My first papparazo sighting

Earlier this evening, I went to Shalom Auslander's book reading at the Barnes and Noble in Chelsea. I got there late, and the crowd had already spilled over into the aisles and stacks of books. Auslander read from his book, "The Foreskin's Lament" which details the terror he experienced growing up in an Orthodox Jewish family. The crowd, mostly apostates looking for absolution or at least commiseration, laughed at the most heretical parts. People from other parts of the store kept drifting over but didn't seem to get the dead baby jokes. The archetypal crazy cat lady found at all New York cultural events hovered around the edges of the crowd.

Finally, during the Q&A a Euro-looking guy loped in. "Who is this?" he whispered excitedly to the man standing behind me. "Shalom Auslander," the man answered annoyed and a little embarrassed.

"WHO?"

"Um, he's a writer."
"Like a, like a novelist?"

The man standing behind me shrugged his shoulders and exhaled loudly. It was only when he turned away to talk to the cop guarding the door that I saw the camera with the 70mm lens. Are they going to let him take photos in the store?, I thought. All those times I've walked around Soho or the Upper East Side and this is the first place I see a papparazo?, was my second thought. The papparazo came back with a handler whose was brusque and accented. "Excuse me!," she said while shoving me out of the way to show the pap the promotional poster.

"Oh." The paparazzo was disappointed and headed out into the night to stalk more famous prey.