Daniel Handler Is Very Busy, page 2

"When I moved back here after college, I didn't know any writers. One of the reasons why I was happy to go to New York ... I didn't know a single other person who was doing what I was doing. And now there are a lot of them. Helps me to feel less like a lunatic."

He laughs. "Lots and lots of people from New York say, 'Why on earth would you go back to San Francisco?' And I came back here for pretty obvious reasons: I just love the City, I think it's a delicious city and a beautiful city. And I have lots and lots of friends here who I've known for 15, 20, even 30 years." But does Lisa miss life on the East Coast? "She's so happy to have been liberated. In New England, you're not often actually aware that you're free to leave."

Aside from Tank Hill and "all the bookstores," Handler shared some of his favorite haunts.

"I really like Zam Zam on Haight Street. Best jukebox, I think, of any bar in town ... and I like the cocktails at the Orbit Room and at Enrico's in North Beach.

"Okazu Ya, that's my favorite sushi place, that's on Taraval and [27th]. It has this roll called the Midnight Express that we get a lot, which is rice wrapped in halibut, and then there's caviar on top and a raw quail egg on top of that. It's really like the sexiest thing you've ever tasted in your whole life. Honestly," he goes on, laughing, "I don't think you should eat it with anyone you're not prepared to have sex [with]. Don't take your mother there!"

Those familiar with Handler's involvement with the Magnetic Fields and several other of mastermind Stephin Merritt's musical projects will undoubtedly be excited by their latest collaboration.

"Stephin Merritt and I have been working on this movie musical for a long time, and we're having to just restart work on it. When we met and started the preparation, I had just come up with the idea for the Lemony Snicket books and he'd just come up with the idea for 69 Love Songs, and we both said, ''Well, we'll both do this one little project and come back,' " he says, laughing. "And they both turned out to be a little bigger than we thought. So, we're trying to get that back on the front burner."

The musical, tentatively titled The Song From Venus, is about a flying saucer that lands on earth and is mistaken for a 45 record. "I can't imagine who would star in such a thing," Handler says, "but Mr. Merritt has a fantasy involving Sarah Cracknell of Saint Etienne."

And another musical project looms on the horizon: "I formed a band with one of the editors of McSweeney's, called Danny and the Kid - I'm Danny and Eli Horowitz is the Kid. He plays the glockenspiel." And when can we expect to hear from Danny and the Kid? "Right now we're still in the buzz period. Our motto is, 'Look for us in record stores because we hang out there a lot.' " He laughs. "But I'd like to hone that and become one of the best accordion-glockenspiel duos that have ever lived. Yeah, one of the top six."


Daniel Handler, continued
	When I asked him about Adverbs, Handler said simply, "It's about a bunch of people in and out of love ... it's in favor of love." As a fan of his work, I expected there was more to the story, and when he read an excerpt from the book at a LitQuake event in October, it revealed once again his totally original way of looking at things: "This is love, salt-water taffy; pretty much everyone has had some. Somebody offers it on a day when you have nothing to do and most likely you'll take it and put it in your mouth. ... This love story is about this style of love, this sweet thing that exists unasked for that everybody eats out of the same bag." (Note: If you're getting the impression that I basically followed this man around for a few months, you're right. I did. I was lucky that, while I was writing a story on Handler, he happened to be very accessible. Since our first meeting in August, he made several appearances around the City promoting a few of his many projects, and of course it was necessary for me to attend all of these events to gather as many tidbits as I could. He's fine with it, really.) Handler is surely a lot less accessible since the release of the highly successful Unfortunate Events movie this Christmas. Though he was originally involved in writing the screenplay, Handler ultimately had no creative input, but was thrilled with the "gorgeous" and "unnerving" finished product. The film stars Jim Carrey as Count Olaf, Meryl Streep as Aunt Josephine, Catherine O'Hara as Count Olaf's compassionate neighbor, Justice Strauss, and Jude Law as the voice of Lemony Snicket. In other Handler movie news, Rick, his modern-day version of the Verdi opera Rigoletto set in corporate America, saw limited release in October. "Bill Pullman, who is working for a younger man, discovers that this younger man is having an erotic email correspondence with his daughter, and it goes from there. I'm very excited about it, actually. I'm in it very briefly as Bill Pullman's waiter." He pauses. "Paper magazine called it 'hateful.' " Dark and unsettling, with a twisty plot and reprehensible characters, Rick is similar in theme to a Shakespearean tragedy. After a short run in theaters, the film was released on DVD in November. * * * * * * * * * Handler and his wife, Lisa, left San Francisco for New York in the late '90s, and returned a few years later to a burgeoning literary scene.	"I came back here for pretty obvious reasons: I just love the City - I think it's a delicious city and a beautiful city."	"When I moved back here after college, I didn't know any writers. One of the reasons why I was happy to go to New York ... I didn't know a single other person who was doing what I was doing. And now there are a lot of them. Helps me to feel less like a lunatic." He laughs. "Lots and lots of people from New York say, 'Why on earth would you go back to San Francisco?' And I came back here for pretty obvious reasons: I just love the City, I think it's a delicious city and a beautiful city. And I have lots and lots of friends here who I've known for 15, 20, even 30 years." But does Lisa miss life on the East Coast? "She's so happy to have been liberated. In New England, you're not often actually aware that you're free to leave." Aside from Tank Hill and "all the bookstores," Handler shared some of his favorite haunts. "I really like Zam Zam on Haight Street. Best jukebox, I think, of any bar in town ... and I like the cocktails at the Orbit Room and at Enrico's in North Beach. "Okazu Ya, that's my favorite sushi place, that's on Taraval and [27th]. It has this roll called the Midnight Express that we get a lot, which is rice wrapped in halibut, and then there's caviar on top and a raw quail egg on top of that. It's really like the sexiest thing you've ever tasted in your whole life. Honestly," he goes on, laughing, "I don't think you should eat it with anyone you're not prepared to have sex [with]. Don't take your mother there!" Those familiar with Handler's involvement with the Magnetic Fields and several other of mastermind Stephin Merritt's musical projects will undoubtedly be excited by their latest collaboration. "Stephin Merritt and I have been working on this movie musical for a long time, and we're having to just restart work on it. When we met and started the preparation, I had just come up with the idea for the Lemony Snicket books and he'd just come up with the idea for 69 Love Songs, and we both said, ''Well, we'll both do this one little project and come back,' " he says, laughing. "And they both turned out to be a little bigger than we thought. So, we're trying to get that back on the front burner." The musical, tentatively titled The Song From Venus, is about a flying saucer that lands on earth and is mistaken for a 45 record. "I can't imagine who would star in such a thing," Handler says, "but Mr. Merritt has a fantasy involving Sarah Cracknell of Saint Etienne." And another musical project looms on the horizon: "I formed a band with one of the editors of McSweeney's, called Danny and the Kid - I'm Danny and Eli Horowitz is the Kid. He plays the glockenspiel." And when can we expect to hear from Danny and the Kid? "Right now we're still in the buzz period. Our motto is, 'Look for us in record stores because we hang out there a lot.' " He laughs. "But I'd like to hone that and become one of the best accordion-glockenspiel duos that have ever lived. Yeah, one of the top six."






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