Author Archive
A Week in Culture: Tom Nissley, Writer and Game-Show Contestant, Part II
May 19, 2011 | by Tom Nissley
This is the second installment of Nissley’s culture diary. Click here to read Part I.
DAY FOUR
11:55 A.M. The pinnacle of my first day after I left my job in March was going to see a weekday matinee of The Fighter. I joked it would be matinees every day from then on, but I hadn’t indulged since, until today when my wife, Laura (who also works from home), and I play hooky at a noon show of The Lincoln Lawyer (H). We are two-thirds of the audience. As nice as it is to be out with my honey, and as indelible a spot Matthew McConaughey has in our hearts thanks to his early turn as Wooderson, The Lincoln Lawyer is no Fighter, sad to say. I go in hoping for an expert course in plot mechanics (a refresher I can always use), but feel instead like I am walking down the “Thriller” aisle at Plot Depot. A small prize, though: spotting a copy of Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet on top of a stack in McConaughey’s nicely cluttered office (my eye always shoots to the bookshelves).
5:30 P.M. I meet two newish friends, Maria and George, for a quick dinner before trivia night at the Washington Athletic Club. I think I had played pub trivia once (and lost) before going pro, and afterward, becoming a post-Jeopardy! ringer was the last thing I had in mind. But my friend Ryan made an offer I couldn’t refuse: joining him for trivia night with two transplants from LA I wanted to meet—Maria, a fellow novelist who used to write for, among other things, Arrested Development, and George, who seems too unassuming to enjoy being called legendary but what else can you say? Last month we trampled the competition, but tonight, in between talk about Ryan's and Maria’s upcoming novels, the pecking order at TED conferences (which may have inspired this), the Luna Park/Largo heyday of LA comedy, and even last month’s Paris Review Revel, where George and Maria got to talk to Terry Southern’s widow after seeing his papers at the New York Public Library, we finish second, which still pays for our drinks.
9:40 P.M. Back at home, to the more orderly trivia territory of Jeopardy!, for the first half of the teachers’ final. Okay, Coryat of 37,600, but I need to read up on Biblical women, astronomy, and country music.
A Week in Culture: Tom Nissley, Writer and Game-Show Contestant
May 18, 2011 | by Tom Nissley
DAY ONE
I am, in theory, living the dream: I made a lot of money on a game show and quit my job to write. In December1, I won eight times on Jeopardy! and suddenly found myself the third-leading money winner in the history of the show (aside from tournaments and John Henry–style man-versus-machine battles). I left my job (as an editor on the Amazon.com Books store) in March, and ever since I’ve been trying to sort out how to get all the things done for which there still aren’t enough hours in the day: reading, working on a novel every day instead of once a week, blogging, umpiring Little League, writing another book that the world might want more than a weird novel about silent movies, saying hi to my wife more than I used to, and, crucially, preparing for the next Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions, which hasn’t been announced yet and which I haven’t yet been invited to, though it seems like a safe bet. For better or worse (better!), being a game-show contestant is now one of my jobs.
Annotations
- Well, actually in September, but I had to keep quiet about it for three months until it aired.
