Bloomsday-BYOBook Event a Success!

Bloomsday St. Petersburg - we did it!

Two weeks ago was our BLOOMSDAY - BYOBook event at Wilson's Book World and we had a great turnout to celebrate James Joyce and Ulysses.  I want to thank Jeff Morris at Wilson's Book World and Tiffany Razzano from Wordier Than Thou for partnering with me on this event and helping me promote it.  A huge thanks to our sponsor J.J. Taylor and Guinness for providing refreshments for everyone.  I also want to thank Chuck Vosburgh for the photos, Joe Deal for filming the event, and my brother Randy Myers for assisting with everything else.

With Wilson's owner and
my co-host Jeff Morris.

I've planned many events over the years, but this was one was probably one of the hardest due to my juggling so many aspects of it.  In addition to reading all 786 pages of Ulysses in just three weeks (and tweeting about it daily), I also divided up the 18 episodes into five minute sections and assembled a list of 18 readers, several who dropped out at the last minute due to illness and had to be replaced.  Let me tell you something, getting people to read from Ulysses is not easy!  Finding 18 was near impossible.

John Fleming kicks off the
readings with Episode One.

It was an event I had been wanting to do for a while and it was nice to finally do it surrounded by so many of my friends.  My favorite part of the event was probably our "Best Molly Bloom" contest where the winner received a bottle of burgundy wine and a block of Gorgonzola cheese (in honor of Leopold Bloom!)  The women (and man) who competed offered up a variety of hilarious readings that made the judging that much harder on John Fleming (former performing arts critic for the Tampa Bay Times and my special guest reader.)

"Best Molly Bloom" contestants

Our winner was Jude!

I've edited a video with some of the highlights, which was almost as hard as planning the event as there was over two hours of footage!  Plus there were so many fun moments to share but I couldn't possibly include them all.  Thanks again to everybody that participated or attended the event, and who knows, maybe we will do it again next year!

I had every library copy of
Ulysses in Pinellas County.

Guests enjoying cans of Guinness.

Explaining the purpose of Bloomsday.

Stan Myers introduces us
to Leopold Bloom.

Richard Dipietra reads
Episode Nine. 

Corinne Broskette & Davina Reid
act out Episode 15.

Jeff Morris whipping out his
Finnegans Wake.

And of course, me performing
"JOYCE Around"

Thanks to my fabulous readers that included: John Fleming, Mary Ellen Dipietra, Paul Wilborn, Jude (from the audience), Stan Myers, Allan Smith, Eddie Nunez, Meredith Myers, Christine Page, Richard Dipietra, Jeff Morris, Justin Grant, Cole Bellamy, Lynn Waddell, Davina Reid, Corinne Broskette, Chuck Vosburgh and Pat Vosburgh.

For more photos, please visit my FB page here.

For a direct link to the Bloomsday video, click here.

"I came to get down.  I came to get down.  So get out your books and JOYCE Around..."

Diagon Alley

Two words.

Diagon Alley.

Harry Potter.

Wizarding World.

Universal Orlando.

Media Preview.

Butterbeer.

I'M GOING!!!!!

The Harry Potter section of my home library.

Two fisting butterbeer & pumpkin juice in Hogsmeade
February 14, 2014.

Check out my piece in Creative Loafing Tampa about being invited to attend Universal Orlando Resort Diagon Alley Media Preview this week! 

Follow me on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram to join me...

Creative Loafing Tampa

Right when I think I am going to take a break, I am busier than ever!  So happy to share that my very first articles as a contributing writer for Creative Loafing Tampa appeared this week.  Thanks to my Editor In Chief David Warner and A&E Editor Julie Garisto for their support, and for giving me this wonderful opportunity to work as a writer!

I've been wearing this exact art on my belt buckle for three years!

First, was a literary food story I wrote for CL's Food Issue June 12 - 18 called Read, eat, ask for seconds where I discussed my love for butterbeer from J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, cheese sandwiches & burgundy wine from James Joyce's Ulysses, high tea from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, apple pie from Jack Kerouac's On the Road, and yucatan shrimp from Randy Wayne White's Doc Ford novels and his restaurant down in Sanibel Island.  I also referenced Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist and A Christmas Carol, Herman Melville's Moby Dick, and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis.

Here's all of the books used in the story.

The second and third pieces were in connection with my James Joyce Bloomsday event on June 16th at Wilson's Book World.  I had been reading Ulysses and tweeting about it with a variety of other James Joyce fans on Twitter, and it made sense for me to just write the stories.  The first was a simple 'Do This' promoting the event, and the second was on online piece basically consisting of a funny interview and discussion with Jeff Morris, owner of Wilson's Book World (and my co-host for the event) called Speaking of Bloomsday: an informal chat about James Joyce.

