You know when you’re walking down the street and you see an “elderly” person with more style than they know what to do with, and you think, “Wow! I wish I had the balls to ask that lady for a photo. She looks incredible!”? It happens to me every day here on the upper east side. You wouldn’t believe the threads some of my neighborhood octogenarians hobble around in; it’s awesome in the truest sense of the word (extremely impressive or daunting; inspiring great admiration, apprehension, or fear).
Anyway, I was looking for a suitable picture of Gay Talese for this weeks BOOK CLUB! BOOK CLUB! BOOK CLUB! when I came across this “what the cool fossils are wearing” blog called advancedstyle.blogspot.com. The site’s creator, Ari Seth Cohen, roams the streets looking for “New York’s most stylish and creative older folks” to photograph and interview. And then he beats them. JUST KIDDING! Not funny. Respect your elders.
Am I crazy BTN (behind the news) on this one? Did you already know about the blog? No? Speak up, man! Well, it’s really cool; you should check it out, especially if you have a thing for old birds; and, lets face it, who doesn’t? They’ve been ‘around the block’ a few times, haven’t they? Know what I mean?
JUST KIDDING! Respect your elders.

Now it’s time for BOOK CLUB! BOOK CLUB! BOOK CLUB! YEAH!
(What’d you think of the ‘YEAH’ at the end? Too much?)

This week I wanna talk about The Gay Talese Reader and what a complete and utter head-fuck it is. I know I mentioned GT about a month ago when I first started this book, and I know I should be able to read more than one single book in a whole month, but what you don’t know is I read four books at once at all times; that way I can’t be overly influenced by any one thing that I’m reading. I call it the ‘fruit salad method’. Check it out.
Now, Gay Talese. How could anyone be this good at telling stories? It’s unearthly; not only that, it’s not fair. GT is absolutely incredible, and -at the risk of sounding deeply racist- I hate the Dutch. WAIT! That’s not what I meant to say! I was going to say something about him reminding me of a bad-ass, Al Pacino, Italian American stereotype, but then I thought better of it… Then I thought I’d mention feeling self conscious about carrying around a book with the word ‘GAY’ on the cover; what am I? Twelve? Pfff, idiot.
Here’s an excerpt from The Gay Talese Reader‘s first story: ‘New York is a city of things unnoticed’

New York is a city of things unnoticed. It is a city with cats sleeping under parked cars, two stone armadillos crawling up St. Patrick’s Cathdral, and thousands of ants creeping on top of the Empire State Building. The ants probably were carried there by winds or birds, but nobody is sure; nobody in New York knows any more about the ants than they do about the panhandler who takes taxis to the Bowery; or the dapper man who picks trash out of Sixth Avenue trash cans; or the medium in the West Seventies who claims, “I’m clairvoyant, clairaudient and clairsensuous.

How’d you feel when you read about the ants on top of the Empire State? Brilliant. Can you please read this book?
Here’s Gay talking about his influences as a writer and stuff.
Catch you tomorrow.