parades and jamming the streets. I didn’t expect many people indoors on such a gorgeous day. But it was a full house at Border’s too, where another standing room only crowd showed up to talk with me about “Rose In A Storm.” The crowds and the questions are very different this year.More questions about writing and the creative process, fewer about dog training. The question on this book tour are very different.
I think people are more willing than ever to consider their dog’s behaviors, and to seriously explore the minds of dogs as they are, not as we wish them to be. A very impressive, articulate and curious crowd. We went for two hours. One emotional exchange occurred when a questioner asked about people who say losing a dog is like losing a child. One very reflect person raised his hands and said quietly that he had lost a child, and it was nothing like losing a dog. Amen to that. Although I did point out that people feel so intensely about losing animals in contemporary America that the grieving is sometimes similiar, an issue I addressed in my grieving book, “Going Home: Help When Animals Die,” coming out next year from Random House. Tuesday, off to Washington and interviews and on Wednesday, more interviews and an appearance at Border’s in Bailey’s Crossing, Va., with Rita Mae Brown Wednesday night. Then Clifton Park and the Halfmoon Library and from there, off to Ohio and on Sunday, the Bookloft in Columbus. 2 p.m.
Good news. Russ Iler, one of the owners of the Book Loft, in Columbus, Ohio, has generously agreed to allow a reading of “Rose In A Storm” at the bookstore at 2 p.m., Sunday, October 17, and Izzy is most welcome (he was barred by the Thurber House). Thanks to Russ and to Barbara Kurtz and the many other people in Ohio who bombarded me with locations and encouragement on Facebook and via e-mail. The reading will be from 2 to 4 p.m., in the courtyard of the Book Loft, one of the best independent bookstores in the country.
Russ has no problems with Izzy. We will be driving in from New York State (Maria too). I am pleased to be going to Columbus, on the way to Dayton, Cincinnati, and Lexington, Ky. I don’t mean to tweak the Thurber House too much, it’s a great place, but it sweet to be doing an alternative reading at a great bookstore. We’ll make it celebration of Thurber and, of course Izzy. I am chuckling over the idea that Izzy can go see dying people in hospitals and hospice, but not to the Thurber House. How Thurber would have enjoyed that. And I am tickled to make a bit of mischief. So we are set. Next Sunday, 2 p.m. Hail to the Facebook people, a tough and wonderful crowds.
I think James Thurber would have loved the irony that bounds in Izzy being barred from the Thurber House during my book tour for “Rose In A Storm.” I guess i understand the Thurber House’s policy a bit – I always ask that people not bring dogs to my book readings, as it is distracting and unncessary, sometimes even dangerous.) But for the Thurber House to bar Izzy, a hospice therapy dog who has traveled all over the country, including to hospitals and nursing homes, well it seems a bit rigid. So I got determined to go to Columbus anyway.
The initial interest was met with a wave of indifference. I think it is healthy for a New York Times Bestseller, often asked to make appearances, to get barred or ignored. I posted this on FB and a small army of Ohioans got to work and made a lot of noise. Things are not quite firmed up yet, but it looks as if I will be somewhere in Columbus Sunday afternoon, at one of several bookstores, possibly the Book Loft in Germantown., a neighborhood of Columbus, possibly just north of the city at another bookstore. We’ll see. I did get through to the Book Loft today and they did seem to know who I was and are yakking about it. It would be great fun. I’ll get there one way or another, if we have to go to a dog park. And I don’t like dog parks, and neither does Izzy. We will honor Thurber, one way or another.
