So. The thing was pretty anticlimactic, but went by pretty harmlessly. The editors weren't much of a talkative bunch to begin with, and after introductions I just sort of glided here and there in the outskirts of different groups, not being acknowledged and not really bothering to join in. The discrepancy in formative backgrounds made the possibility of meaningful conversation close to null, as I quickly noticed that their angle vis-a-vis the whole literature thing wasn't the same as mine. They were the professional literati, the ones who dedicate their whole lives to one subject, to one author only, who write and dissect and give lectures about pretty anemic stuff like "The Act of Looking in James Joyce's works", or "The Self-Reflexive Schmackity-doo in Sterne", people who deal with Literature not as a personal, intimate matter, but using like gloves and tweezers of Pavlovian veneration, worshiping the letter of the law but not its spirit. Cottage industry people, in short. How could I hope to make them see things as I see them without being "that person" in the party?
The issue of my non-existent professional & academic background was touched only briefly and they seemed to be cool with that (as far as I could tell; again, they weren't the easiest people to read. I have to keep reminding myself that these are Literature people, and probably deep down a bunch of scaredy-cats - privileged, big city scaredy-cats). Luckily the lectures meant that there wasn't going to be a lot of socializing anyway (everybody kinda left early, no one mentioned the possibility of drinks, which was a shame, as I'm pretty sure Charming Me would have surfaced at some point or other after some Empowerment). Still, the editor told me that I should write my own biographical thing "as best as I could" (while looking at me like if I was a 3 dollar bill). I'm so fucked.
Also I managed to almost not embarrass myself: I was gonna compliment the Ulysses translator, the guy who got me this gig, but unfortunately there were strangers listening, and that really messes my shit. What was supposed to be a well articulated (and honest: dude really nailed the thing, I think) praise came out as "Umf, muffleuffgmh uhm fgmam". Shit. Oh, and there was a very favorable piece about my translation in the literature section of one of the biggest papers in the country, which was good. Hopefully I'll be able to get more gigs (even though I'm not holding my breath).
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Topic: Today I'm gonna... (Read 1342824 times)