Douglas Coupland Reads JPod
24 May 2006, lunch time
Apparently I am the only person I know from Waterloo who hadn’t heard of Douglas Coupland. He has written several books, one of which is called Microserfs. Microserfs is about Waterloo graduates getting snatched up by Microsoft to toil on their various computer projects. The novel began as a short story published in Wired. It sounds like it would be a whole book about people I know. My cousin brought him up over the weekend; I don’t remember how the conversation turned to Microserf, but it did. Yesterday, Heather emailed me to say she has a spare ticket to see Douglas Coupland read from his latest book, JPod. That was a strange coincidence.
Angela, Heather and I went to the show together. I met them at Townshoes, where Heather was buying shoes for a wedding. The sales lady was trying to up-sell her some sort of satin scotch guard like spray. She was very strange. The show was held in a theatre at U of T, and it was packed. The show has sold out some time ago. The audience was a real mix-bag of people. Coupland came on shortly after 7:00, and told a story about how his agent wanted him to go on this show, MTV Live. It was a funny story. He then read briefly from his book, a passage in which one of the main characters in the novel meets Douglas Coupland. How post-modern. He read three passages in total, and passed the remaining time cracking jokes and telling stories. It was a very entertaining book reading.
Angela stuck around to get her book signed. Neither Heather or I were in the mood to line up. Heather walked South to her home, and I headed North to bloor. I bought a double-cheeseburger at McDonalds; it was awesome.