Post-training delirium; Difficulties of naming her/him/it

Our EBM trainer wheeled his toolkit/luggage out of here Saturday evening, leaving us all in an applied physics daze. My brain being composed of about 60% literary criticism, and the rest inert gray matter, I took a day to recover from the crash course in how to maintain our new robot. I still find myself muttering phrases like “book block” “photo-cyan” “vertilamer clamp” and “shear jaws” on Monday morning, as we fire her/him/it up for the first time with very few difficulties.

I did drag myself out of bed this morning for a good cause: we are printing Haitian Creole – English Medical Dictionaries for use in that country. I guess the noble impulse originated with Google, who is a partner of the company (On Demand Books) that brought us our Book Machine: five or six other EBMs across the US are being put to work for the same purpose. It's strange to think of these slim volumes--still hot from printing—arriving in the hands of nurses and doctors in a disaster-zone.


Meanwhile, I have been too much in the guts of the Machine to anthropomorphize her/it/him properly. Names proposed are The Tin Man, Ruby (after Rube Goldberg), and Bartleby the Scrivener. Privately, I keep wanting to call her/him/it Hal, despite the lack of a burning red eye and soothing, male voice reassuring us, “Everything is under control...”

Welcome home, Espresso Book Machine!

Day One of training has come to an end. It turns out our model is perfect. I tried to stump the engineer with troubles other operators have had. For example, the “fat book flop” when a 600 page tome splays open during the binding process and can’t be muscled back into position. “We’ve installed a shield for that.” How about the need for waxing the shoot through which the cover passes, making it slippery enough to overcome accidental friction. “That’s been redesigned completely.” I don’t know if it’s pride, but I believe him: our book machine is god-like. In a heavily wired, robotic kind of way.

***

All day bookstore staff piled recommendations on my desk of titles for test printing. Goody Two Shoes, a children’s book classic from the 18th century. Charles Lamb’s Essays of Elia (“the most delightful of English essayists”) and the winner, first out of the gate, was Edmond Meany’s 1901 dissertation, Chief Joseph, the Nez Perce. Steve, our lit guy who harbors a secret passion for out of print NW history books (who knew?), handed me a photo of Edmond Meany, one-time University of Washington professor, standing over the seated Chief Joseph. Yes, they actually hung out together. We printed the large-format book successfully, complete with the signatures of Meany’s advisory committee.

It has been a great highly-caffeinated first day.

- The Book Barista

Quiet time.

We're retooling this blog and should be back soon.

Mastering the Art of the Bestseller

As a longtime fan of Julia Child, I'm delighted by the recent attention that her masterpiece Mastering the Art of French Cooking has received. Featured in the new movie (and the original book of the same name) Julia and Julia, Mastering is the achievement of a lifetime. And you can strive for similar heights. Although a recent New York Times article mentions that booksellers across the nation are sold out of Mastering, University Book Store has plenty of copies in stock. And as an added bonus, we're running Julie and Julia contest. Stop by our U District store before September 3 and enter for a chance to win fabulous prizes, including audio book copies of Julie and Julia, fabulous aprons, or the grand prize: cooking classes from Le Gourmand. You might not master French cooking in the class, but you'll be well on your way!

Simmons a Death Match Favorite

Read Local: Seattle predicts that one of our favorite writers (and University Book Store staffer) Matthew Simmons will win tonight's Literary Death Match at the Rendezvous. Simmons will face Peter Gajdics (Opium8's 500-word contest winner), while Reading Local Managing Editor Matt Briggs will battle Ryan Boudinot (author of the forthcoming Misconception). Judges include the delightful Mary Guterson (Gone to the Dogs), The Stranger's Lindy West and Luke Smith (a game designer at Bungie). We love a good death match, and will be there to root for our favorite.

Books and movies

Seija sent this from the book department:

There are some exciting book-based movies on the near horizon: Julie and Julia opens this Friday, based jointly on Julie Powell’s book of the same name and Julia Child’s My Life in France. This hybrid is refreshing, and I hope it’s representative of a new creative trend in Hollywood book-to-movie adaptations.

I’m looking forward to Where the Wild Things Are directed by Spike Jonze, and The Fantastic Mr. Fox directed by Wes Anderson. Both films could’ve gone in wildly different directions, but based on the previews I’m happily reminded of the dark, bizarre kid’s films of the '80s like The Neverending Story, The Dark Crystal, and Return to Oz.

The Fantastic Mr. Fox, based on the book by Roald Dahl, is done in stop-motion animation, as was the earlier Dahl adaptation, James and the Giant Peach. I’m a bit disappointed that the characters are voiced by American actors (George Clooney and Meryl Streep as Mr. and Mrs. Fox) as I used to listen to the book on tape version, which is read by the author.

I just bought a copy of the wonderfully strange children’s film, The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T. Released in 1953, it’s scripted by Dr. Seuss himself, and it’s a musical. It entertains on many, many levels: the set designs and costumes are works of art, and one of the best scenes takes place in a “musical dungeon” reminiscent of Dante’s Inferno.

I love it when I find out that a movie I like is based on a book; it’s an opportunity to go deeper into a story I thought to be finished. On my pending “seen it but haven’t read it” list: A Passage to India, The 39 Steps, No Country for Old Men, Rebecca, and right now I’m halfway through Brideshead Revisited and loving it.

Books Can Get You Dates!

From our ace reporter Elisabeth, comes this fun article on using books to flirt. Get a copy of Jack Murnighan's Beowulf on the Beach for yourself here.

Episodic or Narrative: Which One Are You?

Lee Siegel's article in today's Wall Street Journal tracks the change in the taste of American fiction readers and asks "Are you a Narrative or an Episodic personality? In other words, do you believe that your life tells a meaningful story? Or do you think that you live, like Huck Finn and every other picaresque hero, from isolated minute to isolated minute...?"
I'd like to think that my life tells a meaningful story--not because it might be meaningful to others-- but because that would indicate that I had learned from my individual episodes and have developed over time. What do you think?