Mildly interesting coincidence...

Courtesy of TiL, we learn that on this very day, in 1763, Samuel Johnson and James Boswell first met and in commemoration of this event, on this very day in 1791 Boswell published his Life of Johnson. In and of itself, this is a fun bit of information to know.

Interestingly, I had a new client give me a lovely 1793 Second and Augmented Edition of Life of Johnson just yesterday. I love it when the universe works in entertaining ways...

St. Martins, NB...A booktown to be...

I just received a most interesting email. It seems that St Martins, NB has decided to become a booktown. Mind you, they only have one open shop at the moment, but one other in opening soon with another or so in the work. Most importantly, they seem to have a genuine PLAN to assist them toward their goal. I have quoted bits of the email below (and note the very stylish logo for their "Booktown Initiative"):

St. Martins, N. B. is going to be a booktown. The Booktown Initiative is working towards that.

Booktowns (small towns having a high concentration of bookstores like factory out let towns have a high concentration of factory outlets) attract bibliophile tourists whose purpose is to visit book stores. If the town is an attractive seaside town, as St. Martins is, it attracts other tourists who may also visit bookstores, although, perhaps, with less intent.
...
The difficult task in establishing a booktown is the timing in bringing together sellers and buyers. At least some book sellers must be established so that book buyers who have heard of the Initiative are not disappointed. Buyers must come to justify the presence of the sellers.

To lead up to the critical mass necessary to fully establish the booktown, the Booktown Initiative will hold various "book" events. Our first is a BOOK FAIR
during St. Martins Old Home Week.
...
BOOK FAIR
JULY 14 – 21
Osborne Hall
St. Martins
9.30 -5.30 each day except Sunday 12.00 – 5.30

I absolutely *love* the idea...the goal...of a town striving to define itself around books. I truly hope they are successful. With a bit of luck, I'll get up there for the fair, though I do not think I will be able to actually show there.

On that note, I am not certain what I think of an EIGHT day bookfair. I am the first to admit that I *loathe* one day fairs. My booth is complex to set up and once it is up and the way I want it, I like to leave it for at least two days. Four days is the longest I've done (Baltimore). Eight days seems...er...long. That said, the price is certainly right.

The website is definitely worth a look. I am definitely going to have to get up there sometime during the week...just so I can say I was there at the birth of a booktown. More on this at news warrants.

?Happy? Douglas Adams Death Day.

I was once actively involved in organizing an extremely cool, brain-candy conference called the Camden Technology Conference (now Pop!Tech). I was on the Program Committee for many years. In April of 2001, we successfully secured Douglas Adams to come and speak at the October conference. I was ecstatic, as Adams had always been a favorite of mine and held at least two places on my rather short list of "people I'd like to meet before I start rotting".

Three weeks later, on May 11, Douglas Adams had the unmitigated gall to die...denying me and countless others from the pleasure of his company. I was toying with writing a pithy tribute, but find I am just too depressed. I'm going to go reread HGttG and sulk.

A great bio and far too much trivia can be found here.

Baxter meeting - Priscilla Juvelis

Priscilla Juvelis spoke last evening at the Baxter Society. Her topic was, "Women Under the Influence: The Persistence of Books and Book Culture in Women's Lives". She is, for those unfortunate enough to have failed to make her acquaintance, a past president of the ABAA and an absolutely *brilliant* book dealer. Priscilla entered the business under the tutelage of John Flemming, himself under the arm of The Doctor. Spending time with Priscilla is spending time at the end, as it were, of over 120 years of the very best of book(wo)man. I should mention that she is also personally responsible for defining and driving two (and a half, or so) major collecting areas.

Her presentation was exception. I learned more in an hour and a half or so on the subject than I learned in the last book I read on the subject. I also, horrifyingly, added a half dozen books to my "read these soon" list (to be distinguished from the "read these in the near future," "read these when you get a chance," and "read these someday" lists). Do not miss a chance to hear her speak.

An importand day...(far more than my slow crawl toward death)

Finnegans Wake was published on this day in 1939.

