Late Notes

The pitch for the book is tight--goes something like this: “Hi, how are you? My name’s John, I’m a writer and I’m on a tour for my latest book--just making my way down the coast from Santa Barbara. [Hold book up--get it in their hands] Everyone’s heard of Hamlet and Macbeth, but barely anyone actually knows their stories. I was substitute teaching for the city and had a couple classes this one week--the kids were having problems with the language--I was having problems teaching it--so I said--somebody’s gotta translate these things. [Open book run finger down along text] So what I did, I left as much as possible unaltered--left as many words from the original--so you feel like you’re reading Shakespeare, but you'll actually understand it. But because these two stories are so foundational to western civilization, we’re all gonna run into references to them for the rest of our lives whether we like it or not. But if you take a little time, read this, for the rest of your life, it’ll never again be a question mark. Like most people--myself included--we tried to read it in high school, it was a headache, but when I got into the work of it, I saw how amazing these stories are--and all the timeless ideas--I mean people have been discussing these things for hundreds of years….” If they haven’t bought it at that point I ask if they have anyone in the family who reads--“Makes a great gift for the holidays….” Or I show them the novel. Lots of times they go ahead and get the novel instead.


It’s neat to be able to engage people out there in the world. I mean how many times have you seen someone walking down the street, or in a bar or somewhere, and they look interesting, and you wonder what they’re like? I talk with interesting folks all day--and a lot of the times they walk away with a new book and a smile. It’s fun, plus I get to talk about the convention clause of Article V occasionally--in fact check this out: So I’m walking around Encinitas making sales, and I go upstairs to the offices above the commercial stores. This door is propped open, I look in and this lanky, bald guy with a thick beard is behind a desk--the whole place filled with books, stacks of papers, degrees all over the wall behind him. So he buys a novel and a translation, and we get to talking politically. He’s pretty well aware--certainly concerned--mentions his kids--worries for their future. We talk some conspiracy stuff--9/11, the Federal Reserve--all that. Then we get down to the convention clause, we ring up a couple websites there on his computer, and he’s blown away he had never heard of it. We watch the short documentary I made five/six years ago, and I tell him Harvard is having a conference about the Article V Convention later this month. He asks if I’m going, and I say I had hoped to but lack funds at present. We talk about how cool it would be to make another documentary--get some of the panelists for comments--the people attending, etc., and he goes: “You need to be there. I’ll get you ticket and a room if you still want to go.” So the 21st I’m flying back east to go to this: http://www.conconcon.org/