The book in Italy

It was wonderful to see, during a recent sojourn in Rome, that the Italian edition of A Romance on Three Legs, published by Einaudi in the spring, was displayed face out at a bookstore in the center of Rome.

As if that weren’t gratification enough, it turned out that Einaudi’s own little shop in Rome is a few hundred meters from the apartment on Via Giulia, the historic street where said sojourn took place.

And inside the little Einaudi outpost, the book is also prominently displayed. I met Maurizio, the man tending the store, who was only too happy to shake my hand and ask me to sign a copy of the book. Still better, he told me that someone had actually come into the store to request the book!

Maurizio at Einaudi Shop

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The lengthy interview I did with Anthony Wright on KWMR is now up! The nicest part is that Verne is featured in the third segment, answering a few tricky technical questions about CD 318.

The German edition of AROTL is out! And the title is wonderful: Romanze Mit Einem Dreibeiner: Glenn Goulds Obsessive Suche Nach Dem Perfekten Klavier.

The publisher, Schott Music, is one classy outfit. Not only is the book elegantly produced, but the translation, by Matthias Müller, is excellent. Matthias was painstaking in his work, to the point where he spotted some errors in the English version.

Here’s the classy jacket from the classy publisher:

AROTL is just out in paperback, and it looks, well, more bendable than the hardcover. I was a little dismayed to see that none of the corrections I had sent in to Bloomsbury made it into the book. Okay, I was more than a little disappointed. I was a little miffed. Okay, I was more than a little miffed. I was a little extremely pissed.

But enough of that. I gave a reading at Moe’s Bookstore in Berkeley last week, and the turnout was very nice. Friends came, but so did a few strangers, too. My friend Mark Seiden was there, and he asked the best question I’ve ever been asked during a reading: “What about those G.I. uprights that Steinway dropped by parachute for use by troops during World War II?”

Another nice highlight of the paperback so far has been a radio interview where Anthony Wright, the interviewer, actually came to my house and set up his equipment on my dining room table. I served him tea, and we chatted — into microphones. The interview will air on Anthony’s show, Attunement, on KWMR, the community radio station in Point Reyes Station.

Here’s Anthony with his equipment:

Attention all German-speaking GG fans. AROTL is going to be published in Germany in March by Schott Music, the renowned German publisher of all things musical.

The translation is nearly finished, but there is still no title.

In English, the title works beautifully (and it was actually Gould’s own description of his relationship with the piano). But it doesn’t translate well in German, in part because in German a piano’s legs are actually called Füsse, so “A Romance on Three Feet” would be strange indeed.  The literal German  translation would be “Eine Liebesgeschichte auf Drei Füssen,” which sounds like something written by a madwoman.

So we’re stumped. Which is why we (Stefan, the editor at Schott, Matthias, the translator, and I) decided to throw the problem out to the world of GG lovers.

Assignment: Come up with a German title for the book.
Deadline: December 1.
Reward: Your name in the acknowledgments of the German edition, a copy when it comes out, and the satisfaction of having done something truly creative — and helpful!

AROTL is the November pick for “Whistler Reads,” a book group in Whistler, BC, a small town two hours north of Vancouver.

Whistler appears to be a community of serious readers, with an heavily-trafficked Web site called BookBuffet.

Paula Shackleton, the founder of Whistler Reads and BookBuffet, has interviewed hundreds of authors. We had a wonderful interview for a multi-part Podcast, which is here.

I had a wonderful evening on Thursday at the San Francisco Public Library, speaking to a group of classical music enthusiasts. I had the presence of mind to bring my little speakers with me, along with my iPod that I had loaded with the 80-CD Complete Original Jacket Collection. During the talk, I played Variation XX of the Goldberg Variations for the group so they could hear the unbelievable speed with which GG’s fingers flew, as well as one of the Brahms Intermezzi I love so much, partly because they are so uncharacteristic of Gould. Someone also requested a bit of Schoenberg, which I was only too happy to play.

