I’m gonna be famous!
The more observant of you may have noticed I haven’t got any further with writing up the trip. Put that down to a bit of a relapse into depression, contributed to partly by sheer exhaustion after all that travelling, combined with normal post-holiday let down, but mostly by the general stress at work (more on that later in a locked post). I really do intend to write everything up soon, and have made a few false starts, but every time I sit down at the computer determined to get on with it this time, I run out of oomph and end up browsing random internet sites or playing Puzzle Pirates.
Anyway, on to more interesting things than me making yet another excuse for not blogging: I’m gonna be famous! Scarlett-CH, a film student at CPIT, is making a documentary about Bookcrossing and contacted me to ask if I’d like to be involved. Free publicity is always good, even if it is only on one of the little local channels that hardly anyone watches, so of course I said yes, but not without a little trepidation – after all, I’ve guarded my anonymity pretty closely, and while I’ve managed to get in the paper (Warning, that article is full of misquotes (or totally invented quotes!) and incorrect facts – the reporter wasn’t the best at note-taking. But she did I think do a good job of conveying the feel of bookcrossing) without revealing my secret identity, that’s not so easy on TV. Scarlett did say she could arrange an interview where they didn’t show my face, but the idea of appearing only in silhouette, with a computer-generated voice (I’ve got no idea if that’s what she intended, but it’s the image that immediately sprang to mind) seemed a bit over the top, as well as having a few too many connotations of criminality – not quite the image we want to portray of Bookcrossing.
There followed much soul-searching, about why exactly I value my anonymity so much (difficult to explain, even to myself – a lot of it just comes down to habit, the rest is a vague feeling of “what if the people I work with think I’m weird?), and the advantages and disadvantages of “coming out” (on the plus side, if I do have to start applying for jobs, being able to list all the voluntary work I do for Bookcrossing would look great on my CV – especially the convention organising stuff), and in the end, I realised that the issue has pretty much been decided for me, seeing as my photo has been plastered all over the internet in the course of this trip – it’s even in the latest bookcrossing newsletter! So hiding my face seems a bit pointless now.
So the upshot is, I told Scarlett that yes she could film me for the documentary, and use my real name. So she’s coming round next week with her film crew to interview me, and film me doing typical bookcrossery things – eek, I’d better tidy up the study!
In all the excitement of the last month, I haven’t reported on some great catches I’ve had recently:
The Taxidermist’s Dance by Richard Lunn travelled from Christchurch to Dunedin, and was caught by a librarian.
Adam Bede by George Eliot, released at the Richard Pearce memorial outside Temuka, was caught there by some tourists who’ve taken it back to Australia with them.
Stone Maiden by Pamela Townley, released two years ago at the Dunedin convention, has finally been caught, but has lost a few pages in its travels 🙁
Laws of Our Fathers by Scott Turow, caught and re-released at the university.
The Venetian Affair by Helen MacInnes, another book from our Easter expedition, caught in Albury.
Biggles Goes to War by WE Johns – another one from the Dunedin convention, caught two years later.
Death Wore a Diadem by Iona McGregor – caught at the university, and destined to travel to the US.
The Train Robbers by Piers Paul Read – another catch from our Easter expedition! That was a very productive trip!
One by Richard Bach, caught by someone who really needed something nice to happen to them that day – this is the kind of journal entry that keeps me wild releasing.
Within the Bounds by Marc Lodge, caught in Christchurch and re-released in Santiago!
And one that’s not strictly my catch, because it was Pixette who originally released it into the wild, but is cool just because it’s now on its second wild catch, and is back in the wild again (interesting too for having four journallers but no release notes): Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë.
Currently reading: Thirteen Moons by Charles Frazier
Currently listening to: Moondust: In Search of the Men Who Fell to Earth by Andrew Smith