{"id":5685,"date":"2010-10-01T17:45:46","date_gmt":"2010-10-01T21:45:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=5685"},"modified":"2010-10-06T15:06:05","modified_gmt":"2010-10-06T19:06:05","slug":"an-editor-abroad-pittsburgh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2010\/10\/01\/an-editor-abroad-pittsburgh\/","title":{"rendered":"An Editor Abroad: Pittsburgh"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Inspecting Winifred Lutz's Garden Installation<\/em> through hole in wall. Photograph by David Keaton.<\/p><\/div>\n

According to the timetable of the Capitol Limited, I spent exactly twenty-four hours and one minute in Pittsburgh. It felt, I am pleased to report, more like a week. <\/p>\n

In the first place, I met one of my literary heroes<\/a>, Chuck Kinder. Chuck is a legend in Pittsburgh. Among other things, he is the real-life inspiration behind Michael Chabon’s Wonderboys<\/em>. If you’ve seen the movie, he’s Michael Douglas. Only Chuck’s funnier and better-looking and West Virginian. Also, in real life his manuscript doesn’t blow away (it, Honeymooners<\/a><\/em>, was the first novel I ever signed up for FSG). After years of phone discussions and sheafs of correspondence, he more than lived up to his reputation for hospitality. In fact, he and his wife, Diane Cecily, and their friends were so hospitable, I almost missed my midnight train. And would hardly have minded if I had. <\/p>\n

I cannot tell you all the things we did. The day\u2019s events, included, in no particular order, a guided tour of the magical Mattress Factory (pictured above and below); a leisurely rooftop interview with the charming Guatemalan journalist Silvia Duarte; two fiction readings; a lively staged talk with the book critic of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette<\/em>, including the by-now requisite opinions on Jonathan Franzen qua<\/em> bestseller; a studio visit with Diane Samuels, who is copying Fagles\u2019s Odyssey<\/em> (in a tiny, elegant hand) onto a large painting of the street behind the house where she lives with Henry Reese, director of City of Asylum (I can\u2019t even begin to describe City of Asylum<\/a>!); and a multigenerational farewell party at Chuck and Diane\u2019s, where I learned much that I had never guessed about the moped scene in Cincinnati (it\u2019s coed, and it\u2019s hopping), the early history of the nickelodeon, how to roast a groundhog (use a corn cob), the difficulties of writing closed captions for girl-on-girl pornography [moans intensify], and the Depression-era practice of using textbooks for fuel. About which last factoid I remain skeptical. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

With Henry Reese and photographer David Keaton in Yayoi Kusama's Infinity Dots Mirrored Room<\/em>. Photograph by David Keaton. <\/p><\/div>\n

Also in Pittsburgh I was told by an Amtrak ticket agent\u2014for the second time in exactly two days\u2014\u201cYou won’t make your train,\u201d then sent running down a platform while somebody woke up the sleeping-car attendant, who was cheerful and informal about it and made up my berth in his boxers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

According to the timetable of the Capitol Limited, I spent exactly twenty-four hours and one minute in Pittsburgh. It felt, I am pleased to report, more like a week. In the first place, I met one of my literary heroes, Chuck Kinder. Chuck is a legend in Pittsburgh. Among other things, he is the real-life […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[456,939,977],"class_list":["post-5685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-events","tag-lorin-stein","tag-pittsburgh","tag-whistle-stop-tour"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nAn Editor Abroad: Pittsburgh by Lorin Stein<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"October 1, 2010 \u2013 According to the timetable of the Capitol Limited, I spent exactly twenty-four hours and one minute in Pittsburgh. 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