I am passing out. O bitter ending! I'll slip away before they're up. They'll never see. Nor know. Nor miss me. And it's old and old it's sad and old it's sad and weary I go back to you, my cold father, my cold mad father, my cold mad feary father, till the near sight of the mere size of him, the moyles and moyles of it, moananoaning, makes me seasilt saltsick and I rush, my only, into your arms, I see them rising! Save me from those therrble prongs! Two more. Onetwo moremens more. So. Avelaval. My leaves have drifted from me. All. But one clings still. I'll bear it to me. To remind me of. Lff! So soft this morning, ours. Yes. Carry me along, taddy, like you done through the toy fair! If I seen him bearing down on me now under whitespread wings like he'd come from Arkangels, I sink I'd die down over his feet, humbly dumbly, only to washup. Yes, tid. There's where. First. We pass through grass behush the bush to. Whish! A gull. Gulls. Far calls. Coming, far! End here. Us then. Finn, again! Take. Bussoftlhee, mememormee! Till thousendsthee. Lps. The keys to. Given! A way a lone at last a loved a long the
~James Joyce, Finnegans Wake, 1939, IV

I read FW for the first time when I was about 15 at my Grandfather's mildly malicious suggestion. I wrote a book report about it, using (to the best of my stunted ability) Joyce's language and cyclical style. Years later the English teacher I wrote it for told me that they had read the first two pages, understood *what* I had done, but didn't understand any of it...gave me an A+ and moved on. Somewhere, it is still kicking around...I need to find it and see if it is as horrid as I think it probably was...

I quoted the above (near the end of the novel) because it so summed up my grandfather's death. My grandfather was a lay Joyce scholar (born and raised in Belfast, Ireland and a great lover of Irish lit.). He woke one morning, did not wake my grandmother. He went into the kitchen and got a glass from the cabinet, got poured himself a glass of orange juice and returned the container to the fridge. He sat down at the kitchen table and died. My grandmother woke a hour or so later, went into the kitchen and found my grandfather sitting at the table with a full glass of juice in front of him, dead. Leave it to my grandfather to have such a wonderfully Joycean death.

Carry me along, taddy, like you done through the toy fair!

Happy Birthday to me...

So today is my birthday. I am 40. I am not dead. I love what I do. My family is wonderful. All things considered, life could be much worse. I have had the Birthday Dirge going through my head all morning. It is a family tradition. It needs to be sung as a "dirge" (low and slow) and goes as follows:

Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday
Sin and sorrow fill the air,
People dying everywhere,
Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday

It is very perky and festive.

Also born today are Nicollo Machiavelli (1469), Golda Meir (1898), Pete Seeger (1919) and James Brown (1928).

Other fun things on the biblio front that happened today:

In 1810, Lord Byron swam the Hellespont in tribute to Leander's legendary swims to visit his beloved Hero. Byron was 22 and still relatively unknown (though he had finished Childe Harold). He had, however, just wrapped up a affair with a married woman...that culminated in a sunrise duel.

English writter Dodie Smith was born today in 1896. She is best known for The One Hundred and One Dalmatians (did you know that someone other than Disney wrote that...shocking). She and her husband raised dalmatians for years...including a bitch who had a litter of FIFTEEN (including one stillborn but revived...as in the story).

Dylan Thomas, having spent over a decade trying to finish it, gave "Under Milk Wood" its first reading on this day in 1953. Still not finished, he was making changes literally until he stepped up to the proverbial mike at Harvard. It tells the of the day in the life of Llareggub, Thomas' fictional town in Wales. Some may recall that Thomas rather loathed Wales. Llareggub, you may note, is "Bugger All" backwards.

In 1926, Sinclair Lewis was given a Pulizter Prize for Arrowsmith (in 1937 M. Mitchell won it for Gone with the Wind, in 1943, Upton Sinclair won it for Dragon's Teeth, etc.)

Many other fun things happened today as well. For example, in 1851 most of San Fransisco burned to the ground. Also, in 1765, the first medical school in the United States opened in PA (founded by John Morgan, it was part of the College of Philadelphia (now Univ. of PA)). Finally, the symbol of New Hampshire, the natural granite formation Old Man of the Mountain, collapsed.

So all things considered, a very nice day. (Thanks to TiL for some of the lit events).