On Sunday afternoon I went to see Brian Jacques, author of the Redwall series, and I was finally able to unravel one of the greatest mysteries of the universe. No, not “Is light a wave or a particle?” I mean something far, far thornier: How the #@$! does one pronounce “Jacques.” Neither of my two main guesses — “zhock” and “jaw-kez” — turned out to be anywhere near right. It is actually pronounced “jakes,” as in the plural of “Jake.” The audience was mostly kids and their parents, and we all had to sit on the floor in the order we had been standing in line. I tried to tell the burly and uniformed bookstore security guard, “It’s okay. I’ll just stand in the back. I don’t need anything signed, and I’m meeting someone after this so I might have to slip out a bit ear…” The guard, who very possibly suffers from the misapprehension that he’s working a secret service detail, was like, “SIR, I’M GOING TO HAVE TO ASK YOU TO SIT ON FLOOR RIGHT NOW.” So I sat. Brian Jacques in person is extremely boisterous and theatrical. (He originally honed his storytelling skills while reading and making up stories for children at a school for the blind.) He also has a tendency to tell really old jokes, and when he would get on too much of a roll with this, his wife, who was sitting in back, would interrupt, “Brian, Brian, just answer the question.”
Afterward I met up with new children’s fantasy author Kaza Kingsley, who came across my Myspace profile a while back and messaged me, and who was in town for her book tour. Her second novel, Erec Rex: The Monsters of Otherness, is out in stores now, and you can see some of her TV interviews on her website.
Speaking of Myspace, my account has been absolutely snowed in recently with spam friend requests. Like, 30 per day. I used to look at all these profiles just to make sure I wasn’t accidentally blowing off a real person, but I just can’t keep up anymore, and really, what are the chances that it’s a real person when their profile picture is Jessica Alba’s butt? The most shameless one I received went something like: “Hi! Im Cindy. I came across yuor profile and you seem relly cute. If you want to see more pictures of me (and some that are a bit racey, OMG!!!) check out my other profile. I don’t use Myspace to much. I cant stand all the spam.” Man, the nerve of these people. Seriously, “Cindy,” DIAF.
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