In a chair in the same garden was written this following

If thou sit here to view this pleasant garden place
Think thus: at last will come a frost, and all these flowers deface;
But if thou sit at ease to rest thy weary bones,
Remember death brings final rest to all our grievous groans.
So whether for delight, or here thou sit for ease,
Think still upon the latter day, so shalt thou God best please.
- George Gascoigne (1534-1577)

NY Book Expo, May 27 '10

I had a thoroughly wonderful time at this year's Book Expo! In addition to all the sales work (handing out cards, asking for cards, reciting my little sales pitch, lugging around a heavy bag filled with catalogs, etc) - which generated 2 RFPs for my printing client - I met some delightful people and simply enjoyed being with so very many books. The Expo is basically a showcase for librarians and bookstore buyers - a place where publishers display their wares - and what wares they were! It was a bookworm's delight!

While a part of the exhibit hall is dedicated to digital readers of all kinds, most of the space is about books. Childrens books. Art books. Mysteries. Fiction and non-fiction. Trashy romance novels. Classics. Travel guides. Cookbooks. Horror tales. Slim volumes of poetry. Spiritual texts. "Street" novels. Books from all over the world. Books from large publishers. Books that were self-published. I fervently wished I could bring home a bit of everything!

One of the "perks" of the show is the author autograph sessions, and while I was there on business and could not wait on line for some of the more famous writers, I did obtain a nice little collection of signed childrens books for all four wee nieces. And I did meet Ms Bernadette Peters, who was signing cd discs of her "Barks on Broadway". Ms Peters was very charming and sweet, and made a point of greeting every person by name (we had nametags, but still!).

All in all, it was an pleasantly exhausting day - and one which left me feeling quite positive about the survival of print :)

On Strawberries

Strawberries are the angels of the earth, innocent and sweet with green leafy wings reaching heavenward.  ~Terri Guillemets

This special feeling towards fruit, its glory and abundance, is I would say universal.... We respond to strawberry fields or cherry orchards with a delight that a cabbage patch or even an elegant vegetable garden cannot provoke.  ~Jane Grigson

The NY Book Expo

This morning I am at the NY Book Expo on behalf of a client in the publishing industry. The Expo is a special treat for a bookworm like myself :)

Margaret Sanger, in her own words

"[Philanthropists] encourage the healthier and more normal sections of the world to shoulder the burden of unthinking and indiscriminate fecundity of others; which brings with it, as I think the reader must agree, a dead weight of human waste. 

Instead of decreasing and aiming to eliminate the stocks that are most detrimental to the future of the race and the world, it tends to render them to a menacing degree dominant ... We are paying for, and even submitting to, the dictates of an ever-increasing, unceasingly spawning class of human beings who never should have been born at all." - The Pivot of Civilization, 1922, excerpted from chapter "The Cruelty of Charity,". Swarthmore College Library edition.

"Give dysgenic groups [people with 'bad genes'] in our population their choice of segregation or [compulsory] sterilization." - April 1932 Birth Control Review.

Whether we like it or not, eugenics was an American invention, not something that happens only "over there". And compulsory sterilisations were practiced here (and defended by the Supreme Court!) until the 1970s.
What frightens and sickens me is how many well-educated and powerful people still hold similar views! Like America's sweetheart, Katie Couric, who recently commented about how more minorities should be on the Pill?!?

Flowers

"Flowers ... are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the utilities of the world."

 - Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1844

Mother's Day Notes

I was blessed today to spend a lovely day with family.

But as I was watching the wee nieces scamper about, I could not help but think of the very many mothers who no longer have their children.

How do those mothers cope on this celebration of motherly love?

How does the woman who has lost all her children feel today?

Or the mom who's child is away at war? Or locked away? Or given away? Or taken away?

And so as I count my own blessings on this day, I take a moment to pray for mothers who grieve.