The Book of Ende

Becoming a female illuminator in the late 20th to early 21st century has been arduous, odd, and ultimately, my raison d'etre thus far. Unlike, say, Impressionism or the Renaissance period, any examples I found of exceptional illuminating were extremely rare, and a female's excellent works rarer still. But, they were there. Back in my apprenticeship, St. Martin's Press had annual editorial buying trips to England, in a reverse production process that had us recalibrating equipment to accommodate film flats done the exact opposite of our photographic process used for plate-making on American presses, but I digress.

Murder mysteries were (and still are) an export with an easy audience here in the States, as any real publishing professional will tell you. Just look at the numbers for Hercule Poirot, Agatha Christie, and the "Dial __ for Murder" series. My mother is particularly enamored with a British show currently airing on PBS about two older women who plan estate gardens and solve murders, in the exact same format every single week, which is the core demographic for any murder mystery audience.

Edward Gorey famously illustrated an opening spot for the introduction to the PBS "Masterpiece Theater" murder mystery series, in a gothic pen-and-ink style that had the 90s graduating classes of RISD's Illustration department completely under his spell: a cool, hermetic character who left New York City after his own career in publishing for Provincetown, to create work reminiscent of the the 1900-1930s Art Nouveau revival, but I digress again. 

At work, we produced a series of murder mysteries by British authors that I still have on my bookshelves, with one stand-out selection: "The Apothecary Rose". Here, we find a female herbalist working in a medieval abbey garden attached to a cloister, who also solves murders most foul. Back then, the weapon of choice was often poison secreted from the abbey garden or her own apothecary shelves, for death-dealing instead of healing. 

The same fictional construct used in murder mysteries was the actual historical context for female illuminators working in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance: artists who were either raised in the family business of making books attached to a prestigious monastery, or the nuns working in the scriptorium of their own monasteries. It was uncommonly educated and rare for anyone to read, write, and paint with such skill, but for a woman? Well, that's another story entirely. 

Happy Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa, to my illuminated readers of 2016.

Soul Survivor

As the leading intellectual of a business (whether or not it's openly acknowledged to my face, since it's typically done behind my back as some sort of financial strategy), my first few days, weeks, months, and/or years of any new employment I had were fraught with difficulties, tensions, ego trips, paranoid schemes, covert meetings, and hurriedly hushed exchanges like I was just hired to run the universe instead of design some books. The grueling audition process I went through was supposed to ameliorate qualms and fears that average people have about content generators, but sadly, it did not.

I was subjected to rounds and rounds of emails, resume screenings, online questionnaires, personality profiles, psych screenings, drug tests (for a corrupt newspaper union, haha), with several more rounds of interviews with my portfolio shown to a variety of employees from different departments who would not have access to the highest levels of a house like I did, done to an insane degree. Such is the power to create a company (or destroy it) that we bring to the table as a group.

I'd always hoped that my relative openness, honesty, and transparency (in big business New York) would alleviate the troubled minds of the more pedestrian office worker vis-a-vis their limited perceptions about illuminators but, more often than not, interactions with a real genius doesn't actually make lower-level employees feel better about themselves or their career choices, which is why I often handed out books to inquiring office cows. You know: because that's what we do. Nefarious, I know.

So, it was no surprise to me when the feathers of any new house I joined were ruffled loudly and with much angst, most acutely from the large hen-house, since we're paid less than teachers, which makes modern publishing heavy on the female workforce. Lunches would be set-up and attempted, odd scrutinies would take place in the office kitchenette, bizarrely stilted interactions were forced in the hallways or bathrooms, interruptions about a fake crisis during my crucial deadlines were staged as a sabotage...to no avail. In our world, you either make something or you don't, because the future belongs to those of us wiling to get our hands dirty, and with the amount of work that I do, it isn't a carefully calculated life of leisure devoted to one's over-priced manicure or shiny new gadget. It's more like: "I made this <pat book>. See?" Good! Now I can go back to work.

We'd published books about assholes in business, as me and the other much deafer art director in the office yelled back-and-forth, reading aloud from a book about company stereotypes, like the common "office bike": the desperate blond (always blond!) receptionist who sleeps around because "everyone gets a ride", within clear earshot of the reception area. Still, no avail. They kept on coming. Scooter was one such douchebag whose limited prowess barely masked his deeper ambitions of artistic glory, as just such an example of a tool. No one liked him, but he managed to form icky alliances within the company like we were competing for the last piece of roasted rat on a remote desert island for a sick "reality" game-show about starving people and their madness. What was the point?

He seemed genuinely baffled by my gifts, as much as he hated any kind of reference to them. He'd find some excuse to come back to the design studio, then draw out a weird discussion that could have been more easily done with a ten-second email, to slowly walk back to his cramped overheated office scratching his head about the obvious truths I just told him about the book he showed me, because acquisitions was supposed to be his game. He thought he cleverly hid his lack of a buying streak with our designated wonk at a major book retailer, by pretending to question us about a potential book property up for re-licensing like it was playtime at the zoo, and I just fucking ripped his head off in the lion cage, every single time.