My Do This Bloomday listing where I incorporated
my two favorite lines from Ulysses.

Like most reporters, there were so many things that Jeff and I talked about that just didn't make it into the piece.  Below is the rest of the interview where we talk about the ethics of book buying, what booksellers look for, and why my 1st editions of Ulysses and Harry Potter books are worthless to him.  For more information about our Bloomsday event, click here.

Me with Wilson's owner Jeff Morris.

MM: I’m showing you my copy of Ulysses where someone has written in pencil on the inside cover $300, then crossed out and put $125.  Do you think this 3^rd edition, 1^st American edition is worth that much?

JM: No.  It’s the 3^rd edition of the 1^st printing is eh and your dust jacket is absolutely horrendous but at least it is present, but it is in horrendous condition.  If you want I can put that dust jacket…is it complete?  I can put that in a Mylar jacket, you could use it as a dust jacket. 

MM: As a librarian, I’ve seen lots of books being donated to the library and sometimes they smell like urine, so you don’t always want those.  So if someone brought this in to you, how much would you offer him or her for it?

JM: A couple of bucks.

MM: That’s it?

JM: Yeah, I would put it out with like twelve bucks on it.  You didn’t pay $125 for it, did you?

MM: No, it was a gift.  Apparently a crappy one.  But I’ve noticed people come in here and bringing you books and we are under this assumption that these are worth something, and they are but it is the words in the books that is worth the most, not the books themselves.  I was so excited to get this mostly because it was from a friend I care about that’s why t is priceless to me but in this condition as a book buyer…

JM: That would be good stock for the shelves.  In order to sell that, you would have to put the dust jacket together in a Mylar sleeve, and then you got to post it online with all of the other James Joyce stuff that is out there and hopefully it will sell.  Value is a very fleeting thing.

MM: What are you looking for?

JM: The better the condition, absolutely, and the dust jacket is like 70% of the value.

MM: Wait.  That’s important for people to know.  Explain that.

JM: It would be incomplete without it.  And it has to be the dust jacket from the edition.  For example, I had a copy of Ian Fleming’s Diamonds Are Forever, a first edition.  Without the dust jacket?  50 bucks?  With the dust jacket, even slightly beat up?  350.  There is a lot of difference in price.  You have to have the dust jacket.  Most of the time if something comes in, I won’t even look at it.  It’s just one of those things.

MM: What about the editions?  From First to Second to Third?

JM: First edition, first printing is what you want to strive for. 

MM: See, I’ve always looked for First Editions but now I know to look for First Editions, First Printings.

JM: Yeah and for something like Ulysses, you might as well go ahead and spend the $12,000 to get the really true First Edition. 

MM: What about signatures?

JM: Depends.  Is it signed or inscribed?  If it signed “Best Wishes, James Joyce.” Major bucks because he didn’t inscribe it to anybody.  “To Meredith, Thanks for being a great friend, James Joyce.”  Yeah it has his signature, but as a bookseller, unless I am selling it to someone named Meredith, or Meredith is a really famous person…

MM: She’s not.

JM: Because that adds profit.

MM: Well if James Joyce is writing it to me that means he is still alive so it is going to be worth a lot!

JM: Or it is a ghost.  As long as someone is living, don’t expect much.  But if you get a J.K. Rowling English First Edition of the Harry Potters and it is signed by her – she doesn’t do a whole lot.  Stephen King has backed off a whole lot.  The main thing you want to look for is dead guys.

MM: Great.  I have a First Edition Harry Potter but is an American Edition so now that’s not as cool.

JM: Nope.

MM: What if it is signed by the whole Harry Potter cast?

JM: Then it becomes more of a novelty item. 

MM: So if it is signed by Daniel Radcliffe…

JM: I’m not a movie guy so if you bring in a copy signed by Harry Radcliffe, I wouldn’t really care.

MM: It's Daniel Radcliffe who plays Harry Potter…well I guess we aren’t doing a Harry Potter event anytime soon!  So for anybody out there that wants to sell you books, what are you looking for?

JM: I have a list on my website of the topics we are searching for and I am usually here from 11 – 4 and I prefer for them to just pull up out front.  It’s a lot easier than having them carry boxes back and forth.  Another thing I just don’t understand that 80% of people all do, is when I open the box, they proceed to tell me what they have.  “I’ve got biographies over here, and this over here.”  It’s like opening up the hood to your car and telling your mechanic where the carburetor is.  When I go out to a car and open the box, I know within seconds what you have and pretty much what I wanted.

