Home For a Little While:

Smokler on January 27, 2005

Hey there. So I’m back from LA, well rested and ready to shake life awake again. I don’t leave townn again until March when I head to New York to meet my publicist, then down to Austin for South by Southwest then up to Virginia to speak at the Virginia Festival of the Book then home to San Francisco to release my sanity from its lockbox.

Worth mentioning: SXSW Baby, the conference’s community-driven weblog, is back up and running thanks to the mad skillz of Brad Graham. There you’ll find everything you need to know about attending and meeting up with your favorite geeks.

Also worth mentioning: I’m not much of a shopper but I had to make one purchase down south. The 20th Anniversary of Live Aid is this summer and in anticipation, the whole damn concert, over ten hours worth of music plus the original Band Aid and USA for Africa videos, has been released on DVD. I bought it immediately. Because nothing stops me and 80s nostalgia from gettin’ down.

Update from L.A:

Smokler on January 24, 2005

Brief round-up from my goings on here in the Southland:

*The Book Promotion 101 Workshop went beautifully: 8 smart, committed authors, great speakers and a ton of enthusiasm and ideas being launched into the air. My speech was at the end of the day so I had to cut it a little short. But the consensus seemed to be that I hit all the major topics and the author left feeling like online identity and publicity is an essential component of the publicity process. I may even be consulting with some of them in the future.

Mad props to Bella Stander who puts the whole thing together. I’d say if you’re an author with a book coming out, it’s damn near indispensible.

*Had a great time at a salon hosted by Lynn Isenberg, whom I met at Book Expo America last year. She had me delivering a talk called “The 21st Century Audience” where I covered topics like blogs, rss readers, and other ways to release media from its box. Exchanged vicious ideas and enthusiasm with guests from Rhino Films, “humble strategic advisor” Carl Bressler and director Mark Travis. Your average really really smart people in one room chucking the crap around. Which is my absolute favorite kind of evening.

*Brunch with Mark Sarvas of The Elegant Variation on Sunday was nonstop book chatter, business and gossip for 2 hours. I felt like cat let loose in a yarn store.

*Visited with my younger brother Dan and my sister-in-law Beth (who had me over for Shabbat dinner), cousins Rhoda, Riley and Lawrence (who just got a job at CAA doing music contracts and turned me on to the Kings of Leon) who all ate together at Pace’ in Laurel Canyon. Laurel Canyon is the Haight-Ashbury of Los Angeles, with trees and hills instead of Victorians. It’s still 1968 in both places though.

Learned what the word “Prolix” meant.

Not bad for three days. I’m home tomorrow.

Howdy Stranger:

Smokler on January 17, 2005

I’m visiting my parents in Florida, jetting home to celebrate 4 years with Suzan and then jetting off again to give a talk in L.A. I’m home on the 25th. Expect posts to be a bit sparse until then.

Rail Across America:

Smokler on December 23, 2004

American Orient Express is a fleet of trains that give tours to different points of interest across the country in the old style of premiere luxury train travel. Though the tours I looked up (Pacific Coast Explorer and National Parks of the West) were blindingly expensive (Nearly $4000 per person for base-level accomodations) they really take care of you. Each train is a restored classic, with original furnishings, dishes and uniformed attendants. A porter turns down your bed at night. Some of the tours even have scholars and lecturers on board. Although I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to afford it, it sure sounds like fun.

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