Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Daily Thoughts 11/30/2010 (Lynd Ward, Publishers Weekly)

Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy resting in the forest. Oil on canvas. 60 × 50 cm. The State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow. 1891

Daily Thoughts 11/30/2010


This morning, on the train, I started reading First Break All The Rules What The World's Greatest Managers Do Differently by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman.
It is about what makes a great manager.

Today has been relatively quiet, I checked the displays to see that they were in order, read the latest copy of booklist, and handed in the monthly schedule.  It has been one of those days where you do what is necessary because that is what makes you professional.  I am thinking about how to rearrange the ordering schedule and possibly get the Elite Street ordering system for bestsellers from BWI.

I read some more issues of Publishers Weekly.  It is a solid distraction while two more new people are let go.  I also took a few minutes to look at Lynd Ward volume II, Prelude to a Million Years, Song Without Words, and Vertigo.  This is a collection of wordless woodct novels.  They were done in the 1930s.  Art Spiegelman is the editor. These are considered by many to be the precursors to the modern graphic novel.

I am feeling quite tired right now.  For me coming in and doing my everyday work helps me face up to the changes occurring around me.  One of the things that determines professionalism is the ability to work under pressure.

On the way home, I looked through the wordless novels of Lynd Ward, it is a beautiful book, the woodcuts have a very stark Germanic feel to them with strong dark lines. They remind of the art from the Works Project Administration.  I learned that the books were made in a printing cooperative based on democratic principles which was interesting.  Most of the drawings are set in the great depression.  People are living their lives in a very stark time.  There is a sense of the poetic and the biblical in the art.  This is a link to a review from NPR.  It is a very beautiful set of books. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130915507

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