A few other topics that came up:  the intriguing Disklavier re-performance of GG’s 1955 Goldberg Variations made by John Q. Walker of Zenph Studios; the Pygmy chair; and the reason GG stopped performing in public.

Last Wednesday, I gave a talk at Google as part of its ongoing series of author talks. It was, of course, a pleasure and an honor. Leave it to Google to do everything right.  I was very pleasantly surprised by the turnout, and delighted to see that very few people who showed up were multitasking on their laptops while I talked. In fact, they were rapt (or were making a very good show of seeming very interested).

The audience was composed of a lot of Googlers — and one young daughter of a Googler, a young pianist named Sara — who also happen to be accomplished musicians. Not surprisingly, perhaps, it turns out that there are quite a few musicians at Google (could they get a full orchestra together, I wonder? Now there’s a question worth pursuing). And their questions, again not so surprisingly, were quite technical — so technical, in fact, that one of them stumped me altogether. A software engineer who is also an avid amateur pianist said that, like Gould, he prefers a light action, and he asked if Verne did anything to the pedals. I had no clue. So, loath to try to stumble my way through an answer, I seized the moment — and my iPhone — and called Verne right then and there, and the Googler put his question to Verne directly.

Afterwards, a number of people came up to me to say how much they appreciated the sponataneous nature of the talk, especially the fact that it was PowerPointless. I said I appreciated their appreciation, and confessed that I’m actually completely hamfisted when it comes to PowerPoint, so there wasn’t much danger of my showing up with a bunch of slides to throw up on the wall.

I did, however, bring my iPod, and I used it to demonstrate the sound of Gould’s speed demon hands while playing Variation 20 of the Goldberg Variations.

Of course, Google sound and video engineers were on hand, and they put the talk up on YouTube.

On August 11, Bloomsbury in England will start selling the book in the U.K. This might have piqued the interest of producers at the BBC sufficiently to interview me on the Today Programme. Since I’m in England anyway, it made sense to do the interview sooner rather than later. So yesterday I ventured out to the vast BBC complex to talk briefly — and I mean ever so briefly — about the book.

The host was James Naughtie, who knows a lot about Gould in particular and music in general. We managed to cover a lot of ground in three minutes!

Saturday, July 5

Having never heard West Coast Live, I wasn’t sure what to expect when I was invited onto this San Francisco-based, two-hour weekly NPR program. It turned out to be was of the most enjoyable experiences I’ve had in months.

The guest host was Mike Greensill, a pianist (aka “the man who knows the white keys from the black keys”) who wanted me on this wacky and wonderful show because he loves the book (lucky me). The regular host, Sedge Thomson, was on vacation and apparently listening in from Paris.

When I arrived at the second floor of the Ferry Building, I walked into a scene of delirious chaos. The first hour was to proceed as (relatively) normal, but the second hour was to be devoted mostly to the wedding of Asa de Matteo and Tom Brady, who have been together for more than 30 years and were making it official. The wedding was to be officiated by the Rev. Sam Barry.

In the green room with me were: Miriam Goodman, who has a new book about retirement; Amy Tan (with her two peanut-sized Yorkshire Terriers stowed in her handbag), there to talk about her new opera based on her novel The Bonesetter’s Daughter; and Larkin Gayle, a singer/guitarist/songwriter who just wrote “I Do,” a same-sex marriage song.

The wedding ceremony was incredibly touching. The S.F. Gay Men’s Chorus sang, and Larkin performed her song, and we all raised a glass of champagne to the happy couple. It reminded me of all the reasons I love living in the S.F. Bay Area.

I was the first guest up, and the interview went really well. Mike put me at ease, and vice versa– the best way for an interview to flow. And the audience seemed amused, especially when Mike read aloud one of his favorite parts of the book — a sentence about urine content in the wool used for hammer felts. Go figure.

Afterwards, the authors were invited to sign books, which were being sold by Booksmith on Haight St. (Speaking of which, I’ll be there this Wednesday, July 9 at 7:30 p.m. for a booksigning.)