Naturally, like all the other inept "lifers" at that company, he just happened to "fall into" publishing, just like he fell into my den of protective lionesses filled with nursing cubs. Shoo! On an afternoon like any other afternoon, he seemed to finally have an epiphany about who I was, discreet as I managed myself to be amongst those who are not of the calling. As the rays of golden light struck sharp shapes across the back wall of my studio desk, he came back excitedly (for once) to show me a book that just crossed his desk. Did I know it? Nope. Ah...here he hesitated, like a student daring to give an apple to his favorite teacher. Did I know this book was like me? Yes, Scott. I did. Happy All Soul's Day, on this beautiful autumn day in 2016.

Backbone

Houses have "feels" to them, just like any well-trafficked space for humans that spans many years. One might even say that these living spaces become permeated with the psychic energy from so many people who lived in them over the years, serving as a beacon for those who come after them, whether or not we know the history of these places. Such was the case with me, certainly; I noticed the beautiful Queen Anne here in town every time I walked past it, on the long walk from my mother's apartment to the local library, in country miles and any type of weather, because such is the measure of my devotion to you, my loving audience. It's what I trained for.

But, that didn't make it any easier. If I was sick—like I was my first year back in Rockland, lying on a thin pull-out chair that served as my bed on the cold floor of my mother's spare second room that she denies as such, to obscure the real reason for exclusions, which is her psychotic temperament—I still had only me to pull through anything, any time of year. So, when I found out that a really large studio was "to let" in the old house on the cheap, guided by the forcefully abusive hands of my mother and father who still gang up on people together when it occasionally serves both of their needs, it wasn't a surprise to me that the space called to me with a variety of energies.

A nice boy I grew up with—who cleaned my rugs for me, continuing the trade that his family established up here many years ago, in a reference and number given to me by my mother to better facilitate the quickness of my move—noted the exact same thing: "Hey, my friend used to live here years ago!" No way! It wasn't a surprise to me. Rockland is that small a place to live. Cool! I showed him a few of the key features that dated the place, like the original flue made in the 1800s by an iron worker from the city. The local librarian who's also a history buff told me an account that backed it up roughly to the letter, though I figured Dutch in there as an early ethnicity.

He said that the old house was designed as a showpiece for a German-American fire insurer from the city who hired fancy artisans that he paid to come up by train, to complete the impressive house. And that matched with what I found in the makers mark imprinted within the iron on the flue. Who knew insurance was such a lucrative business? But then, it occurred to me that structures were very prone to fire years ago, being made of wood and all. Another local told me at the library that her husband was descended from an Italian painter called Niccolini, who made a living painting big fires for just such a purpose, on a hill overlooking the burning structures, to record the event with a supposed deft accuracy. Huh.

His son-in-law, a chiropractor, moved into the big house after his daughter married, another dubious trade that has never won legitimacy from the authentic medical establishment that honors their Hippocratic Oaths solemnly made and upheld, like a lawyer pledging the truth with his clients while swearing on a stack of Bibles. While I have loved the house before I moved in, as a passer-by who can appreciate the finer details of historical architectural constructions, like the decorative wooden cut-outs that look like the spines of a backbone from certain angles that buttress the beautiful old house, the apartment around the bend of the big porch attracted something much less savory.

My neighbor told me the police had to batter down the front door during a violent domestic dispute he finally called the police on, and that was before the sick woman who left feet first this past year in a body bag, because after years of public drunkenness and drug use, she finally succeeded in committing the suicide that she'd loudly proclaim to anyone who'd listen. It was quite different from my side of the house, but similar to my neighbor's predicament with the previous couple years prior: we'd both reached out to prevent harm from happening to other people, and we were both still here, like the backbone carved out of wood by an artist far better than the man who hired him to do such crafty work. Such is the power of a much mightier spirit.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/30/nyregion/30bartender.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/25/nyregion/julian-niccolini-co-owner-of-four-seasons-restaurant-pleads-guilty-to-misdemeanor-assault.html

Grammar Nazi

The "Judas" Bible in St Mary's Church, Totnes, Devon, UK. This is a copy of the second folio edition of the Authorized Version, printed by Robert Barker, Printer to King James I, in 1613, and given to the church for the use of the Mayor of Totnes. This edition is known as the "Judas" Bible because in Matthew c26 v36 "Judas" appears instead of "Jesus". In this copy the mistake (in red circle) is corrected with a slip of paper pasted over the misprint.[1]"Judas Bible2" by Etan J. Tal - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons.

It takes all kinds of people to publish the books that we cherish and pass on to our loved ones, including the good, bad, ugly, and indifferent. I've cataloged all the types I could into my brain as I went about my career, full as it is with the facts needed to produce the most complex yet beautifully simple objects humans make. I was there slugging it out in other people's offices, over other people's problems, because I loved it, which was greeted with the necessary amount of derision intended by someone who just realized that they fucked up by assuming all the real book people of the world were gone. Not so.

