Douglas Coupland at Booksmith

I showed up at Booksmith on Haight Street this evening to see if Douglas Coupland would have anything interesting to say. I bought his latest novel, JPod, last month but only read the 1st 60 pages before deciding to put it down for a while. It just seemed like a rehash of Microserfs. Anyway, his appearance this evening was a total bust. There was an SRO crowd, & things got started late. Mr. Coupland showed up clutching a big box of kleenex with his name drawn on it in fancy letters. He was visibly suffering from a very bad cold & admitted to be "flying high as a kite" on cold medication. So he didn't read, & just 4 people asked questions, which elicited only brief, uninformative answers from him. In less than 10 minutes they moved right on to the signing. One of the people who asked a question received the decorated box of kleenex from Mr. Coupland. I used to be a big fan of Mr. Coupland, but his appearance & the new book are both disappointing.