Living with Legends

We used to think our do-not-disturb sign was pretty cool.  (It says: “Please don’t bother me. I’m writing the next great American novel.”)  But recent developments have led us to suspect that these things are pretty widespread.  While in San Francisco we stayed at the Hotel Rex, a place whose only claim to the status of literary hotel is that in the café they give you your check in an old book – our was Stories of California.  This hotel had a sign that said, “Please clean my studio – even artists like to be pampered,” and featured a writerly dude staring at a stack of appears. (The Chelsea sign, tellingly, does not have a “clean my room” option.)  There must be a group of hotel-supply salesmen who go around preying on unsuspecting hotel owners with literary pretensions. — Ed Hamilton