Lemony Snicket

[JesusA (imported)]

Excerpted below are two sections of an article from this morning’s San Francisco Chronicle. The first part of the article was top-and-center on the front page of the “Datebook” section and, with color photos, covered more than half the page. A continuation of the article on an inside page was about another half page. Snicket fans can read the entire article at www.sfgate.com/article.cgi?file=/c/a/20 ... 138106.DTL

A series of fortunate events for author Daniel Handler, a.k.a. Lemony Snicket, including forthcoming film, fatherhood

Heidi Benson, Chronicle Staff Writer

Monday, October 13, 2003

A Snicket ticket could have been a people pleaser, but Daniel Handler never considered running for governor.

"I don't have time," Handler said on a recent drear and foggy afternoon at a sidewalk cafe in Cole Valley, where he sat shivering over hot coffee and cold tea.

"I prefer some sort of monarchy, actually, because I'm not terribly interested in what other people think." The author was looking very "Brideshead Revisited" in a baggy flax-colored linen suit.

Under the name Lemony Snicket, Handler has written "A Series of Unfortunate Events," the popular children's book series tracing the travails of the Baudelaire orphans, which is being adapted for the screen.

The newest installment -- "The Slippery Slope: Book the Tenth" (HarperCollins) -- has just leaped to the top of the New York Times children's best-seller list.

**********

Is it too picturesque that Handler's parents actually met at the San Francisco Opera?

Asked if they met onstage, he rebounds: "Yes, my mother was playing Aida, and she remains to this day the hippest white woman in San Francisco."

(The city found her pretty hip recently, when Sept. 5, 2003 -- her birthday -- was designated Sandra Handler Day by Mayor Willie Brown, honoring her years of service as dean of social and behavioral sciences at City College of San Francisco.)

Handler not only shares his parents' love of opera, he even took to the stage himself in the early '80s, singing with the San Francisco Boys Chorus in San Francisco Opera productions of "La Boheme," "Carmen," "Tosca" and more.

"My parents always joked that they considered castration to elongate my career," he said. "It's always been the narrative of opera that has intrigued me, and my second adult novel, 'Watch Your Mouth,' is structured as an opera -- in acts and scenes and overtures."