A Hell of a Town

A classic New York anecdote from a friend of mine, who said I could share it anonymously:

Last night, (redacted) and I got into one of those Death of Publishing conversations that everyone seems to be having these days while we were standing on a street corner in the East Village. After about ten minutes of talk of downsizing and bad sales and disappearing midlist authors, a homeless guy in a cap and striped tights, who had been sitting next to us holding a sign asking for money, stood up and interrupted. "Did you know that the bestseller list is total bullshit?" he said calmly. "It's rigged. All it shows is how many books Barnes and Noble bought from the houses, not how many were sold. I swear to God." Then he turned and walked away.