To my comrades in the GHC who have yet to stop whining, I repeat: There was no time to go into Predator Mode and hunt the man down because I was working. I warned you ahead of time! But no worries, ladies. He'll be back. They always come back to SoCal. I'll get him then. I'll tell him how all of us love him (but my love is obviously more Pure than yours), and then I'll give him every single one of his books to sign To Me With Love (and hope he's not insulted that some of them are kind of raggedy due to multiple reads), and then I'll take his picture, and then I'll make prints of the pictures and mail them to you. I PROMISE to do this for you. But don't forget your promises to cover the bail if things Go Horribly Awry.
Meanwhile, one of the 13 impossible things to happen when my shift as Executive Booth Bunny*** was over was being able to spend a bit of face time with the fabulous M'e of Mysterious Galaxy! This NEVER happens. I also got to see up close a retailer on their game. Here's how that went down..
Guy wanted a book. There's books all over the place, but guy wanted a specific edition of a book. Maryelizabeth had one copy of the desired edition of this particular book left. She found it in her inventory, walked it over to him in one of the signing areas located way the hell over in a different quadrant of the UCLA campus. The guy who wanted the book happened to still be in the signing area when she showed up. She handed over the book, he looks at it and basically goes "wow." During their brief chat he seemed genuinely surprised that she hand-delivered what he wanted. One thing I thought was rad was how she didn't even tell him she was one of the owners.
And that's yet another example of why, if you give a fuck about books, you should support the independent booksellers who are the foundation. Based on what I have seen/endured at this event over the years I guarantee you not a single employee of the Big Box Bookseller who is a major sponsor of the LAT festival would have bothered to make the effort. You'd be lucky if the people staffing the BBB booth knew who you were talking about.
Here are some pictures, the ones that didn't turn out blurry, anyway.
*** The best compliment I ever got on how I work an event of this type came from The Departed many, many moons ago, back when he was still mobile, and we were just acquaintances. I was in the previous profession, and he happened upon me working that day job's booth at an event. He watched for a good chunk of time before coming into my range of vision and letting me know he was there. He said "you're what a booth bunny should be!" I'm 95% sure that was the first time I had ever heard the term "booth bunny." Years later, once Eddie Izzard came onto the scene, James dubbed me an Executive Booth Bunny. I still miss him every day.
