Wanna A Little History With Those Antibiotics?
/This essay ran yesterday as part of Scientific American's Food Week series. Kinda cool to have a piece in SA: I started using the publication as a primary source for my research waaay back in grad school, and am still using it.
The Title. The Jacket. The . . .
/The Whatever. Okay. We've got a title and a jacket design. I'm not crazy about the title but it's not bad for a compromise. (*1) According to Amazon, the book comes out in mid-November. For a non-famous person like me, that means it will be out in mid-October. (*2)
Anyway: here is a virtual representation of the real thing.
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*1: As I said in my previous post: Please do NOT bombard me with emails or comments about how I really need to leave the publishing Nazis behind and self-publish. I know the drill. I have my view; you have yours. Self-publishing is part of my future, but that's then. This is now. (Re. the "Nazis" term: One reason I don't read self-publishing blogs anymore is because those who have them tend to be, shall we say, supremely self-righteous. A blog entry on one of said sites described traditional editors/publishers as Nazis. Oooh, boy, did I not ever go back there again.)
*1: Every book has what is known as a "lay-down date," on which the book is released for sale. But those dates are only real for Very Famous Writers, for whom a Big Fuss will be made on that date. For the rest of us, however, the book lands in stores and online whenever it's released from the warehouse. That's typically a month prior to the lay-down day.
Jack Was Here. I Was There.
/I've spent the last two evenings in the Big Town (that would be Des Moines, Iowa) hanging with my friend Jack McAuliffe, the "godfather" of craft brewing. (There are many other posts about Jack here at the blog; you can search for those, but this pair from Jay Brooks about the Great Trip to New Albion constitute my favorite online riffs on Jack.) (If you're not familiar with Jack and his work, see my book or this piece by John Holl.) This morning there was a nice piece in the Big Town Daily (aka The Des Moines Register) by writer extraordinaire Kyle Munson.
And finally, there's this lovely photo, taken by a friend of Brian Fox, a local brewer.
Many and sincere thanks to the people at Doll Distributing for bringing Jack to town; to Jeff Bruning for hosting the El Bait Shop event; to the folks at the Keg Stand (what a great place! Who knew?); and to Eric Sorensen and Jay Wilson for letting us crash the Rock Bottom party. And, of course, to the many people who attended the events. Thanks, thanks, thanks!
UPDATE CITY, Man!
/Or whatever. Okay, so here's where I'm at. Yesterday my editor sent me her text edits of the second draft of the manuscript. And HIP HIP HOORAY! --- it held up under her expert scrutiny and there's not much left to do on the manuscript.
Relatively speaking, of course: Given where I started seven years ago, the amount of work left to do is dinky, teensy-weensy. Practically nothing. You've NO idea how great I feel about that.
The plan is to finish the revisions by the end of February and send it along to her, and unless something horrible happens (like: I DON'T finish these revisions by the end of February), the book will land in bookstores in October or November. (Or wherever it is we'll be buying books by that time. God knows.)
This is where things start to move at the speed of light and one measure of that lightening-like speed is this item, which landed in my inbox about an hour ago: The first go-round of the jacket design:
Do I like this design? Actually, I do.
BUT: there's one tiny problemo with both this jacket design and the title: the book is about beef, pork, and poultry. (*1)
See any hogs or chickens there? Nope, and neither do I. According to my beloved editor, whom I adore and worship, this is the "first round" of possible jackets, so. . . . We shall see, eh? (*2)
Anyway, I'm still away from my observation post here at the ol' website, but yeah, baby, I'm getting SO. CLOSE. to the time when I can get back here regularly.
Again, that's barring some unforseen disaster. Let's all pray that there is none, okay? Anyway, aside from having been sick for most of the past ten days (at least the timing was good: I was waiting around for these revisions), I'm feeling fabulous. Relief of a sort that you probably can't imagine.
Anyway. That's what's new in my part of the world. See you SOON, my friends, SOON. (*4)
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*1: Although as my editor pointed out, at least it does NOT include what I really didn't want: cowboys, the western range, or a barn.
*2: No, I had no input on the title (well, sort of not. *3). And no input on the jacket design. (Because Rule 1 in publishing is: Authors are not entitled to jack shit unless they're a) already famous; or b) are mega-bestsellers.)
*3: Here's the story behind the title: Waaay back in 2006, about three weeks before the beer book came out, I cranked out a proposal for this book about meat and sent it around to agents (because I needed to find a new agent). I needed to attach some kind of title to my proposed book, so in a ten-second brainstorm (I'm not kidding), I came up with IN BEEF WE TRUST.
My new agent, in turn, sent the proposal to my editor, who agreed to buy it. In no way, shape, form, or universe did I intend IN BEEF WE TRUST to be the title of the book itself. And believe me, in a zillion years, the first title someone comes up with is almost never, and I do mean NEVER, the actual title of the finished product.
So wouldn't you know that this is the zillionth year: the people at the house (that's publishing speak for the publisher) loved it. Never mind that the book isn't about beef only. They liked it. And then they took a subtitle that I came up with somewhere along the way and added that and --- Voila! Title. Sigh.
