by In the wake of last week's misunderstanding at the 92Y here in New York City, Steve Martin has offered several "refund jokes" to his followers on Twitter, and in Sunday's edition of the New York Times, Martin wrote an op-ed that not only offered his perspective on what happened, but also suggested that he could have, would have found a way to leave his audience entertained had he not been interrupted.
Now let me try to answer the question you might be asking yourself at this point: was I boring? Yes, I might have been. In hindsight, I probably should have read a few pages from my book to give the audience a feel for it, and I did struggle with a few explanations. But I was not lazy and neither was Deborah. We were both working very hard at our task.
I have no doubt that, in time, and with some cooperation from the audience, we would have achieved ignition. I have been performing a long time, and I can tell when the audience’s attention is straying. I do not need a note. My mind was already churning like a weather front; at that moment, if I could have sung my novel to a Broadway beat I would have.
But I can’t help wondering what we might have said if we hadn’t been stopped. Maybe we were just around the corner from something thrilling. Isn’t that the nature of a live conversation? It halts, it stutters, it doubles back, it soars.
