And so I set to work, as per Oliver’s late-life instructions, to put this book together. Or rather didn’t. For almost a year, I hesitated and dawdled, resisting and procrastinating. Instead, I wrote two other books. And still I couldn’t seem to jump-start myself. (One always needs to be careful writing about somebody else’s writing block: the stuff’s contagious. Just ask Joseph Mitchell.)
One afternoon, not writing, I wandered over to the Guggenheim instead, to take in the sly and wry Fischli and Weiss show. I was relaxing for a moment on one of those benches along the ramp, when a young fellow came up to me and introduced himself as Brandon Stanton and explained that he ran a little weblog operation called Humans of New York. Oh yeah, I assured him, I know about you. And so, oh, that was good because maybe then I knew how he liked to take pictures of random people around town, and would I mind if he took one of me. Not at all, go ahead. Whereupon he took a few snapshots and then came back to say that he always asked a question to go along with the photo, and today’s question was: What sort of work are you currently doing? Whereupon I replied regarding the work that I wasn’t.
And a few days later I got a call from Sara’s best college friend Niwa, a Tanzanian cultural-geography grad student at the University of Wisconsin, shouting over the line, “Parent, you’ve been Humanized!”
And indeed. There I was on Stanton’s website, kvetching away.
I was about to enter my fifteen minutes of viral anonymous fame, because even though my own name wasn’t indicated anywhere in the post, presently hundreds and then thousands of commenters were weighing in, urging me forward, suggesting that I just tell that story, that would be a great way to begin, come on, you can do it, they all promised to buy the book, how hard could it be, just get in there and write what you know, and you obviously knew him …
You guys do it, I wanted to say, if it’s so damn easy.
But instead I did go back to my desk. And started compiling this book.
Love you, Oliver,
miss you every day.