I only read it for the articles

Writing is widely regarded, I am often startled to discover, as inherently cool.  As a person who spends her days muttering to herself in a book-padded room (although rarely in pajamas) I need reminding of the exotic caché of Being a Writer.

Mostly I get those reminders through my friends, such as this weekend in la La Land: dining with agents who are instrumental in transforming books to screen and are on a first name basis with those faces usually seen in close-ups or with exploding objects in the background.  On the same patch of grass with the entourage moving Carol Channing from green room to stage.  And then riding up the Pacific Coast Highway with a friend who has not only spent hours chatting with Stars about Sherlock Holmes, but even had one clamber over his gate to get at him.

His kids are, finally, impressed.  Not only at his links with Hollywood, but with this:PB-BI0910_As_front

That’s right, Les Klinger, veteran Twitterer, co-star of the Les and Laurie show, and author of the New Annotated Sherlock Holmes,sherlockholmes-cover

is unarguably Cool.  As proof, he has an article in the October issue of Playboy, because he’s not only the annotator of Holmes, and the future annotator of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, but of Dracula as well,New-Annotated-Dracula_sm and Playboy needed An Expert. 

The article’s a little tricky to read, being in multi-colored ink (mostly blood-red) and scattered across pages already graced with poor young women who look like new mothers suffering from an excruciating degree of engorgement (what can I say? I was a counselor for La Leche League…) but it manages the tricky balance of being both learned and titillating. 

However, I’ll admit that I didn’t read the article on the plane home.

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4 Comments

  1. strawberry curls on October 6, 2009 at 10:48 am

    “…scattered across pages already graced with poor young women who look like new mothers suffering from an excruciating degree of engorgement (what can I say? I was a counselor for La Leche League…)”

    Thank you for the laugh I so needed today. I’d never thought about the artificially endowed in quite that way before, but you can be sure it will come to mind from now on. 🙂

    Thanks,

    Alice

  2. Cathy on October 7, 2009 at 10:41 am

    I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks that such woman look like they really need to breastfeed, and soon!

  3. Meredith on October 9, 2009 at 5:20 pm

    I actually bought a copy. That in itself was an amusing experience. My husband sez we should ask him: are you playmate of the month? 🙂 Meredith

  4. Carlina on October 10, 2009 at 7:26 pm

    Somehow I can’t see Dr. Klinger to distressed about being in Playboy. However, I completely agree about the engorgement. Ha! Titillating! HA!

    That laugh was worth the evening tea on my laptop.

    La Leche…titillating…engorged… 🙂

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