Topping It Off at the Pasatiempo

My pal Brian D. informed me that there's an interview with me in Pasatiempo, the arts magazine of the Santa Fe New Mexican. It's actually the transcript of a conversation I had over the phone with reporter Craig Smith about ten months ago, as I was stuck in traffic. It's also one of the first interviews I ever did -- at least sitting on the business end of the microphone -- and I think the jitters show, since I tend to ramble a bit from each question.

There's one funny moment, though, right at the end of the discussion, where a misheard, mis-transcribed word, makes things sound rather dirty:

The other thing I would really hope comes through in the book is how hard this guy really had to work. If you see his letters, he didn’t spell very well; it’s why I wanted to print his letters as they are. He had to work hard to make his writing work. He took it very seriously.

While people thought he was writing this elegant prose and topping it off, he was humping.

Actually, what I said was "tossing it off," not "topping." But paired with the term "humping," it probably sounds more interesting that way.

Here's the link to Pasatiempo, but it's a bit of a mess navigating the pages. If you're so inclined, I'm on pages 32-34. At some point, I'll put a (corrected) transcript up on my main website.