I had a good time last week when a book publishing scandal was the city’s top headline. Articles made the cover of both The Globe and The Star (just to recap, Penguin’s President David Davidar tried going at a couple ladies in the office; both him and the company be getting sued). Russell Smith also gave us his take on the story and the industry demographics. Says Smith: 1) publishing is all hot, young women; 2) all drunken parties and glamour. True dat to 1), not so much to 2). It’s a pretty restrained and whitebread industry these days and I wish it were otherwise.
How whitebread? Well, take look at how us book peeps were freaking over a pretty tame episode. (Like this stuff doesn't happen in law or film, and much worse). When the first reports came out, the details were Joe Eszterhas-ish. Dude waiting outside girl’s apartment and phoning to be let in; showing up at her hotel room, button-shirt unbuttoned; tongue forced town throat. Crazy shit. But then his statement checked and balanced all that sordidness. She let him into her hotel room; his shirt was only semi-unbuttoned; kisses were amicable and returned. Pretty high school. For consistency, our industry magazine published an old profile piece that detailed another faux-pas filled romantic failure:
Later David came to tell me the lady had accepted his invitation to dinner. He was to pick her up the following evening. I advised him to be particularly careful about the impression he made on her father, and to take her flowers. He said my ideas in these matters were unoriginal. It was Easter. In the patisserie of a hotel, he had seen a life-size Easter bunny made of chocolate. It cost a lot and with a lavish dinner would exhaust his month’s salary, but it was worth it. As to her father, he expected to have a man-to-man talk with him over a drink.
This rendezvous was not a success.
Sounds less like a predator and more like the other overly literary, overly romantic dudes I chat with at book launches.
In light of all this, I’m finding the “keep-it-in-your-pants-especially-if-you’re-the-boss” reading a bit on the boring side. Russell Smith, for example, basically sums up his piece saying, “Perhaps I’m getting old, but believe it or not, I actually value my colleagues’ professional abilities more than their beauty.” (Forget the fact that he veils some of his own flirting with the ladies in the article text itself: “since I’ve just published a novel, the most important professional contacts in my literary life are my editor, my agent and my publicist. By a fluke not unusual in publishing, each one of these happens to be shockingly beautiful.”)
I was talking to a male officemate who was all unequivocal about this and I thought that that was a pretty anti-guy code stance to take. In this sense: empathize with any guy who gets f’d up by infatuation even if you wouldn’t get as f’d as him. Personally, I wouldn’t buy chocolate bunnies or read a girl poetry (that stuff doesn’t work when you’re 20 and it won’t work even more when you’re 50), but I know how devastating and rattling a crush can get. The right smell, the right brush of forearm, and any dude can get done (especially 50-year-old marrieds). In my case, I’m not going to have the call to say I’d keep it rational and smart. I wouldn’t want to be completely like that anyways. I like the romantic idea of dude getting moved like that even at that point. There’s not much virtue in simply not being affected. There’s tons of virtue in fluttering but staying stalwart.
Davidar’s getting sued for sexual harassment. “Romantic harassment” seems more apt, don’t it?
Me and a female colleague were emailing.
Female colleague: “When you’re in charge, don’t do this stuff.”
Me: "Firstly, I’ll never be in charge. Secondly, I gots to be me.”
