Arts and Entertainment your connection to The Boston Globe  A
man of letters savors the high life  Salman Rushdie enjoys his
celebrity  It's always easier to promote a book when you can
leave the house, something Salman Rushdie couldn't do
comfortably for nine years after Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini put a
bounty on the Indian-born author's head. (Khomeini considered
Rushdie's novel ''The Satanic Verses" blasphemous against
Islam.) However, since the death sentence was lifted in 1998,
Rushdie's become quite the man about town, partying with
celebrity pals like Kylie Minogue and Bono, waging high-profile
First Amendment fights on behalf of other writers, and, last
year, marrying the much younger Padma Lakshmi, an Indian
actress, model, and cook. Tonight at Tufts, Rushdie reads from
his latest book, ''Shalimar the Clown." We reached him at a
hotel in Seattle, where he was registered under his own name.
Q. You sound tired. Do you like traveling around on book tours?
A. I do. It's always very pleasurable to meet y