J. D. Salinger Bio Sounds Good, and a Writers Party in Austin, circa 2006

So back in 2006 I was at an opulent writers’ party, a post-event thing at the Texas Book Festival, standing next to Frank McCourt and Maureen Down, Richard Ford and Jay McInerny, who today is reviewing a new biography of J.D. Salinger, here: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/books/review/McInerney-t.html?hp
I’ve always liked Salinger and admired his reclusiveness. This sounds like a good read. But back to that party in Austin: My best friend picked up a bottle of wine from somewhere (of course it was all free, great food and drink) and was heading upstairs with it, to hang out on the roof, and a caterer person asked him to leave the bottles on the tables please. He kind of slunk away, telling me later he felt like Ratso Rizzo in Midnight Cowboy, in the Andy Warhol’s Factory party scene, where he’s stuffing the sandwiches in his coat, and the woman tells him, “You don’t need to steal them, they’re free.” My other friend (female) tried to pinch Richard Ford.