{"id":18864,"date":"2016-07-08T06:53:48","date_gmt":"2016-07-08T10:53:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=18864"},"modified":"2016-07-08T06:53:48","modified_gmt":"2016-07-08T10:53:48","slug":"when-fame-comes-to-the-bookstore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=18864","title":{"rendered":"When Fame Visits the Bookstore"},"content":{"rendered":"

One thing that’s hard about celebrity spotting at the bookstore is that we can’t divulge names without violating our customers’ privacy, so we have to tell our stories with a little scrim in front of the most salient\u00a0details. Still, I can’t resist sharing an\u00a0anecdote from this week, because I come off like such an ass in it that I am still laughing and kicking myself in equal measure.
\n
\nI’d noticed the family outside the restaurant next to our store when I arrived at work one muggy afternoon\u00a0\u2014 an adorable toddler in a dotted dress, waiting out the weather on a wooden bench on the porch with a small cluster of adults. They looked hot, but companionable. Some minutes later, they wandered\u00a0into our\u00a0air-conditioned bookstore and browsed, cooling off. After a while, most of the group\u00a0wandered back outside, but one man stayed back to buy\u00a0a book. He came up to the counter. He looked like a hundred\u00a0other Vermont dads and young granddads, a nice-looking middle-aged guy in casual clothes and a baseball cap. He was just passing through, he said, but\u00a0I had the feeling\u00a0he’d been in\u00a0the bookstore before.\u00a0We get a lot of summer visitors who visit\u00a0once a year, and I was almost\u00a0certain we’d met. His voice was familiar, and he had a quiet but distinct presence that rang a bell.
\nNow, I have a moderate\u00a0facial recognition issue, which often gets me into trouble. I’ll be watching a movie, and a guy will come on screen, and I’ll say, “Wait, who’s that?,” and my movie companion will say to me, “It’s the same guy from the last scene, with a hat on.” “Oh, right.” It happens to me all the time in real life, too, so I’m used to\u00a0not recognizing people I actually do know.
\n“You seem so familiar,” I said brightly to the customer. “How do I know you?”
\nHe paused, then said, almost inaudibly, “I’m an actor.” This should have been my clue to leave it alone. Only famous actors mutter their credentials.\u00a0But no. I grew up in Los Angeles surrounded by actors and actresses, including my own mom, so It’s like a little happy blast from home\u00a0when I encounter\u00a0people in the entertainment business, so\u00a0I plunged on, oblivious to his\u00a0signal. “So… where might\u00a0I know you from?” I asked as I made change for his purchase.
\n“What do you mean?” he said, a bit flatly.\u00a0At this point, when his lack of enthusiasm was clearly evident, I really should have stopped myself. But I didn’t. I was looking forward to that moment when “you look familiar” turns into satisfying\u00a0recognition. I clarified.\u00a0“I mean, what recent work might I have seen you in?”
\nAnd then he mentioned three hugely famous, internationally<\/em> hugely famous, funny movies from the past couple of decades,\u00a0one each from\u00a0adult, teen, and kids’ genres. These were major movies, and I was trying to place him in them. Feeling a little sheepish and still not totally on the ball, not entirely\u00a0certain what\u00a0role he’d played (character actor? sidekick?), I punted. I said jovially, “Gosh, never heard of those little films.” Totally kidding, because everyone alive has heard of those films, but he didn’t chuckle along with me. I’m not even sure he knew I was joking.\u00a0He might have\u00a0thought I was a rural rube\u00a0who didn’t go to movies, or a bookish sort who eschewed pop culture. I knew I’d blown it, but wasn’t sure why. Yet.
\nIf Josie had been working that day, or if Laura hadn’t gone to lunch immediately before this family came in, I might have been saved. Josie would recognized him right away and could have slipped me a Post-It with his name on it.
\nI was already kicking myself when,\u00a0as he turned to leave, a customer standing nearby looked at me and mouthed his name. All of a sudden, everything clicked.\u00a0I could see\u00a0his face morphing into his\u00a0slightly younger face in those movies, complete with makeup and costumes. He wasn’t a character actor. He was the main character\u00a0in all\u00a0those movies. And not just the star, but also\u00a0a writer, a producer, and a director\u00a0of some of the most creative projects to ever come out of Hollywood. I watched as this humble icon\u00a0walked out of my store into the sultry heat of a pre-storm afternoon.
\nThe young woman nearby turned to me and said, “I can’t believe I just did that! I can’t believe I just stood there and said ‘Hi!’ to him like that!”
\nShe said he’d caught her eye on the way out, and she, recognizing him, had beamed, and maybe even hopped a little, as she said a bubbly “Hi!”
\nShe added, “What I really wanted to say is, ‘You are a freaking genius.'”
\nYeah. That would have been nice. She and I stood there, both replaying our respective idiocy, wishing we had been more collected, more articulate, funnier, and appreciative of this man’s prodigious talent in a way that wouldn’t come off so boneheaded.
\nI was especially annoyed with myself. Even though it is probably refreshing not to be gawped at and gushed over everywhere you go, it’s also probably unsettling not even to be recognized after being forced to out yourself to an inquisitive stranger.
\nAnd then we grabbed our phones, wondering who among our friends would most appreciate the absurdity of our exchanges and the magnificence of even such a quick visit from a world far, far away from little Vermont.
\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An unexpected visitor brings out the idiot in all of us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18864\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}