Wednesday, March 23, 2005

Dinner with Dave

Because I seem to be shameless in my name dropping (which I justify to myself with the fact that I have so few names to drop that I might as well drop them when I have them), I must report that I had dinner with Dave Eggers last night. Because I keep some things private, I can’t explain how I came to have dinner with Dave Eggers last night. Because I have a blog crush on someone who recently declared her dislike for Dave Eggers, I’m a little nervous about saying that I had dinner with Dave Eggers last night, and then going on about how much I like Dave Eggers. Because I’m brave like that, I will go on anyway.

Why do I like Dave Eggers?

Because the first several chapters of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius are brilliant writing, even if the book gets boring and self-absorbed when he gets to Might (ok, it’s self-absorbed all along, but I submit that there is a difference between brilliant self-absorption and boring self-absorption).

Because when we were in London last spring, he started publishing short short stories in The Guardian and enough of them were beautiful that they made me forgive him his sins.

Because he started 826 Valencia which is simply a great thing.

Because he is working on a non-fiction book about teacher’s salaries, an oral history book about exonerated prisoners, and a novel about the war in Sudan.

Because when he is funny, he is really funny.

Because I am in awe of his creativity and productivity, even if not everything he creates and produces is great.

How was dinner? Dave Eggers was lovely: softspoken, attentive, funny, though he did drop more names in one evening than I will probably ever drop in my life. We had a nice conversation about the growing 826 movement (coming soon in L.A., Seattle, and Chicago) and I learned that the next McSweeney’s will come in the form of a bundle of mail. I’ve heard rumors of sullen egotism, but such was not in evidence. It was a good night.


2 comments:

Kelly said...

When I worked at T*me Mag. he came into the art dept. for a week to do his own layouts for the excerpt of *heartbreaking work* and he had to be sequestered in the deputy a.d.'s office with a new mac. he turned in pages of dimension bearing no resemblance to a T*me page, basically huge squares...and threw somethign of a hissy fit when told they'd need to be remade by one of us art drones to work with the standard templates we used. It was very strange. Whenever I had to deal with him I was reminded of a nervous 14 year old boy who wants to stay under the radar, and be popular at the same time.

But then a few years later, I saw him on that Jon Favreau show Dinner for Five and he was a totally different persona. I'll bet dinner with him was interesting.

bitchphd said...

It is okay. I will not judge you.