Midnight in Awkwardland

Today I went to the release party for Shannon Hale's new book "Midnight in Austenland"! It was so much fun! I don't think I've ever been to a book signing before...shocking, right? I went by myself, and it was at a tiny independent bookstore over in Sugarhouse. She told hilarious stories about filming "Austenland" in England over the summer, I somehow ended up standing sandwiched between her parents and her husband, there was an impromptu murder mystery game to be played while waiting for signing, and there were also secret prizes hidden throughout the bookstore- I found one! It's the German edition of my favorite book of hers- "Book of a Thousand Days". Maybe it's a sign that I need to ditch Russian and start learning German instead?


Then I was next in line and after spending my line-time thinking about what to say I stepped up and....couldn't say anything. WHAT?! It was like on that episode of Community where Troy meets his hero Lavar Burton and spends the whole visit not talking and running out of the room screaming when ovserwhelmed. Except...she's not even my hero, just an author whose books I enjoy, and who I think is really intelligent and hilarious and just generally kind of great. I think I just jinxed myself by thinking about it too much? And it was just horrible. She wrote something German in my "Das Buch der Tausend Tage" and she looked at it and said "I hope that's right!" and I "well, I won't know if it's not!" and sounded really ungrateful and then walked away awkwardly as she said "it was nice to meet you!" after me. Omg whyyyyyyyyy.



Anyways, I have my copy of "Midnight in Austenland" and I'm super excited to read it.

On a happier note, something truly charming and delightful happened when I first got to the bookstore and was waiting in line to buy my books. I saw the cutest thing I've ever seen. There was a family in front of me in line- two parents and a girl who was maybe 5 or 6- and she was carrying a book of photos of Gaudi's buildings in Barcelona, and she kept turning the page and saying things like "oooh we were there! How old is this building?" She wanted to buy it but her mom kept saying "but we have photos of all those bldgs from when we were there!" Eventually she gave in (who wouldn't give in to a wee squeaky little child begging for a book about great architecture?), and as the little girl handed the book over to her mom, she said in a reverent voice, "it's soooo awesome!". I almost died. I just wanted to eat her she was so cute. What small child cares about Gaudi? Weird and wonderful.

I have a really passive aggressive desire to post only about quilting and other..."domestic" hobbies that take up my time from now on, but for now I will resist.

I spent my lunch break today reading Lovecraft's "At the Mountains of Madness". It's October (I thought I'd let you know just in case that fact has escaped your notice for the last 26 days), so I wanted something slightly Halloweeny, and what says "Halloween!" more than H.P. Lovecraft? Nothing.

Anyways, I just started and had only gotten through 4 pages over the last few days, but after today I am COMPLETELY HOOKED. It was quite a trial to tear myself away and go back to cataloging. Have you ever read it? Or any Lovecraft? You probably should, he basically invented the horror genre. But he wrote horror as it should be, not trying to substitute gore for horror. I think true horror should focus more on suspense, on the terror of the unknown, than on known, conventional villains (like any slasher story). I. Can't. Take. Slasher films.

I don't really have anything intelligent to say about any of this. Mostly just, if you haven't read any Lovecraft, you probably should (especially if you're looking to read something scary that will still let you sleep at night). Once you do, you'll start seeing references to him all over the place. Christopher Nolan's Batman movies (well, anything from anyone about Batman really- for some reason Lovecraft pops up a lot), Guillermo Del Toro references Lovecraft all the time, I feel like anything involving a protagonist turning to old musty archives for answers to their deepening fear is a reference to Lovecraft (I don't know where that meme started if not with him). If I paid more attention to things, I could go on longer. But I don't, so I won't.

A couple of months ago, in going through theshelves of the Hunter Museum's library, I found a copy of selections from "Alice in Wonderland" with original illustrations by Salvador Dali. I knew it was something special and valuable because of the way it was packaged- or not packaged because the original box was missing, but basically a series of folios in book cloth folders. I was curious about it so I asked Frances (the 80-some-odd year old librarian) about it and she said "oh yeah, that's not even all of it- during the construction part of it got moldy in storage, so I just got rid of the box and some of the sections". That shocked me because limited edition books of that type are worth a pretty penny new, and this is at least 40 years old. Anyways, I was just sitting here watching Antiques Roadshow and got curious, did some searching, and found out that a complete version of that same book is worth at least $8000. And part of ours was tossed. Because of mold. GAH FRANCES!!! The best I can do is strongly urge them to get a new box for it. Oh it just makes me sick to my stomach. It did at the time and it still does now.

Mold can be treated. Blurg.