Blog Silence No Longer In Effect

Well, this is the longest I've gone without blogging since I started this thing. I'm ashamed, but ignoring one's blog gets easier the longer you go without doing it. So I thought I'd just write a short entry about something cool. And only give myself 10 minutes to write it, while I waited for Rita to get ready for our trip to Eastern Market downtown. So I'm writing about the the above graphic review by Marco Rufus Petrella of the Italian edition of my story collection, THE LOST TIKI PALACES OF DETROIT. It's pretty damn cool. Marco has done reviews of all my translations into Italian and it's always interesting.

As far as I can tell, with the help of Google Translate, which isn't particularly helpful, the text is something like "In Italian, the title is 'The World of Things' (which is the name of one of the stories in the collection), but the original title is 'The Lost Tiki Palaces of Detroit.' Zadoorian is the writer of things nostalgic, of the Sixties, when the city was prosperous from the auto industry. Each chapter is named after a different section of the city. It is about post-industrial times and garage sales. And about the world of nerds and mono-maniacs, you know?" Whew. This is difficult.

The second panel looks like it's about someone named Arturo, who maybe works at a bookstore and looks forward to the release of the new book by Zadoorian, a sympathetic American writer." My guess is that Arturo is one of the aforementioned nerds to whom my work appeals. Frankly, that sounds about right.

I had the pleasure of meeting Marco when I was in Rome last year on my Italian book tour and I just loved the guy right off. First, he's got a vintage Vespa which sounds amazing. Second, he's obsessed with Charles Schultz. When I told him that I had been to the Charles Schultz museum in Santa Rosa, California (for I too, have a bit of a thing for "Peanuts"), it was like I had told him about a trip to Mecca. So funny. Anyway, Marco sent me this review on Facebook. I'm thinking that it may be showing up in a newspaper in Italy sometime this weekend, but I don't know for sure.

Okay, my ten minutes is almost up. I'll write again soon. Actually, I'm supposed to be in Italian Vanity Fair, but I haven't heard anything about it yet. Still, they came to our house in Ferndale to interview and photograph me, so unless it was an elaborate gag on some wily Italian's part, it very well may happen. We'll see...