David, I don’t understand how T. J. LeRoy, whom you identify as a man, could fool you over the phone because her voice must have told you that he was a she, unless she was really good at impersonations.
Anyway, years ago, my then-wife was assisting, as a gopher, John Krich, a San Francisco
writer doing a book on Brazilian music; tried ad infinitumto get an interview set up with famed bossa nova composer/guitarist João Gilberto. And, on perhaps half a dozen phone calls, Gilberto kept promising to meet her to finalize the interview, but never did. When I told her that he was a recluse, even among people close to him, with whom he would correspond often via phone calls or letters, she gave up but felt manipulated.
There are numerous anecdotes told by people whom Gilberto would invite to his home in Rio and then ask them to slip letters under the door of his apartment as a way to communicate because direct interaction was for him a taboo. To each his own. But I think some people like to go to extremes to remain mysterious to others, which to me seems like a waste of time.
I had no excuse other than I was insanely busy and J.T. was a minor columnist in a fat book of writers, all of whom I edited. I just never got around to smoking him out. Like I wrote, we had far bigger problems. That said, I still blame myself.
David, I don’t understand how T. J. LeRoy, whom you identify as a man, could fool you over the phone because her voice must have told you that he was a she, unless she was really good at impersonations.
Anyway, years ago, my then-wife was assisting, as a gopher, John Krich, a San Francisco
writer doing a book on Brazilian music; tried ad infinitumto get an interview set up with famed bossa nova composer/guitarist João Gilberto. And, on perhaps half a dozen phone calls, Gilberto kept promising to meet her to finalize the interview, but never did. When I told her that he was a recluse, even among people close to him, with whom he would correspond often via phone calls or letters, she gave up but felt manipulated.
There are numerous anecdotes told by people whom Gilberto would invite to his home in Rio and then ask them to slip letters under the door of his apartment as a way to communicate because direct interaction was for him a taboo. To each his own. But I think some people like to go to extremes to remain mysterious to others, which to me seems like a waste of time.
I had no excuse other than I was insanely busy and J.T. was a minor columnist in a fat book of writers, all of whom I edited. I just never got around to smoking him out. Like I wrote, we had far bigger problems. That said, I still blame myself.