I saw the name of the first author’s book and said, out loud so now my sweetie thinks I’m a freak, “WHY GOD WHY ARE YOU DEPRIVING ME OF THIS?!”
From the New York Times:
TV Writers’ Strike Leaves Jilted Authors Looking for a Bully Pulpit
By MOTOKO RICH
Published: November 10, 2007David Levy’s publisher had built his entire book tour around a scheduled appearance on “The Colbert Report” last Monday.
But then the members of the Writers Guild of America went on strike, and Mr. Colbert’s show went to repeats, leaving Mr. Levy to promote his book “Love and Sex With Robots: The Evolution of Human-Robot Relationships” (HarperCollins) through radio interviews and answering questions from about 70 people who attended a reading at the Museum of Sex in Manhattan.
“I bought a really nice jacket,” Mr. Levy said.
He’s not the only one disappointed. Over the last few years Mr. Colbert and his fellow late-night Comedy Central “news” anchor, Jon Stewart of “The Daily Show,” have established themselves as prime movers in the book world, and an appearance on one of their shows is highly coveted by authors and publishers. To make matters worse, fall is the biggest time of the year for booksellers, who schedule many of their heavyweight titles to appear in October and November.
“Often, to be honest, both Colbert and Stewart have really chosen books that don’t often get television coverage — peculiar political books that in the realm of TV coverage are rather eccentric,” said David Rosenthal, publisher of Simon & Schuster. Until they return to production, he said, he could probably put his authors “on a soap box in Central Park and affix them to a microphone.”
In Mr. Levy’s case, “that ‘Colbert’ appearance was the anchor for us flying him in from London,” said Tina Andreadis, director of publicity at Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins, which is publishing the book. “It was a big disappointment. Colbert would have been the perfect outlet.” It’s easy to imagine the field day that Mr. Colbert would have had with the book, which combines research into artificial intelligence, psychology, sociology and sexology and, among other things, compares the possibility of sex with robots to sex with prostitutes.
A whole book? About sex with robots?! GEOFFREY WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY?!?!
“[T]he evening[s from 11:00-12:00 PM EST are] spread out against the sky / Like a patient etherized upon a table [...].”
*SOB*
I’m so depressed.
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GEOFFREY WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY?!?!
I just lol’d so hard.
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I heard about this book!!! I’m saving money up for my own ‘bot! ;)
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@DB: Thanks for making me laugh through my tears. There’s so much stuff out there TDS/TCR is missing out on this week: Aqua Dot beads made in China metabolize into the ‘date-rape’ drug; FEMA trailers are formaldehyde coffins; the new torture-luvin’ AG…
Sigh..
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Truly, the writer’s must be knashing their teeth at the lost opportunities.
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I was supposed to go to this actual taping this past Monday. My best friend and I had been looking forward to seeing this interview ever since we picked the 5th as our “play hooky from work, and stand in the stand-by line all day long, HOPING to get in” day. I can’t tell you how depressed we both were all day.
DB: I feel your anger — the laughter I derive from both TDS and TCR makes all the malarkey that went on throughout my day become nonexistent, and to not have it just leaves me angry, cranky, and sad. If only the AMPTP understood how therapeutic laughing until you cry really was.
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Why God why???….
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Sex with robots? That sounds like a TV show that needs to be writ… Ohhhhhhhh… yeah, I get that now.
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