Saw that popular author Jonathan Franzen's glasses were stolen. I didn't really “see” that they were stolen, just thought it might be appropriate to use that verb since we are talking about eyeglasses.
Not sure if it happened technically today or yesterday because of the London time zone.
Franzen was at a party. One guy took the glasses, another handed him a note with a demand for $100,000 and included a Hotmail address. Franzen immediately wondered if anyone still used Hotmail. He started wondering if that was an odd British thing, like how they used to use Bebo instead of Facebook.
Franzen immediately wondered if his book would sell an additional $100,000 worth of copies even though the Brits messed up printing the right edition of his book.
The London cops or (INSERT SLANG [Bobbies] HERE FOR LONDON COPS) found Franzen's eyeglasses and even called a helicopter. Wonder if they do that for all Americans or just American literary stars. Wonder if London cops like American literature better than Americans do.
Wonder if the crooks were big Freedom fans or if they were upset at Franzen for moving past his Corrections-era style into Freedom-era style. Wonder if the crooks thought Franzen was now a sell-out and he could afford the ransom. Wonder if the crooks actually bought the book or stole a copy of Freedom too.
Wonder if the terror alerts and travel alerts in England this week were in reference to Franzen traveling to the UK. I heard about the terror alerts for US travelers on NPR. I'm pretty sure everyone at NPR has read Franzen's new book.
Wonder if Franzen will write about this, make a spoof of that Mel Gibson movie Ransom and put it up on Vimeo or Funny or Die.
Wonder if Franzen had an extra pair of glasses or contacts.
