One of the worst books I've ever read was purchased in the Billings, Montana bus station to fill the hours of a two-day ride back to Wisconsin. The offending article was so bad I nearly threw it out of the window in three different states. I hung on to it, though, just so that I could whip it out on occasions such as this.
"Banners of the Sa'yen" by B.R. Stateham
"We fled quickly through the palace, hurrying up sweeping spiral stairs of exquisite marble that were lit lavishly by large chandeliers of finely blown glass. Tapestries of magnificent richness in color and weave covered the walls as we fled up the sweeping spiral stairs, the main route to the royal landing tower of the palace. Thick carpets of deep Arluian purple covered the stairs and so thick were they we made hardly a sound as we raced upward."
For some of us, this is hard advice to take. Distraction just doesn't come easily. My partner and I are temporarily homeless. We have no income, no place that is ours and nothing to do. We try to fill our days volunteering for things and trying to be helpful to others in our situation, but the strain of living in one room in my parents' basement, of not knowing when we'll be able to go back or what kind of life we can go back to, of being on hold until the gummint gets things sorted out is getting to us. I can't read for pleasure--my eyes simply skim over the words. I can't watch anything but news--it all seems so irrelevant. My attention skitters away from conversations as soon as they switch to anything about normal life, and yet I get so tired of talking about IT, the elephant in the room that is our disrupted lives. I feel as if people will look at me as a Condi Rice if I should waver one moment from my focus on the disaster that is my home. How dare I go to the movies? How dare I go out for a drink? I know I am my own worst critic, and that I am lucky beyond belief to have gotten out with my life and my pets, but I still can't bring myself to cut myself a little slack. Others have urged the same as you have advised here. I hope some day I'll be able to take it.
Well, I evacuated, even though Ivan turned out to have been an insignificant event for New Orleans. I went through something like this for Georges when I first moved down here. I didn't know any better and ended up staying, with tape on my windows but no water, no flashlight, no radio, no candles... My power was out for three days and I ended up sitting out on the porch a lot or walking around in the empty streets. This time I packed up the cats and drove to Baton Rouge.
One of the advantages to being a cab driver, I think, is that you are conditioned to look for alternate routes. As a result, it only took us three hours to get here while the other evacuees were stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic for over 11 hours. The only stretch of road we were on that was a major route turned out to be backed up primarily due to the traffic lights still being on regular cycles. This delayed traffic an unbelievable amount. By the next day some genius had figured out that if you want to keep a million people moving smoothly, you should make the lights flashing yellow and station troopers to direct traffic at big intersections.
As far as emergency shelters are concerned, the Superdome is always opened during these things as an emergency shelter, but it is woefully inadequate on supplies and amenities. During Georges they did have buses picking people up to take them to shelters. I could go on and on about how badly prepared the city is for things like this, but I'll spare your eyes.
Oh, and I have been informed by a reliable source that the worst of the Bourbon St stench is caused by rotting Coca-cola syrup.
What is it with landlords this month!?!?!?! Mine did the exact same thing to me, giving me one month to move after five years of tenancy. Ack! The bastards. I'm moving this Sunday, so I shall send my good moving wishes to you and hope all goes smoothly. I'm sure it's too late now, but I have discovered that USPS #7 Priority Mail boxes are the perfect size for books. And (at least down here) you can get them in packages of 25 for free. The will even deliver them to the house. Of course, I got mine from friends who had some left over from their move. The had over 300 filled... I can only lay claim to 150. I'm sure your library puts us all to shame. (p.s. I'm also moving to someplace bigger, nicer and sunnier--and right on the streetcar line. Visitors welcome.)
What a wonderful history of typsetting you've given us here, and obviously a wander down memory lane for many of us. In my typesetting and graphic design class I learned to set type on a composing stick and make up pages on the press bed using furniture and locking it up with quoins (sp?). It was a very valuable lesson in design. When you hold a piece of leading in your hand, or have to insert tiny strips of foil in between individual letters for letter spacing or even, ghod forbid, hand cut two pieces of type for custom kerning, you gain a little more insight into the whys and wherefores of good design.
We progressed from hand-set type to a computerized system, probably a CompuGraphic (I remember you had to code each change in type style or size, and then send something off to the developer who would then return with a lovely shiny strip of paper with (hopefully) your type on it), and then we were allowed to use our own computers if we wished or had them. This was in 1990, so I used a friend's Mac with Design Studio to produce my final project, which was a short short story etched into glass. (I set the type, created films of it in a big vacuum bed exposure unit that used a carbon-arc light, then coated the glass with a photoresist, exposed that using the vacuum bed, then developed it and sandblasted to get the final image. The letters are surprisingly sharp.)
What is really interesting, though, and the point I wanted to come to, is that I had a temp job on Long Island in the mid 80's at a company that made promotional materials: hats, calendars, mugs, pencils, pocket schedules, safety booklets... a whole slew of items you could get with your company's logo or information printed on it. They had made the transition to computers, and there was a whole room full of them upstairs, with people busily setting company names and addresses in little rectangular blocks. I was in charge of scanning and cleaning up logos as well as organizing all the fonts in a more efficient system. The pressroom was downstairs, and I sometimes had to go down to fetch film or proof things just before they went to press. The computer system sent the type to a machine that produced a roll of exposed glossy paper, which then went to someone who made printing plates from it. It took a long time, used a lot of smelly chemicals and you ended up with an etched metal plate that went into these hand operated vertical presses (sorry, I don't know any names--I'm bad with names). But off in one corner, there were two linotype machines. And one old man who ran them. He was devoted to his machines, and both were in tip-top running condition. He could turn out press-ready type in a matter of minutes, while the computer system took up to three hours to get to the press-ready stage. I loved those machines, and I loved watching the type come out. I have a slug with my name sitting on top of my computer. During my short tenure there, the question was raised as to disposing of the linotypes. I knew I didn't have any clout, but I made my case as eloquently as I could on the merits of keeping them running. For the operations at hand, the linotype was quicker, more efficient and cleaner than the computer. I didn't see the need to get rid of it simply for the sake of keeping up with technology. I often wonder what happened to them, and to the man who ran them and obviously cared for them very deeply.
BS in Art (glass) from UW-Madison, with a second major in Creative Writing. I have at various times been able to make a living within the broad confines of my qualifications, but sadly not very often. Now I drive a cab in New Orleans, which occasionally utilizes some of my skills at story-telling but isn't terribly satisfying. How's that for useless degrees?
Hi, Teresa. Here's a voice from Tor slush-pile readers past. I will refrain from commenting on my own experiences with Bad Novels, or even with Bad Novels by Published Authors, and instead direct my comments thusly: 1) You have, as always, produced a witty, germane and well-balanced explanation of the mysteries of the book trade and I have greatly enjoyed reading it. Thank you. 2) I have submitted very few pieces of my writing, and gotten only one rejection letter, which I found so amusing that I still remember almost all of it. It read: "We apologize for taking so long to send your poem back. It has been the subject of much debate in the office. In the end, we found the combination of sex and violence, without humor, ultimately too disturbing." So if I'd written one with sex and violence but *made it funny* that would have been better?
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