Thursday, November 30, 2006

Peach Buzzed Into A Stupor

Is Peach Buzz just not the lamest gossip site you've ever laid eyeballs on? They stumble on a catchy phrase/item about as often as I have a dinner-and-a-movie kinda date.

If you want the real poop on Amy Sedaris' journey southward try this from my pal Tom. He's got his finger on the pulse of Atlanta, when it's not on an Avid that is. (Or do you folks at Crawford use Final Cut nowadays? Either one, too much clicking and mousing for me. Blogging alone is almost more clicks-per-day than this bit of square-eyed Space can handle.)


Anyways... here's Tom's Take on Ms. Sedaris' visit:
So tonight was the night of Amy Sedaris' book tour stopping in Atlanta, at the odd time of 7:15PM at a suburban (Decatur) public library. All day I was mentioning this to friends, as I wanted to make sure Amy didn't come out to speak to a crowd of like 9 1/2 people plus the library janitor.

My wife and I pulled up with 15 minutes to spare and there was apparently some huge other event going on in downtown Decatur. Traffic a mess, no parking anywhere, people everywhere, and full-ish marching band of the doo-dah variety in the library parking lot playing "Louie Louie" etc.

We parked far away and walked and walked. As we got closer we saw this throng in a line of perhaps 700 people snaking around the band.

I asked someone walking toward us... what the heck is this event that someone has booked simultaneous with the small event we are here for?? "Oh, this is all for a book singing for someone named Amy Sedaris" was the reply. And as we got closer damn if half of those 700 people (600?- 1000? who knows) were clutching their copy of "I Like You".

We know this little library and there was no way 1/10 of those people were getting in. So we skipped to the side entrance and we walked into the 3- storey library proper as if we were there in "research."

We rode the elevators down to see if we could travel to the ground floor auditorium and sneak in that way but that elevator button was locked out. So we rode up, walked around some research space, then stepped into another crowded elevator to ride down again, this time Finding Amy (get it, ha) standing right beside us.

"We figured we'd never get in so we've decided to talk to you now" I joked. "Oh?" said the diminutive Ms. Sadaris, her mind seemingly elsewhere. Standing beside her handler, she sported a 50's-homage crisp shiny brown dress.

"The line you you; we'll never get in."

"There's a line?" she asked.

"Whoa jeez yes, you've not seen? It goes on forever," I said as I fired up my camera to show her digital-pix proof. (See above.)

She looked at my pix and countered, "Oh no, they aren't here for me," starting to look a little worried.

My wife looked her in the eye and said in friendly seriousness "They are here for you. It's a LOT of people. You should be at The Fox, not here." Suddenly the elevator opened on the restricted floor, as she got off she just said "What's The Fox?" as her handler blocked our exit.

So we didn't get in and I got no further pictures. But at least we saw her and talked however briefly and saw her real shock at what a sensation she, and her book, are becoming.

I'll bet when she sat in her Manhattan apartment putting this book together she never once said "this weird tome will be HUGE in the South."

1 comment:

sessions_please said...

She often seems overwhelmed and anxious about the crowds that pour in from all teh nooks and crannies of teh universe to come see her. Who can blame her? When I met her, it was the same scene. Poor Amy. At least she is getting an insane amount of money from her book sales!