Thanks For Listening

Being any type of artist can sometimes be a very frustrating experience. Working so hard to create something you hope other people will enjoy, even give you money for, and ending up feeling sort of frustrated and disrespected that those things don't happen, or not to the degree you had hoped. There really has to be a sense of just creating because you love it, but once you've reached a certain level of expertise you really wish there would be some sort of recognition and renumeration attached to your efforts. That's how it works for fishermen and teachers and ditch diggers. Make no mistake, I understand how capitalism works, and if you choose to create a product simply because you enjoy it, but you know it's not something other people have ny track record of buying, that's your fault. 

I recently published my second children's book, Atrocious Poems A To Z. I really don't even want to talk about that, or try to sell it to you, per se. 

My main frustration at this very moment stems from the fact that this entire book and every illustration in it is currently in an exhibit on the walls of a major American museum, and three days after that exhibit debuted, and was reportedly enjoyed by all who saw it, there exists no media coverage, no pictures, no blogs, and no one is even talking about it anymore. It's almost like it didn't even happen. 

And this wasn't an exhibit where local artists were invited in an omnibus manner to show a piec, this is a museum exhibition the same as if it were in Chicago or Los Angeles or New York. Come Monday it's as if it never happened. The exhibition runs through October, and unless they paint over the walls I'll still be there until October, but I seem to have no way to capitalize on that momentum to sell my new book. Or even get a story written about it by local media. 

My partner has moved on because she's a great artist and always has more people wanting to commission her for projects than she can even accept, but when you're a publisher and author, and you spend eight years on a book you sort of need it to have legs. 

I even sent a press release to my hometown, where I started the first version of the book in 5th grade almost forty years ago. For ome reason a locally educated kid who spent twelve years going to school there, and moved to the next biggest town where he had kind of a big deal art show just wasn't interesting. Of course it didn't catch the interest of any of the media outlets here, either.

I'm bummed. I can't lie. I expected and hoped for more. I publish hundreds of other writers, poets, photographers, and artists every year at the two literary journals I edit, and not a single one of them could be bothered to share a link on social media. I'm not sure what I'm even doing here trying to force something on people who don't want it. 

In better new, we worked for six months on this book and exhibit, and now I can relax a little bit. Time to sell it, and since I know that's impossible I can just proceed at my own pace. Jenny has already moved on to her next six projects. I haven't decided what I want to do next, if anything.

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Titivillus, The Mortal Enemy of Printers, Editors, Typesetters, and Scribes

Most of Christian folklore doesn't have much resonance in my life. But as I walked to the general store for honey for my Earl Gray tea tonight I realized there is one figure that was created to terrify and keep in line medieval scribes that has also been a hobgoblin in my life, and that is Titivillus, better known as The Printer's Devil. My independent literary press, Zombie Logic Press, has been publishing children's books and books of poetry since 1997. As editor of ZLP I design, edit, and supervise the publication of all of our books. Sometimes I spend months with a manuscript combing it over to find the perfect font, trying to cull out grammatical and spelling errors, and just trying to make it as aesthetically pleasing to look at on the page as I can make it. I do this rather well and have even been asked to do it for others. But perhaps if they knew what I was about to confess I would never be entrusted with a manuscript again. In every book I have ever edited, no matter how long I have painstakingly labored over it with hunched shoulders and squinty eyes, I have always found a single editing error in the finished book. One lonely error, but enough to call into question my ability as an editor. Sometimes I see it right away when I hold that first book out of the crate in my hands, other times I notice much later, but it's always there to haunt me. Sometimes I swear it just isn't possible after having read these words dozens, maybe hundreds of times that I could have missed something this obvious. Which is why I tend to believe this demonic entity is more than a creature of medieval folklore, but a real entity and the enemy of all printers, editors, typesetters, and scribes...

Titivillus. The Printer's Devil.

Titivillus, an underling of the horrific demon Belphegor, was said to be responsible for maliciously introducing errors into the work of scribes. But his motivation was said to be pure: to remind scribes to be ever vigilant and concentrate on what they were doing. Also under his purview was recording the idle gossip and chatter of churchgoers so he could report it to his superiors and ensure the guilty would be punished. Not only was he a gremlin saboteur, but a lowly snitch. In medieval times Titivillus was used as a method to teach moral lessons such as remaining respectful in church and staying diligent in one's pious tasks.

But sacred records indicate Titivillus, or an equivalent entity, was active in Egyptian culture, and even the Babylonian culture before that. In these cultures Titivillus performed much the same function, bedeviling scribes and recording the the sins of those who dared transgress in holy places. 

Titivillus eventually petered out as a figure taken seriously in the church, but by this time had made his way into the world of literature as his own character. And to this day we can all identify with returning to some long labored over piece of writing we are proud of and considered finished only to find an error that seems to have appeared from nowhere. Is it a lapse in concentration or The Printer's Devil that causes these blemishes on our masterpieces? The world may never know.

Illustration by Jenny Mathews

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