Díaz, Jones, and needing to be two places at once

September 6, 2007

Any magic experts in the house? New age gurus? Does it take more than a day to learn astral projection?

Tonight I need to break into two people so I can be at both Junot Diaz’s reading (can you hear the hymns of the seraphim? the trumpets sounding in Zion?) in midtown, and the New Stories from the South event at McNally Robinson that will feature editor Edward P. Jones and contributors Joshua Ferris (a former Key West lad) and Angela Threatt.
 

Actually, I promised a few months ago to go to the second of these events, after reading Jones’ excellent introduction (which among other things extends honorary membership status to those of us who didn’t exactly grow up in the South but feel Southern).

But I’ll have to slip out a little early to head up to Midtown and try to touch the hem of Díaz’s garment.
 

For those of you stuck at home:

• You may not be able to hear Díaz himself reading from the extravagantly and justly praised The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, but you can listen to the author discussing Washington Heights’ Dominican restaurants. He contributed an article on the subject to this month’s Gourmet. Also, at The New Yorker, there’s that old “How to Date a Browngirl…” audio excerpt. (Thanks to Cup of Tea & a Wheat Penny for the audio link; image of El Malecon, one of Díaz’s favorites, taken from Off the Broiler.)

• Elsewhere, hear Jones and Ferris discuss their approaches to writing, and visit Angela Threatt’s blog. Update on 9/7: And here they all are on yesterday’s Leonard Lopate, discussing the anthology.

Finally, after the merriment of Saturday night, Lauren and I will probably still be lying around our apartments with cold cloths on our foreheads and all the lights turned off, but if you’re free Sunday afternoon, you should go out to Good World for this month’s reading (on “The Working Life,” featuring Lisa Featherstone and Tom Treanor, at 5 p.m.) and a little hair o’ the dog.