Wow, we're off to a flying start here, aren't we? I totally spaced out and didn't get to this till seven p.m. Pathetic. I never should have agreed to do this, because I don't really have the "diary gene." I never kept one as a child ? why write down your deepest, secret thoughts when you can think them in your head, where they belong? And like I'd really need someone to "discover" them. What fun.
It's also the worst possible week to take this on, because here at the Knopf art department we close the Summer 2007 catalogue on Friday, and I'm totally, utterly behind in my titles. And this is the only night this week I can work late.
Isn't this fascinating? Have you passed on to the web-porn of your choice yet? God knows I would have.
Anyway, enough whining. I must take stock. Here is a list of what I have to do this week:
- Design a cover for Christina Garcia's forthcoming novel, A Handbook to Luck.
- Construct and photograph a miniature set for Martin Amis's new novel, House of Meetings. By Thursday morning.
- Redesign a poster for a Pedro Almodovar film festival.
- Do the mechanical for Robert Hughes's Goya, newly in paperback.
- Get an approval on a jacket for a book on the history of relations between Jews, Muslims and Christians in the Middle East (by Zachary Karabell).
- Do research on a poster for Sofia Coppola's upcoming film, Marie Antoinette (I'm so, so behind on this and Sony's being very patient).
- Prepare my presentation for the huge design lecture I'm giving in London next week.
- Write at LEAST 10 new pages of my much-delayed second novel, The Learners. (I must! I must!)
- Figure out how to gracefully get out of writing a piece on stationery for Men's Vogue that's due in July.
- Write a short piece on my favorite "Anonymous design" for Casa Brutus, a Japanese magazine.
- Send back corrections and notes on the latest draft of the screenplay for The Cheese Monkeys.
- Drink, drink, drink.
And no doubt I'm leaving something out, for which I will get the requisite nudging e-mail and/or phone call.
Ready? Go.
And now, let's end on something truly gay. As some of you may or may not know, I wrote an eight-page "Batman vs. Superman" story that the genius Alex Ross drew and painted, for the book of his work I put together called Mythology. The story was called "The Trust." Inevitably, some comics geek made a desktop CGI film of it. The narration is abysmal, but you can tell the poor soul really spent a lot of time on it, and there is the merest sense of how cool it could be if it got the big budget treatment. Oh, one can dream.