There are two types of people.  There are the ones that just want to get books out there so they can find a good home.  Then there are the people that think “everything I have is gold” and they don’t believe you.  I am a member of the Florida Antiquarian Book Seller Organization, we subscribe to a code of ethics, I’m not going to blow any smoke up your skirt and the worst thing people can do is tell me “you know I looked these books up on the internet.”  I don’t care if I want those books so bad that I will then have to wait, I’m probably going to pass just because I know that person has got an unreasonable expectation in their mind of what these things are worth and I’m not the guy that is going to talk them out of it.  I haven’t got the time.

MM: There you have it, folks.  Our books are pretty much worthless – unless we are READING them!!!!

Jeff repaired my edition of Ulysses
so I can use it at our Bloomsday event!

Happy 4th Anniversary StandUpLibrarian.com!

Has it really been four years?  You mean, I have kept a job - the same job - for FOUR YEARS?  Jeez, now that is a cause for celebration!  Truthfully, I started celebrating last night with a friend over a bottle of Caymus Cabernet Sauvignon and therefore am slightly slow this morning on the computer.  I also worked my last day at The Home Depot on Friday, another thing to celebrate - me leaving a job by my own choice and not the other way around.  Too many times over the years, I have taken jobs working for other people that I didn't even want and stayed at them much longer than I should have, and when you make decisions like that - not listening to what your instincts are telling you - things are usually not going to go well for anybody involved.  Which is why starting today, I hope to work 100% for me...or at least until my money runs out.  

"So a comedian walks into a library and decides to work there..."

That was the tagline that started everything on June 1, 2010.  It was the start of a joke.  The beginning of a story.  My story.  The story that I am finally going to write...and finish.  I look at all of the things I have accomplished over the past four years as the Stand-Up Librarian from performances and events to literary purses and parody songs, but the two things I wanted more than anything else was to be hired as a librarian at a library and to finish writing my book!  A job offer is obviously out of my control, but writing this book has been completely up to me.  I talk about it all the time.  I say I'm working on it.  But I'm not.  Because I am scared.  What if I suck as a writer?  What if I open up my heart and soul to expose my truth and then nobody gives a shit?  I also mostly think, Who would hire me after reading this?  But then I look at all of the people who have hired me as a result of not writing it.  Zero.

Well, except for The Home Depot.  They hired me.  For $8.25 an hour as a cashier.  Talk about a humbling experience for someone with a Masters degree and a ten year career in marketing/public relations.  The reasons I went to work there were simple: 1) health benefits; 2) meet dudes; 3) to prove to myself and my parents that I could keep a job.  Mission accomplished.  Kind of.  The company took away health benefits at the end of the year for all part-time employees; most of the male customers were either married, crazy or missing teeth; and I finally realized at almost 40 years old, I shouldn't have to prove anything to anybody, especially that I can work for low wages for people I don't respect.  What I did learn was most of my co-workers were awesome people I admire and that DIY really means Do It Yourself!  Like seriously, don't expect anybody to help you even when it is part of their job description.  It should also mean Do It For Yourself because most of the time you won't win awards or promotions for your work but if you truly enjoy it, then it will be a rewarding experience no matter what.  So thank you Home Depot for all that you taught me about "The Power of Tools."

My talents may include dancing on a book cart or designing literary accessories but they also include molding my image into a person that is hopefully hireable and likeable, thus concealing the "bad" parts.  It is not only exhausting but a huge waste of time.  People will eventually see that you know next to nothing about caulking (and don't care to) and when you slice off the tip of your finger or drink too much, you curse like a sailor.  Which is why today, four years after I started this whole Stand-Up Librarian journey, that I am going to apologize.  For holding back.  Some of my best jokes I have not performed.  My craziest stories, have not been shared.  Why? Because I wanted to protect the people who were assholes.  And sometimes that asshole was me.   

That being said, I am going to take the summer off from everything in order to dig deep into my past to finish this book so I can finally let go of the person I was trying to be and become the person I actually am.  I owe it to myself.  I owe it to my family.  I owe it to anybody out there that is discouraged or frustrated about unemployment or struggling to find their passion or simply needs to see that someone like me - someone who didn't "make it" in Hollywood or get hired out of library school - still managed to have a great time by learning to Do It HERSELF.

See you in a couple of months...

Meredith

Comedian. Librarian. Designer. Writer. Publicist. Advocate. FUTURE AUTHOR.

www.StandUpLibrarian.com