Shop Talk

I owe RayVi a lot because he gave me tons of information for my thesis. While I was away, he asked me to look for decent second-hand copies of Patrick O'Brien novels from quaint secondhand bookstores. (I found two.)

We had lunch at Amici's so that I could finally hand him the O'Briens. It was a nice break from the usual office day. The food was excellent as always. I had pasta with clams and prawns in a cream and red wine sauce. And a vanilla gelato with mixed nuts (almonds and pistacchios, I think.) Pagkain pa lang solve na ang araw ko.

The great thing about talking to RayVi is that we're both publishing geeks. (Him more than me, I'm still a fledgeling.) But we get excited and proud of the same things like colour-proofing, spotting typos in the books we read, applying for ISBNs and CIPs. He proudly told me that he creates his own ISBN numbers and barcodes and that he can index a whole book in 30 minutes using word and Adobe pagemaker. Impressive siya. Hinde, talaga. I've been meaning to learn InDesign and master Photoshop for a long time now but I don't have the time yet. I want to know everything, I want get my hands dirty.

After Amici's we walked to this little stationery supply shop down the road. Nakakatawa ang nga hitad. Naglalaway sa mga gel marker-- ooh it writes in white! Sa Pantone color swatches-- sayang mahal...parang I wanted my own set na rin. Sa watercolor pen set-- I've wanted one ever since Conrad told me about them. There was this really cool compass set, varying sizes in a neat leather kit. I'd buy it and pretend I was a mad doctor. At first glance it looks like you could slice people with them. Babalik ako. Ngrrrrr!

He dropped me off at the office but stopped awhile to look through my copy of Dulac's Picturebook for the French Red Cross. One day I'll take pictures of it and post it on the blog. It's one of my most prized possessions, along with Nick Joaquin's Pop Stories for Groovy Kids and my set of Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales. What I love about it is that it's old-style, old-school printing. They didn't have the tech to mix colour illustrations with text so they made lithographs of the illustrations which they pasted on to the printed border of the illustration pages. In the days when you HAD to use your hands, I imagine that making a book was almost a sensual business. The printing, the sorting, the cloth binding, the hand-sewing. I should make one in my spare time. Maski wala talagang laman. :P