In recognition of actual genius, even when it was undetected by the unwashed mousy messes I was often forced to work alongside of (and in the process, often giving them a free education that's priceless just to do my job), I amassed quite an impressive head count. At the end of my tenure working under the guise of various "bosses", and when it became blatantly obvious to an entire industry worldwide that I could outwork even the clever rich white "dons" of Oxford U. in an unbeatable quick time (creating a new record, too: took me only a few scant weeks to supposedly upset the "board" and other "shareholders" who were "in charge of covers", which I found out by sweeping right over the head of their favored pet du jour, a pathetic sell-out of a "Creative Director" who allowed herself to be shipped overseas at their back-and-call whenever they felt like it, by pandering to their lily-white asses through her social media to reflect exactly what they wanted to hear, which isn't exactly like setting the world on fire with originality, but I digress), my fellow co-workers took a devilish glee in recording my "head counts" of those fallen comrades who had unfortunately tried to sell their souls to a bunch of real intellectuals who didn't need them, plush as we were (are) with actual credentials and experience.

Actual know-how is a frightening thing when you have no fucking idea about what you're actually doing, much less caring about it, because as every really dedicated teacher has already found out, it takes a hell of a lot more than a pittance of a salary to become your devoted servant. The gap where your overblown salary sits is filled with our genuine heart, and that's not something you can fake on a mere teacher's salary. Just ask any faithful publishing professional. It's enough to make you blanch white, and what rough sport it is, too.

And so, when I met those adoring fans of mine (sometimes unwashed, because a lack of soap doesn't discriminate between good or bad either) in your office spaces who followed my every move over the company's Ethernet network, or cheered aloud when I pushed through another great cover that was in danger of rejection out of spite, sabotage, or corruption, I felt it, even when I knew my crew of production editors who dared to sail with me on one of my last voyages asea* while awash in ill-gotten money, were doomed to repeat themselves because such is the nature of their gifts: harnessing their fretful compulsiveness in the typo-free artwork you all appreciate.

I couldn't do it, but you sure can. Thanks for that. I realize it takes a lot of nerve to man my chair by forcing turf wars over layouts most people will never see, know about, or give two fucks about how long you sweated over it bro, but you made me look good, even when there was no one around who cared enough to know quality work when they see it. I do. Thanks, D'avi. You're a beautifully crazy kid, man, and I could do with a little less stalking, okay? Now get to work! You have a lot of it to do, you petty-ass motherfucker. Just keep your little turf wars off my fucking margins....ya fuck. I'll see you in "Merry Olde Englande"**. You'll be the so-and-so holding the white gloves.

 

For the production staff at OUP/USA: it was a hell of a ride, wasn't it?

http://global.oup.com/us/companion.websites/9780195393040/book/preface/ 

* Davey's world:   http://www.word-detective.com/2011/08/asea-at-sea/ 

** White gloves:   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindisfarne_Gospels 

Reading

Ah, that "Q" is perfection. Well done!

I've been a reader for so long, I don't actually remember when I couldn't read. I know I was a very early reader, about 2 or 3 years old, and so was my oldest brother. My mother said he taught himself to read The New York Times so he could check the Mets score, and that certainly may be true. 

I know I attended a pre-K reading class for toddlers at the local library, because I begged my parents to take me to school so I could read, and that was the closest they could find to nursery school before 
I went to an actual school, during the brief year we lived in rural Pennsylvania after leaving the city, before settling down in the Hudson River region.

Discovery and a new chapter.

It's hard for me to describe an experience I do so fluently; it's almost a subconscious thing at this point. I take in information so quickly visually, that I see things way before the lay person can. I've likened in to being an expert swimmer dipping and swirling through the clearest, warmest tropical waters (and I am that, too). Reading is a feeling so sensuous and fluid, few hobbies can replicate that kind of pleasure for me, and I know the same is true for other hardcore readers. 
We occasionally speak between nose dives.

Oh, I've designed flaps like this before.

Few hobbies create the kind of erudition and experience that bibliophiles have, with the exceptions of medical fields and clergy. 
We empathize immediately with the writer, because as soon as we read words, we're right there with the author. Some of us are so adept at it, we work at it professionally through publishing and media. Unlike a purely visual artist, I am also a writer and reader: the harmonious blend of a variety of highly skilled sets that transcend majors taught at the leading universities.

Lots of decorative elements and ink coverage. Some gaps in typesetting.

And so it is that I can talk with ease to an advanced physicist at their level, because I read their words when I design books for the students majoring in their curriculum. I sing along perfectly to Ella Fitzgerald while I riff through a series of graphics that vibe off one another, like a flutist times himself to a jazz pianist, either in the planned syncopation of an orchestration or the more advanced styling of an abstract expressionist who goes off on a tangent. 

To find someone who can follow along like that is the rarest of the rare, and just like the books we collect, so too are the odd ducks of the creative world who finally find their intellectual homes within the great literary houses of the world: those weird combinations of dancer, musician, photographer, model, writer, reader, designer, engineer, artist, and muse, because we are all of those things, and so much more. Open a book, and come find us. We'll be there between the vanilla-scented pages of a hundred year old volume and the near-constant flickering of a computer screen. See you soon.