Don’t forget that you can see videos of a bunch of events from the festival on the New Yorker website, namely, these:

Islam and the West
The second annual New Yorker Town Hall Meeting, with Omar Ahmad, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Mahmood Mamdani, Azar Nafisi, Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im, and Lawrence Wright. George Packer, moderator.

 
Comic Turns
Steve Martin interviews Roz Chast.

Fiction Night
Gary Shteyngart and George Saunders read from their work.

Justice for All
The Honorable Stephen G. Breyer interviewed by Jeffrey Toobin.
This video will be posted Monday, October 16.

The Case Against Secrets
A talk by Malcolm Gladwell.
This video will be posted Wednesday, October 18.

I’m glad the Shteyngart and Saunders evening is one of the events on video, because that’s the one I reluctantly ducked out of in order to have the mind-blowing experience of having Tony sing me (in tune) Pink Floyd’s “See Emily Play,” and watching him kiss women’s hands as the fired-up crowd greeted their star and, nearly, friend. Michael Apted, who also introduced the film, seemed a lot nicer in person than I thought he would be given his slightly sour and flat commentary on 42 Up, and that was reassuring.
 
Also unrelated to the festival, I just saw the hysteria that was the Union Square B & N crowd for the final Lemony Snicket book, and here is a little New York Observer interview with Stephin Merritt (whose CD with Daniel Handler, a.k.a. Snicket, a person of whom I have long been fond, is also just out), in which Sasha Frere-Jones is mentioned.