Doesn't he look pleased at the thought? You should go.
I hereby officially invite you to join me, Amy Welborn, Betty Duffy, and the good folk of Korrektiv at the inaugural conference of the Walker Percy Center for Writing and Publishing.
It’s October 14-16, it’s in New Orleans, and it features – well, us. And many more people. And it’s in New Orleans.
In addition to a weekend of panels exploring all aspects of Walker Percy’s award-winning novel, The Moviegoer
I think it’s going to be fabulous.
Amy, Elizabeth/Betty and I will be panelists, talking about “Following William Holden on Twitter.” Here’s an excerpt from our proposal:
“The boy perks up for a second, but seeing Holden doesn’t really help him. On the contrary, He can only contrast Holden’s resplendent reality with his own shadowy and precarious existence. Obviously he is more miserable than ever…”
The Moviegoer (pg. 16)- Are there hopes that you would like the eighth decade of your life to fulfill?
- I was thinking of getting a word processor.
Walker Percy, “An Interview with Zoltan Abadi-Nagy,” reprinted in Signposts in a Strange Land (pg. 394)The marvelous nature of the Internet, as Dr. Percy would surely have discovered if he’d been given that word processor a couple of decades later, is that it offers us innumerable opportunities to contrast the resplendent reality of…well, anyone, really…with our own shadowy and precarious existence.
Rather than merely happening upon a William Holden while on honeymoon, we can immerse ourselves in the lives of celebrities on a far more intimate basis thanks to a panoply of social media applications. We can study the details of Gwyneth Paltrow’s reflexology treatments or commiserate with Conan O’Brien during his unemployment, in hopes that the reflected glory of their everyday lives will make our own shine a bit brighter.
Better, we can aspire for the truly transcendent celebrity encounters – an @-mention on Twitter, our comment shared on Facebook. Not only are we lifted up into a higher plane of intimacy – “William Holden thought my comment at 10:04 PM was clever enough to retweet!” – but we can enjoy this elevation before an audience of thousands of other onlookers, followers, fans. It may be a cheap transcendence, but it’s ours to be grasped.
Other panelists you may recognize:
Brian Jobe / The Unbearable Lightness of Binx: Being and Time in Walker Percy’s The Moviegoer
Jonathan Potter / Re-screening The Moviegoer: Recovering the Movie References for the 21st Century
Matthew Lickona / Tillie and Mac and Belly to Back: Percy and Pornography, from The Moviegoer to The Thanatos Syndrome
I’m hoping this means I’ve finally figured out what it was that Walker Percy was trying to tell me back in 2007.
Anyone taking the streetcar from Loyola to the Quarter may enjoy a visit to:
The Church of the Immaculate Conception
130 Baronne Street
http://jesuitchurch.net/
it’s right across Canal from the Quarter, and only a block from where the streetcar makes its turnaround at Carondelet St.
Christian recently posted..Catholic Time
You should come, Christian!
I’m also hoping to meet up with Jeff Young from The Catholic Foodie while we’re there.
I just stumbled across your Percy post and recognized your name from “Conversion Diary.” My husband and I are big Walker Percy fans. Our first son is named after him (it was before our conversion so we weren’t restricting ourselves to saints at that point, although he might be one). Love the William Holden panel idea – too bad we’ll be camping that weekend.
AxisMundi recently posted..Most…Post (cake version)
Oh, that is too bad! I actually would have loved to name a child after Walker Percy, but “Walker Speed”…you see the issue.
Thanks for stopping by!
Argh! Finally a blogger meeting in New Orleans, two weeks after I move away? Have fun you all, this is a gorgeous city.