Are you dissociating at the New York International Antiquarian Book Fair?
a visceral examination
One of the most disquieting things about being a book person is feeling disinterested in books, a sensation that only becomes more pronounced and therefore horrifying when presented with literally every book imaginable, in a single room, filled with the most knowledgeable people on those books, who would happily explain to you why you should care about those books—even if you can’t possibly afford to buy them, and by the skittish way you approach price tags, you most definitely cannot, but should the case arise sometime in the future, perhaps you devise a brilliantly profitable idea to rid the planet of crypto currency once and for all, or your long-lost great aunt falls into a vat of molasses and leaves you her dubiously-acquired but nonetheless solvent sugar fortune, that you’re able to purchase these fabulously interesting books, wouldn’t it be good to have a semblance, an inkling, a twinkle of a wisp of a notion of which books you’d actually want to buy—so you spend much of one evening and the better part of another afternoon alternating between leisurely meandering and purposefully marching through the maze of booths positioned around an enormous event hall, attempting to emanate the confidence of any of the hundreds of people surrounding you (as though you have even the remotest idea of what you’re looking for) but instead fearing you’re drawing the strange curiosity of the dealers who are probably thinking “that person has passed us three times now and she seems increasingly lost,” and all the while, you’re noticing the exquisite footwear and garb of your fellow book lovers who are not bookish at all (in that measly, stereotypical sense) but quite dapper and chic and innovative and carefree and channeling the best of the best of every decade’s dress from the 1890s to the 1920s and on through the 1960s (with a firm hop over the latter half of the century) and you wonder if the Air Force 1s that have rescued your feet from a long month of standing and squatting in your day job are quite up to snuff compared to the sleek dress shoes crafted from obsidian and the stilettos glowing of a glorious setting sun that just strode by you—you vaguely recall that the Met Gala will be hosted just up the road the forthcoming Monday but it may in fact be occurring right here, now, in this very room, and you wonder if you are currently enduring a long-held nightmare of showing up severely underdressed to a major function (which you have done once before, at a Halloween party, no less, but that’s a train of thought for another time)—in any case, the dismay with your own wrinkled trousers is minorly relieved upon receiving word from one of the few familiar faces in the sea of driven, well-intentioned and intentional searchers that a beloved mentor is meant to show up any minute and wouldn’t it be delightful to give her a squeeze and a hello after so many years without seeing one another, surely, but now as you await her arrival you find yourself awkwardly loitering in a booth already too small for the three professional bookdealers who are meant to be there, to sell their wares, the whole point of this enormous logistical undertaking that is a book fair, so you carry on your mission-less quest in a maze you cannot find a path out of; along the way, of course, encountering more and more colleagues and friends who proactively read the preview catalogues that piled themselves neatly yet menacingly in your inbox over the past week and that you swiftly shooed into the trash bin, thinking, “I don’t need to read those, as I won’t be buying anything anyways,” and reflecting on this shallow observation now makes you wonder, actually, why are you here, if you lack any sort of purchasing power for an institution (a job for which you are technically trained) and if you lack any motivating collecting interest, what is the point of showing up to this sensually overwhelming environment except to schmooze with the four or five people you know and knit yourself in knots over the socially deranging prospect of introducing yourself to someone new, knowing as you do that these two days are among the most important for your colleagues on either side of this exchange—in terms of moving stock or expanding holdings—and your idling by can swiftly transform into a nuisance when you have no material purpose, but then you chide yourself, knowing as you do that dealers are among the friendliest, most enthusiastic people and are delighted to share with you the favorite objects that they’re showcasing on this, their largest annual stage, yet with all that in mind, instead of meaningfully or even passively engaging with any of these potentially fascinating objects for the sake of self-edification, and despite every evidence to the contrary: the years you’ve spent dedicated to studying the production, sale, acquisition, description, reference, and exhibition of books; how riveted you are each time friends detail the emotional rollercoaster of locating a unique object, selling it, having the sale fall through, then succeed in selling it to an even more gratifying home, or, on the other hand, the emotional rollercoaster of locating a unique object, finding its been sold to a competitor, only to learn that the sale fell through and isn’t it so gratifying how things find the right homes after all; the ecstatic thrill lighting up your brain of momentarily indulging in the glorious survivals of glittering 12th-century illuminated manuscripts twinkling under glass cases, of 17th-century women’s printing in Mexico, of an extraordinary full-run of a critical 20th-century anglophone Nigerian literary magazine; and the sheer joy you experience upon encountering these books that prove the worst of the world wrong and the best of the world right—you still think wildly and irrationally to yourself, “Perhaps, maybe, I don’t like books at all,” then, yes. You are dissociating at the New York International Antiquarian Book Fair.
housekeeping & birdseeking
house
bird
More later.