celeb spotting

Every city has its celebrities. In Washington D.C., the local magazine in our hotel room had advice for those looking to spot the Obamas, featuring restaurants and other locations popular with the president and his family. In L.A., my friends tell me everyone is an actor. Here in New York I ran into Philip Roth while walking on Manhattan's Upper West Side yesterday afternoon. At first, I thought I recognized the frail, old man approaching, but couldn't quite place him. Then I did, said hello sheepishly (to which he responded, gracefully enough, with a nod), and walked right past him. I recognized him only because I'd recently watched li>this video, in which Tina Brown talks to Roth about his newest novel, The Humbling. The novel tells of an aging actor who has lost his gift for the stage and finds comfort, temporarily, in a passionate and complex love affair with a lesbian woman several decades his junior. Having read a review copy of the book, I'd say it reminds me a lot of Everyman. Together, the two novels may represent the latest Roth genre--one that focuses on aging, particularly male aging, and the characters' tragic attempts to hold onto their youth. Invariably, the old men in Roth's novels pine after impossibly beautiful and indecently young women who are, by and large, far beyond their reach.
As I brushed past Roth yesterday I noticed his slightly stooped gait. My smile was an acknowledgment of his stature as a literary star (if not exactly my personal literary hero). But what did he think of me (assuming he noticed me in the first place), a woman in my late 20s, smiling at him with that star-struck look that must be flattering to anyone--man or woman, young or old--but perhaps especially so when a young woman bears the smile and the object of her smile is an old man?