23 August 2009

The happy journey to Columbus Circle and the Lower East Side

I know, I know, celebrities using Twitter is a plague on this modern world -- until it's a celebrity you love. And I love Margaret Atwood, who signed up for Twitter last month and pointed out, "You can tell [it] really is me, because I made a typo -- should be 'impersonating,' 'imperonating' is pretending to be Evita." Yay, puns! Now, she's been merrily tweeting her vacation in New York, including losing her hat in Central Park and getting coffee at 88 Orchard. Yesterday, she had dinner at B Bar on the Bowery and her husband got carded.

Atwood has had a sideline in technological savvy; a few years ago she helped invent an electronic pen that would allow her to "sign" books in other parts of the world. I wrote her a letter once (told you I loved her) and her response was very sweet.

5 comments:

Wade Garrett said...

This is exactly the sort of 'celebrity' sighting that would make me geek out and confuse all of my normal friends. I think this sort of thing happens often in New York - in how many neighborhoods would people recognize Pete Hamill (or their regional equivalent), Jonathan Safran Foer, or Joan Didion?

Ellen said...

It's a combination of being culturally aware and writer-dense. I've probably seen plenty of writers I would know on paper but whose faces I didn't recognize, which is how they get along in other cities.

I actually did see JSF last year; it was exciting.

Wade Garrett said...

That's awesome, JSF lives in my neighborhood - on my street, even -and I haven't seen him in person. I'm sure I have seen writers before who I haven't recognized, but Park Slope is one of those neighborhoods, like the UWS or the East Village. An ex of mine once guestimated that 2/3's of the customers in Gorilla Coffee had had submissions rejected by McSweeney's, and she was only half-joking when she said it.

Ellen said...

As a member of that club, I apologize -- we'll try and keep it below 50 percent from now on.

Wade Garrett said...

Don't get me wrong, I love all things Timothy McSweeney. We'll get a coffee at Gorilla sometime and you can see for yourself what I mean.