From Wilt Chamberlain To Google: An Evening With Roy Blount Jr.

About 100 Austin literary aficionados gathered Wednesday night at St. Edward’s University to sample wine, duck and Brie quesadillas and the ambiance of Roy Blount stories. It was the Writers’ League of Texas spring fund raiser. As Blount set his wine glass on the podium, it started to slide. He deftly caught it and remarked, “I hate slanted podiums. They must think that a man can’t drink and lecture at the same time.” He, of course, can, though the evening felt more like a living room chat than a formal talk. He mostly told tales. Even the question and answer period was a dialog, with frequent comments and friendly interruptions from the audience. His journalist story about a trip to the Bellaire home of Wilt Chamberlain displayed the keen ear and comic mime ability of southern story tellers. He was funny, in a high humor sense. One of many writers who rose from the ranks of magazine journalists, he published his 21st book, Alphabet Juice, last year.

A question from Mary Gordon Spence about Google prompted Blount to first critique their spelling skills and then praise their food policy. “No employee is more than 100 feet from free food,” he said. He went on to describe two-and-a-half years of meetings with Google over their program to scan and make digital copies books available. As President of the Authors Guild, he first sued Google and then helped negotiate, over “many, many lunches,” an agreement between Google, authors, and publishers over access to out-of-print books. He learned new words, like “belt and suspenders” along the way. He thinks it implies redundancy. He said, “I just kept my ear peeled for anytime they would say something that would cause John Updike to drag me through the streets if I agreed.”

When the agreement is approved by the court (a ruling is scheduled for later this year), revenue will be split between Google and the Books Rights Registry (BRR). The BRR will then distribute the money to authors and publishers using a formula that relies on a few broad categories. Revenue will come from digital copy purchases and requests for excerpts from special stations set-up in libraries. Authors can opt out and at least one author in the audience announced her intention to do so. A few in the audience mourned what they saw as a step toward the eventual demise of physical media. Newspapers might be the first casualty. Taking the other side, Blount, a confessed newspaper lover, pantomimed the imaginary conversation of a Kindle lover: “I never could figure out how you could deal that huge, floppy thing of paper. It gets all tangled up and the pages keep blowing away at the beach.”

Afterward, Blount signed books. This too might someday pass into folk lore. He will remain in town for the Saturday taping of the NPR’s Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me!

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