So anyway....Carol is in NY this week to promote her new book 'Carrie and Me: A Mother-Daughter Love Story' and made the rounds of TV appearances, including Good Morning America, The View and an interview at Sirius satellite radio, as well as a book signing at Barnes & Noble in Union Square, and of course I was there. I've had the good fortune to meet Carol twice before, but unfortunately the pictures always came out dark. When she was in NY last year to promote the DVD release, I got a motion shot as she walked to her car, but I've never managed to get a good, clear photo of her just being Carol. So I was on a mission!
Leaving straight from work, I got to Barnes & Noble at 5:30 for a 7:00 signing. Thank God my friend Rick, who takes Polaroids of celebrities and then has them signed on the spot, was there or it would have been a long hour and a half wait. We were in the third row, and were informed over and over and over again that 'Carol will not be posing for photos, but you are welcome to take as many as you want from the audience. She will only be signing the featured book, and will not be signing any memorabilia. She'd like to spend as much time with each of you as possible, so there will be no Q&A session, but she will talk briefly before the signing starts.' I must have heard that about ten times while we waited. Oh, and the A/C was out, so you can imagine how it felt in a warm, crowded bookstore after waking up at 4AM (don't ask!) and working all day. Booksignings are kinda like a circuit party for the nerd set, a literary Comic-Con of sorts, so familiar faces dotted the crowd. I mentioned to Rick that one lady up in the front row with a really strange rock necklace and a dried up purple flower in her hair looked very familiar, and he thought so too. And then it came to us, literally at the same time, like when you were a kid and you said the same thing as your friend at the same time as your friend and then you punched them in the arm and said 'jinx, you owe me a beer' even though neither one of you was old enough to drink beer, 'She looks like Magda from Sex and the City!' A quick google search (Magda, Sex and the City) confirmed that it was indeed her, complete with a photo showing the same purple flower and rock necklace. You remember Magda? Miranda's housekeeper, who replaced her vibrator with a statue of the Virgin Mary and bought her a rolling pin "To make pies. It's good for a woman to make pies."? I guess she didn't get much in the way of residuals from that show.
At 7:00 on the dot, out came Carol Burnett, who I must say is very spry for a 79 year old who's career was built on very physical comedy. And she was delightful, giving a short speech about how grateful she was that we'd all come out to see her and how excited she was to meet us, which I'm sure some publicist in the back room wrote in the car on the drive over from the hotel. The line moved pretty quickly, and by 7:20 it was my turn. I thanked Carol for all the laughs she'd given me and my family over the years and wished her well on the book tour, she looked up, shook my hand and thanked me for coming to see her. Again, I must say that the older celebrities are MUCH nicer to their fans! Rick got his Polaroid, although he hesitated to ask her to sign it, and we headed out to the subway, two happy campers basking in the afterglow of another celebrity encounter.
As we put our books away, adjusted our bags and pulled out our subway cards, Magda came out to the sidewalk. Rick looked at me and I looked at him and we both nodded in agreement. 'Would you mind if I took a Poloroid of you?' Rick asked. 'My friend and I are big fans of Sex and the City and we thought it was you inside.' She was a little confused at first, and then absolutely thrilled that anyone even recognized her (because when you look at the picture, let's face it, she doesn't stand out unless you've seen every episode of Sex and the City a million times on E! while folding your laundry like I have) and smiled for the camera. What a sweet lady. Her name is Lynn Cohen, not Magda, which is funny because I went to college with a girl named Lynne Cohen that I'm friends with on Facebook to this day, and Lynne if you're reading this, hey!
It was so great to meet Carol Burnett and Magda! I photoshopped the signature from my book onto my Polaroid to make it match all my other ones, but called out the fact that it's a cheat.
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Thanks for making the time go quicker.