02.09.00

For about 5 or 6 years now, I have been quite a big fan of the literary stylings of Douglas Coupland. If you don't know Doug, he's the author of such entertaining novels as Generation X, Shampoo Planet, and Microserfs. Well, Mr. Coupland's latest opus,Miss Wyoming, hit stores just a while back and he's out touring the book dens and megastores to promote it. Lucky me, I can finally spit in the face of that boy whose name I can't remember who would brag to me about meeting Doug in England at a reading, as I now hold the same title: "handshaker and banter-thrower of the affable Mr. Coupland."

Yes, last night, Annie and I continued our weekly "writer scenester" series at Borders by completing round two of "hobnobbing with the readerly class at an author reading/signing." I was far more excited about this than I let on....I wouldn't want to seem like a total nerd now would I? I was quite anxious though. Like I said, I've been a fan of Doug's for quite some time and I've never really had the opportunity to meet a renowned writer. Well, at least not a writer that I really like. I've met some local writers, but no one this famous. And of course, I was overly curious about what Mr. Coupland is REALLY like.

So...we arrived at Borders early, and although we are now fixtures in the Borders writer-visit scene, we didn't have a table waiting for us or anything. There were quite a few people there when we arrived. Oh wait, I forgot to add that I forked over the outrageous sum of $23.00 for Doug's new tome. I wasn't happy about this, but I think i was pretending to be--acting as if this extravagant spending was a part of the event. Funny, isn't it? Well, you're probably asking yourself why I didn't just bring one of my copies of Doug's other books? Well, because a) I only own two of them and they are both at my mom's house b) I thought it might be nice to have a hardcopy edition with an author autograph and c) because I was doing my impression of a dim wit.

So back to the event. Doug entered the "stage" area, which, I might add, could use a little more "author as rock star" treatment, and I can't say that I was really surprised at how he looked. Just a little. He's not as polished and styled in person as he appears in the photos I've seen of him. And he's far shorter than I expected. Other than that, I say he looks just like Doug should look. He was nervous-sounding and a bit awkward at first, but seemed to warm up to the task at hand fairly easily. His nervousness and shyness actually made me feel really good--like he really is a person...and maybe like me in a way. Hopefully I will not write anything more cheesy than that last line for the duration of this entry.

So Doug begins his warm-up schtick, telling goofy jokes, but not goofy in a "politician giving a speech with a requisite joke to start" kind of way. He also engaged the audience in an "interactive" segment, passing out index cards and throwing handfuls of ink pens out to the peeps in the front. He commissioned us with the task of drawing the Canadian flag--a task he revealed that he has assigned to the last few audiences he read/spoke to. It was a neat touch, I thought. I tried to slyly look around at the drawings of the people around me. Every person that was in my line of sight also added some sort of message to Doug on the index card. He told us he'd be looking at the cards and putting them on his Coupland.com website, so I imagine most people just couldn't resist using the card as an opportunity to be heard by Doug. I drew a very bald (yes, I meant to say "bald," not "bad") drawing of the Canadian flag--it was completely beyond my scant talents as an illustrator to attempt to draw a maple leaf, so I drew a stick figure maple leaf--all stem and veins, if you will. I drew lines down the sides of the card to indicate the red sections on either side of the flag. Under the anorexic maple leaf, I wrote "maple leaf (waifish)." The guy in front of me drew a picture of Doug, except it looked like one of those age-progression, doctored photos. Next to the portrait, the dude wrote, "sorry, I didn't do you justice, Doug. You look much younger in person." I didn't think this was very complimentary, but maybe Doug will like it.

After the warm-up, Doug started to talk about Miss Wyoming. Just as he does in his writing, he made tons of references to pop culture icons, no-cons and the like. He was describing one of the characters in his book as being sort of a washed-up young actress from the 70's, not unlike "Kristy MacNicol or anyone from the cast of Facts of Life--except Mrs. Garrett." He was funny and engaging throughout his reading, although I have to admit, I wasn't paying much attention to the passages he read from Miss Wyoming. I'd rather read it myself, although I was carefully listening to his voice, and the way he described his characters. He made a funny crack about how when you have laryngitis, you can talk like Patty and Selma from The Simpsons, and proceeded to imitate their voices. I found this amusing.

After the reading, he answered a few questions, most of them sort of silly, but he answered them graciously nonetheless. After all this, it was time to get in a fairly long line to have books and other ephemera signed. I added ephemera because as I was waiting, i was watching other people make their approach and it seemed as if people were handing the poor guy all sorts of stuff. He seemed to be friendly and sincere to everyone. This made me nervous, quite possibly more than it should have. I didnt' throw up on him when I got up there though, don't worry. This isn't going to turn into an entry in the 'say anything' page of Sassy. or whatever that was called. You know, the section where poor girls would write about their embarassing "I lost my sanitary pad in the pool" kind of things. Whatever, I digress.

So throughout the evening, I had been wrestling with my indecision about what to have Doug write in my book. On one hand, I felt it was kind of lame to tell him what to write, but at the same time, it's kind of funny to have an author write something goofy and sign their name under it, as if they thought it up all of their own clever accords. I bugged Annie about what to have Doug write. We came up with some very funny things, but none seemed quite serious enough to allow me to make my request of Mr. Coupland with a straight face. Some of the things we thought of were, "you betta aks somebody," "babies havin' babies," "back that ass up," "girl, you're still my girl, girl," etc. Well, I settled upon "New wave forever," as I am a fan of the new wave musics, as is Mr. C.

When it was finally my turn to approach Mr. C, I think I did it somewhat gracefully. He shook my hand, said, "hi, I'm Doug." I introduced myself, he looked at the post-it on my book bearing the request: "Krysta, New Wave Forever."

Doug: "Oh, you like new wave."(ok, maybe not a direct quote).

Me, trying not to stammer: "yes, alot."

Doug: "who is your favorite new wave band?"

Me, feeling horrifically mentally disabled: "uhm, well, I like alot of them" (yes, I said something this stupid). "I guess New Order is my favorite. I like them alot."

Doug: "Oh, New Order. They're probably my favorite too. I think substance is uptoppable."

Me, handing Doug my sheepish Canadian flag index card: silence, I guess.

Doug: "ahh, you went for the minimalist style, I see." Doug reads my label of the maple leaf. "waifish.heh. that's great."

Me, shaking Doug's hand (he offered, I didn't just grab it!): "thanks, it was great to meet you."

Doug: "thanks for coming tonight."

I waited a few minutes to read what Doug actually wrote. I knew he'd written more than just "new wave forever."

Now, the title page of my highly overpriced copy of Miss Wyoming reads:

to Krysta,

pure of heart and fellow new waver, (unreadable signature)

02/08/00, Ann Arbor

GIGGLE.

So my first brush with a literary crush went down like dat.

Final verdict: Doug is a nice, charming, slightly shy and awkward guy who is funny, knows his pop culture and talks like a Canadian valley girl and has a voice like Mike Myers.