meetviggo

My Audience with the King of Gondor

9/1/02

I met the king of Gondor today.
That is to say, I met Viggo Mortensen today.
Sounds pretty good both ways, doesn�t it? ;-)

I had heard from theonering.net that Viggo would be doing a reading in Santa Monica sometime in late August or early September, but I put it out of my mind because I found out about it the day before a busy week. I remembered it again yesterday, and as we had nothing else to do (and given our slightly adventurous tendencies when it comes to anything Lord of the Rings related), we decided to go.

The Arrival
We left rather later than mom wanted to, and way later than I did. I know from experience and disappointment that it is always better to be way early than on time. We were worried about traffic, as it was Labor Day weekend. We also weren�t sure we could even find the place. God was good, though. There was no traffic, and the website of the bookstore that was hosting the event gave pretty good directions (a very nice store, by the way). We were there two hours early.

And it wasn�t quite early enough.

We parked in the wrong parking structure, so we had a bit of a walk to reach the place. All kinds of people were there. Not as nice as a walk through Disneyland, if you take my meaning. Though to be fair, it wasn�t as bad as the City Walk outside of Universal Studios. We spotted the theatre that the store was acrossed from first, then we saw the store itself. A sigh of relief made it�s way up to my lips (I was worried it would be very obscure and hard to find), then disintegrated when I saw the crowd. Or, should I say CROWD! From the bookstore door, down to the side of the building, three or four people wide was the line. The sighs became resignation, and we took our places. At least it wasn�t as bad as Festival Con Dios.

It was around now that I wondered if he would be signing books other than his own. I had my copy of �Return of the King� in my purse along with my Strider bookmark. Kyle and Tommy (my sister and brother) both had their one-volume copies of Lord of the Rings. I didn�t want to risk standing in this line for an hour only to find that he wouldn�t sign my book. And I had my wallet with me. And I was bored anyway. So I went into the store to see what books they had of his and how much they were. I knew from browsing online that they were usually twenty to thirty dollars, so I was glad I had brought money. A montage of things I had almost bought and didn�t played through my head and I thanked God for stopping me from making those other �splurchases�.

Inside I was behind another lady who wanted to see Viggo�s work. We were obliged to ask at the cash register to view them. For reasons unknown to me they didn't have Viggo's work set out with the rest. The man behind the register (there was a man and a woman) handed me �Sign Language�. I looked through it quickly (there were people waiting behind me and the guy acted impatient), then decided to see what the lady in front of me had bought and what it looked like first.
She was very nice (waiting in long lines for a common interest always creates something of a short term bond between people, I�ve found) and let me flip through. I concluded that I liked how �Coincidence of Memory� looked the best, so I went back into the store to take a closer look. I wanted to see if any of the books had that neat picture of Elijah in it. I flipped through �Sign Language� more extensively (there was no one behind me in line now, so I didn�t feel as hurried), but didn�t see anything LotR related. Lucky for me, I got the lady cashier this time. She opened up a copy of Coincidence of Memory for me, and upon browsing I found (Joy!) a picture of Elijah that I had never seen before. I knew that Viggo was going to be reading from it (from the store�s site), I liked how it looked, and it had a nice picture of Elijah. I bought it. I�m not gonna say how much I paid for it (it was the most expensive of the four available, and two of those are out of print), but if you�ve bought art/poetry books before you can get an idea. I don�t have any regrets from buying it yet, but I probably will. I get buyers remorse from everything. It came with a set of rules for the signing. Rules having to do with yellow stickers (to make sure you bought the book here and not somewhere else. Support your independent stores!), only accepting personalized items (meaning he will only sign something if you tell him your name. He doesn�t want to see people selling his autograph on eBay), saving seats, no recording allowed, and no pictures during the reading. How would you like it if you were reading your poetry and there were flashes going off in your face?

After this it was just a wait until the line moved and we actually got into

The Bookstore.

note: this account is written as a diary entry, because I didnt want to write a detailed explanation for my journal and then a condensed version for the net. Feel free to browse at your leisure. This will not be on the test.