The weeks before Christmas always put me in mind of a major acceptance. And not because it’s a time of gifts.
Twenty-five years ago, on a cold December evening in Philadelphia, I left my office at the American College of Physicians – where I wrote for the Observer, an internal organ for internists – and walked the few blocks to our apartment on 47th Street. Picking up the mail, I found, standing out from the bills and the Christmas cards, an envelope from The American Scholar. I opened it nervously, and read that my essay on Poland had been accepted. The editor, Joseph Epstein, who had always been gracious in his rejections, was uplifting in his acceptance.
This was my first major success as a writer. I headed downtown to a friend’s holiday party. I had never walked so triumphantly into a room. I found Hania standing near the Christmas tree and, reaching inside my sportcoat, I extracted the letter like a talisman.
Yesterday at the Visit Europe Media Exchange, held at the Hollywood Diplomat, I had a hard time explaining the kinds of stories I write. By about the sixth visit - every 15 minutes you changed tables, sort of like speed dating - I finally said: "I write anti-travel stories." "Very good," the woman from Zagreb said, before showing me pictures of palaces in a region of her country not many tourists visit.
But that wasn't what I meant. I'm not looking for sights in unvisited places, I'm looking for the commonplace, the everyday - the nonsights - in touristy places.
Many of the representatives gathered spoke of interesting festivals in their countries. But most festivals - unless they're like carnival in Trinidad - do not feature the widespread and creative participation of the locals. At most festivals, the locals become like tourists. I write stories in which the tourist (me) approximates the life of a local. They are travel stories that focus on the people who haven't traveled. And tourist boards don't know how to help with that.
Yesterday an unprecedented three martinis before noon.
Yesterday an unprecedented three rejections before noon. I consoled myself with a three-martini lunch.
Yesterday afternoon I saw a man walking around the island, head bowed in thought. It struck me as sad that whatever thoughts he had were just that - thoughts - that arrived and then were lost to the moment. Most of them, probably, deserved oblivion, but if he got a really good thought, I thought, there was nothing he could do with it, unless he was a writer, and then he could use it in a story, or an essay, or build a story or an essay on it. It was one of the few times in my life when I've felt pity for someone for not being a writer.
But then it occurred to me that all his thoughts - even the most inane and trivial - need not be lost today because of Twitter, Facebook and - yes - blogs. Technology has made it possible for all of us to salvage and record all of our thoughts; thanks to social media, there need no longer be such a thing as a wasted thought. Which is an even more depressing thought than my original one.
Owing to an unprecedented alignment of the editorial planets, my byline appears this week - and this week only - in three magazines, in three different sections of the newsstand (though each contains a travel story).
In the Current Events section The Weekly Standard features my story about my Mediterranean cruise; in the Nature/Science section the October Smithsonian carries my story about my hike in Japan; and in the Travel section the Sept-Oct issue of Afar offers my story about my visit to Venice.
I'm going to call Lady Gaga to discuss the perils of overexposure.