*4: Honesttogod, I hope I'm the only person who manages to include three footnotes in a 600-word post. Because if I'm not, the future of civilization is in doubt.
What I Learned on the Mountain
/How's that for a dramatic title? And truth be told, it's not so much that I learned as that I was reminded of what I already knew: a) I'm not now and never have been the center of the universe, because said universe is so much bigger than me; b) ordinary people are extraordinary; c) when push come to shove, those ordinary folks come through, including this ordinary person. (*1) (Translation: I didn't fall off the mountain, break any limbs, or give up.
Background:
I don't like to travel, but when I force myself to do so, I don't regret it and I return home a better person. (*2) My husband, however, lives to travel (that's not a typo), so we rarely vacation together (one of the three secrets to a happy marriage). (*3) And I don't vacation much, period. (My last true vacation was in 2008 when we went hiking in Moab. And it wasn't much of a vacation: I was sick the whole time with, as I found out later, pneumonia.)
And The Husband (as we shall henceforth identify him) (he IS a real person) is fascinated by what he calls "monumental architecture": think Angkor Wat, Mesa Verde, anything by Gaudi, Borobudur, etc.
Naturally he wanted to visit Machu Picchu, and naturally (and as always) he asked me if I wanted to go with him.
And naturally I dithered, hemmed, and hawed. Until I read about Mountain Lodges of Peru and thought "HEY! If I know where I'm going to sleep and eat every day, and I'm hiking with a guide, I'll go. After all, I love hiking and silence, so what the heck?"
And that, dear friends, is how I found myself struggling to climb and cross a mountain pass 15,000 miles up in the Andes. (Please note: I've lived my entire life at 1,000 feet above sea level.)
Thus My Great Vacation: Six days of hiking up, down, across, and through various valleys, meadows (okay, ONE meadow), mountain passes (okay, okay, ONE mountain pass), ravines, and so on and so forth, all the while trying to a) breathe (did I mention I live at 1,ooo feet above sea level?); b) not fall (here's how to trek downhill when the path is nothing but loose rock: grip your trekking poles and GO. Fast. Don't think. Just move. Your feet will cooperate. Move slowly and you're bound to tumble); and c) enjoy the view and the moment.
The "view" included the two photos above, and ranged from this
to this
to this
Was it difficult? Ohmygodyes.
Was it worth it? YES.
One reason, one BIG reason, was the people. We traveled with ten other trekkers, all total strangers, plus two guides (plus a bunch of "wranglers" who carried our bags and food). My ten trek mates were amazing. Every one of them. That's what I mean about "ordinary" people: we were just a bunch of random people, thrown together, but those other ten (plus my husband) proved to be people of extraordinary heart and compassion and empathy and courage and determination. I was humbled and awed by all of them, and grateful for their company and good cheer.
Then there was the trek itself. Hands down, this was the hardest thing I've ever done. Physically, it was brutal (again, I live at 1,000 feet above sea level. Trekking at 15,000 feet ain't easy....) And because it was so physically difficult, it was also mentally challenging.
On the other hand ---- what's not to like about no noise, few people, spectacular scenery? THE smartest decision I made was to "unplug" for the duration: On August 25th, the day we left, I read a couple of newspapers on the plane. But after that, and until September 6th, no TV, no radio, no phone, no iPad/computer, no web. (The lodges were wired, as were our hotels, but I stayed away from the computers.) Glorious! I highly recommend it.
And being unplugged led to a singularly odd experience: I literally was unable to figure out what day it was. Which led to a comical exchange on Sept. 6th, when we arrived at the Miami airport on the way back to Iowa. As had been the case in Lima, our plane was delayed and we were going to be sitting in Miami for some (unknown) number of hours. So I thought "Meh. Almost home. I think I'll read the Times." (*4)
So I go to the nearest newsstand where I find the newspaper rack, which is in the process of being restocked by the newspaper-stocking guy.
I stand and stare at the stack of New York Times papers.
Me to no one in particular: "Is this today's paper?" (Because honestly, I had no idea what day it was.)
Newspaper guy (and without missing a beat): "Wow. That must have been some vacation."
And it was.
You can see more photos here. (I only own a point-and-shoot, which I bought for this trip, so the pix I took aren't fabulous. The second album in the set, however, contains some astounding photos taken by one of my trek mates.)
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*1: By which contradiction I mean that most humans ARE ordinary, right? By definition, most of us are average. We can't be and are not all Steve Jobs or Mother Theresa. But: "ordinary" human beings are extraordinary in their capacity for compassion, courage, empathy, love, and laughter, and my trek mates provided all of that in spades.
*2: What I dislike about travel is precisely that on which travel aficionados thrive: chaos.
*3: The three are: separate vacations, double sinks, and ear plugs.
*4: After reading the newspaper cover to cover, I was not surprised to learn that nothing earth shattering had taken place during the previous 11 days. And when I got home, all those accumulated emails amounted to, well, not much of anything . . . . because the world goes on, ya know?