When I got back from Germany (a week at the Frankfurt Book Fair), I reviewed all the comments (on various posts) that I’ve received recently, and they’re quite wonderful. I’m learning a lot. People are amplifying (and correcting) the info in the posts, as well as letting me know when I’m connecting. Inspiration to keep going.
I have about 1000-1500 visitors a day. Not exactly viral, but a nice-sized community. I love doing this, to tell the truth. Blogging is foremost in my mind when I come into the studio each morning, even tho it’s non-remunerative. I’m excited about what I see in the world, and want to tell others. It’s communication, pure and simple, which has fascinated me since my high school course in journalism. I’d love to work on a newspaper, but I can’t write that fast, and my stomach wouldn’t handle the deadline pressure. So I publish the (very) occasional book, and now try to get out a blog post each day. I don’t have time to respond to many comments, and could never take the time to do Facebook as it’s being done. But this, a daily shot or two, works for me. The web allows me to broadcast.
This blog community reminds me a bit of the booklovers in Fahrenheit 451, who were semi-outlaws on the outskirts of the regulated society and dedicated to books and the earth and freedom.
Pentagonal Beemer hubcap
Sunday late afternoon I stepped outside the hotel, for the first time in a week without a heavy backpack, and felt light as a feather. Got my mo-bility workin, was able to move along smartly in the 2-mile walk into the town center, and shot photos. If I haven’t mentioned it before (probably have), the Canon Powershot S95 little pocket camera is in a class by itself. I have it with me almost all the time.
A pretty spiffy live-aboard van (Not a VW, couldn’t see any indication of maker.)
This is the most intense place at the Book Fair. There are about 500 agents from all over the world and the demand (for their services) is way greater than the supply (of willing agents). Luckily, much of it dating back to my Random House days, I have some wonderful agents. But with Japan, for example, I’ve had very little luck in even getting a meeting with agents. They’re already overbooked.
Access to this room is guarded. It helps to walk past the Monitors of the Gateway as if you belong. Agents have meetings every half hour, so you need to move along smartly. It’s a very exciting place.
Dinner last night at the Kartoffelkuche restaurant in Bad Homburg. Himmel und erde, Heaven and earth: mashed potatoes, chopped liver, bacon und blutwurst, mit apple sauce. The name means, I take it — couldn’t get any better. Delicious and hearty. With two glasses of (dry) apple wine. Felt like I should have spent a day working in the fields to justify this.
He may have suffered fools badly, but he left us with a legacy of elegance. The photo on the cover of this future blockbuster book included.
The above:
1. Printed 1767!
2. Price: 29,500 Euros ($40,000)!
Lovejoy is a character in a series of English mysteries who is a “divvy” of antiques. He can divine authenticity. Sometimes an old object will almost knock him out. I felt something similar with some of these very old, very beautiful books yesterday, almost a ringing in the ears. Another book of drawings of chameleons was 12,000 Euros. There was a 1901 first printing of Eadweard Muybridge’s The Human Figure in Motion for 1700 Euros. And in the more reasonable zone for 60 Euros, America by Walker Evans, black and white photos from the depression, a powerful book. (I just ordered a used copy online for $33.00.)
I didn’t realize it was the inspiration (totally) for Robert Frank’s photo book The Americans from the 1950s. Evans is the photographer who teamed up with writer James Agee to do the classic Let Us Now Praise Famous Men in 1941, a book I idolized in the ’60s when I was starting to shoot photos.
When I left the room of rare books, a lady guard asked to look inside my backpack. SOP. Understood. Totally.
When I got back from Germany (a week at the Frankfurt Book Fair), I reviewed all the comments (on various posts) that I’ve received recently, and they’re quite wonderful. I’m learning a lot. People are amplifying (and correcting) the info in the posts, as well as letting me know when I’m connecting. Inspiration to keep going.
