This week in publishing news: I am still looking for a job.
On the bright side, I am aboard the actual Galway train at this very moment!
Thanks for the WiFi, Iarnród Éireann.
Monthly Archives: October 2012
Print Museum
Today I went in to see the Houghton Mifflin Harcourt office in Dublin. I did some contract work for HMH in Austin over the past year, and I would definitely like to maintain a relationship with the company while I’m here in Ireland. I went in to ask a few questions and to make sure they know I’m available for any internships or volunteering projects they have going on over the next year.
Then I went to the National Print Museum.
The National Print Museum is located in Beggar’s Bush, which turned out to be a very nice area of Dublin, just past the canal and within sight of Aviva Stadium. The old barracks set-up means the traffic noise is deafened by the buildings that surround the museum. It’s a quiet little spot with its own cafe and a tiny gift shop.
Dermot McGuinne, who spoke to our Book History class last week, is a [the] renowned Irish type design expert. In passing, he mentioned the exhibit he was curating, From Colum Cille to Colmcille: The development of the Monotype irish printing type series 121, which opened at the Print Museum last night. Since I’m interested in the relationship between the Irish language and the printing press, and I was planning to be in Dublin anyway, I made it a priority to see the exhibit.
I took some time to look at the equipment on the ground floor before going upstairs to the exhibit. A woman I sat next to on the bus yesterday told me there was a printing press that had been featured in a TV show, though she couldn’t remember the name. It turned out to be a press built specifically for the set of The Tudors.
There was also a video demonstration of how all the different machines worked. I thought it was kind of funny that I was watching a video of old men operating the machines in the museum while in real time the cleaning staff – all young and female – were wiping the dust off the displays.
I went upstairs, but before I reached the exhibit, I was sidetracked by the children’s section with its own little library. The first book I picked off the shelf was called Johann Gutenberg and the Amazing Printing Press by Bruce Koscielniak… and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
With my morning nicely bookended by HMH, I made my way over to the exhibit, which was fascinating. A few minutes later, an older gentleman came up the stairs, sat down at the kids’ table with Johann Gutenberg and the Amazing Printing Press by Bruce Koscielniak, and started taking notes as he read.
Busy Day
Woke up at 5am. Rode across the width of a small European country in a bus. Visited a book publisher, a music magazine, and a print shop. Handled a 300 euro book; bought a different book for 10 euro minus a 25 percent discount. Saw the Yeats exhibit at the National Library. Chatted with my professor on a city bus. Mailed my absentee ballot request from the infamous General Post Office. Finally tracked down the collection a fashion designer from Northern Ireland did for a high street retailer. Ate dinner in a crowded restaurant alone. Attended a theatre performance that involved lots of full-frontal male nudity and a famous actor in a fat suit. Now enjoying the comforts a hotel room can provide – a bathtub, central heating, and WiFi.
More tomorrow.
“Just like a paperback novel”
I saw The Perks of Being a Wallflower today… honestly, it would have been a better movie if it had been edited down to just clips of Paul Rudd recommending battered paperbacks.
Leisurely Arts
Image
It occurred to me, as I was walking home from the library in the rain, that my time in Galway is going to be spent learning how to do the things I love faster. Specifically, walking – because I’ve got places I need to be going – and reading. If I’m going to work in this business, I have got to read faster.
Blush and Bashful
I’ve been feeling kind of bad for taking a photo of an actress during a theatre performance… and posting it on my blog… and Facebook.
I was raised better than that. It’s just, the way things worked out…
- there were no assigned seats so we had to sit in the very front row even though we got there 20 minutes early and I bought these tickets weeks ago.
- the actress’s teenage fan club in front row center (we were front row, stage right) were taking photos with their phones the entire time.
- I double-checked that the flash was off on my iPhone, and the sound had been off since I entered the theatre.
- she was right in front of me and not involved in any action at the time.
- the friend who was sitting right beside me did not realize I had taken a photo until I showed it to her at intermission.
- I’m pretty sure famous actresses are used to that sort of thing.
We’ve had a little discussion of paparazzi photography in my Publishing Law class (what with the Royals and all), and I’m pretty sure my essay topic will somehow involve photo rights, so this is something I’m kind of curious about. Did I break any laws (copyright), or violate any rights (privacy), or was it simply bad theatre etiquette?
In my mind, I’m publicizing someone doing her job (well, I might add) in my immediate vicinity. I was certainly no more disruptive to the play than the members of the audience who kept chatting after the new scene had begun.
I also feel kind of creepy because I now follow the actress on Twitter, and her posts lately have been links to Instagram photos of places I recognize. It’s like delayed stalking – “Look! Mischa Barton was at the Claddagh on Friday! Oh, she visited the Cliffs of Moher today!”
I hope I’m not weirdly violating someone’s right to privacy. I rarely watched The OC, and someone had to tell me that she was in The Sixth Sense. (However, I swear I saw her on the cover of a Saddle Club book when I was working at Half Price Books, and that’s kind of an obsessive thing to notice – it was just so startling!)
I just think it’s cool she did a play here because I love theatre in Galway and it’s nice to see TV/film stars stretching their acting muscles on stage. And yes, I wanted my Facebook friends to see how I spent my Friday night, but “Mischa Barton in the Julia Roberts role” was only one part of that… it’s a pretty big deal to see one of the biggest movies of your childhood – set in the next state over, no less – brought back to life almost 30 years later in another country.
Still, I might have been feeling a little remorse when I walked into a church this morning. Unbeknownst to me, it was the day of a very special performance. So special, in fact, that there was a man holding a camera/videocamera hybrid who shot footage of the entire hour-and-half long service.
He photographed/filmed the congregation too. He took several up-close flash photos of me, and also captured my (stubbornly stoic) reactions on video. As a first-time visitor to that church, I am now going to play a supporting role in the home movies of several families, and I am no doubt featuring on someone’s Facebook feed at this very moment.
When the service was over, the man sitting behind me said: “Hope you’re prepared to have your photo shown all over the world.”
Karma, Ms. Barton.
“He makes a mean Cherry Coke.”
Last night I went to a stage production of Steel Magnolias at the Black Box theatre. The show has been traveling around Ireland, with The OC star Mischa Barton in the role of Shelby.
The southern accents were great, although one or two of the characters gave Shreveport an extra syllable. Still, they managed to pronounce Louisiana like natives.
Since the play is set in the 1980s, I was curious as to why a 1990s Faith Hill song was playing during an interval between scenes – and more than a bit surprised when my friend from Poland started singing along.
I brushed it off, but during the next scene, Shelby tapped the radio in Truvvy’s salon like she was The Fonz, and another sassy Faith Hill song started playing as she sashayed out the door. That, kids, is what’s known as an anachronism, a chronological impossibility. I guess I know my polished pop country crap a little better than the Irish production team anticipated.
All was forgiven, though, by the poignant placement of Willie’s version of You Were Always On My Mind. The play is set entirely inside the beauty shop, so the audience never sees Shelby in the hospital, just listens while her mother tells the ladies everything. I’ve seen the movie a million times, and I was still fighting back tears.
Fed Up
This week in publishing news… I’m finding a new Internet service provider tomorrow, and I’m publishing that news on my blog.
Motivation
Image
When I arrived in Galway exactly six weeks ago, I had three places I needed to go before I went anywhere else: my hotel for a shower, campus for a day of orientations, and Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop.
With a little help from Vinny, I walked out of the shop with a copy of I was a Boy in Belsen, the non-fiction account of one of Ireland’s two living Holocaust survivors. Tomi Reichental lived in Slovakia until the age of 9, when he and his family were sent to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1944. He survived, and has lived in Dublin for the past 50 years. His story was published by O’Brien Press.
I was a Boy in Belsen was the first book I bought in Galway, and it has been sitting on my shelf for the past six weeks. I kept meaning to read it, but there’s so much to read for my course, that I kept putting it off.
Then I heard that Tomi Reichental would be speaking on campus tonight. Since I didn’t have class today, I spent the whole day on the couch, reading his story. It’s heartbreaking stuff, even though Mr. Reichental and his family were some of the lucky ones – relatively lucky, that is.
He spoke for about an hour and a half tonight, before members of the university’s law society and other curious students. He revisited the story told in his book, but delved into some more thorough examinations of the political situation at the time. He presented a few articles and photos he had come across in his research, which may not have fit into the narrative structure of the book.
I felt a little sheepish asking him to sign my Charlie Byrne’s copy of his book, since he had several copies for sale tonight. He was extremely nice, though; he personalized the inscription and made sure I got one of his customized bookmarks.
I’m glad he came to campus tonight. I’m glad I already had his book on my shelf, and I’m glad his presence on campus motivated me to finally read it.
While I was waiting for his lecture to begin tonight, I logged into my campus email account, which I only do about once a week. I had an email from the library, telling me a book I have checked out has been recalled. I’ve had it for two weeks, and was supposed to have it for another two, but now I have until Monday to bring it back.
I guess if someone requests a book, the library can light a fire under the person who already has it checked out. I suspect the person recalling the book is somehow connected to the class for which I’m reading the book in the first place. Normally, I would be annoyed by this type of academic queue-jumping, but to tell the truth, I’ve been struggling to give the book the attention it deserves, so this deadline may be the motivation I need to finally get around to reading it.
Long Day
There’s this habit I have, a bad habit I’m trying to break, but it’s so deeply ingrained that I don’t know where to start.
My whole life, whenever I’ve suspected that I wouldn’t succeed at something – or worse, that someone else would be more successful at it – I’ve found a way to convince myself that I never actually cared in the first place.
Over the years, I’ve gotten so good at avoiding the pain of failure that I’ve started predicting which things I am likely to care about – and therefore be affected by when I don’t succeed – so I can avoid them completely.
It’s cowardly. I don’t know how I got this way, but I hate it. I work so hard to preemptively avoid failing at things I care about that I no longer know what it is I truly care about. I honestly can’t tell if it’s me or my fear that’s making my decisions, because we’ve been together so long that my fear and I are essentially one and the same.
I can feel this happening right now. It’s tied up in school-internship-job opportunities, and I’ve gotten it in my head that I’m not cut out for any of this – not just publishing, but the entire work-a-day world, and life in general… so I shouldn’t even try. It sucks.
The Galway Train 