Journal

Friday, March 06, 2009

The perfect job

Sometimes people ask me what I would like to do, if I wasn't a writer. Normally, I do not know. There's not much that I'm good at apart from making things up. But today, I read about the other job I could do.
No one thought that Icelanders might have some natural gift for smelting aluminum, and, if anything, the opposite proved true. Alcoa, the biggest aluminum company in the country, encountered two problems peculiar to Iceland when, in 2004, it set about erecting its giant smelting plant. The first was the so-called “hidden people”—or, to put it more plainly, elves—in whom some large number of Icelanders, steeped long and thoroughly in their rich folkloric culture, sincerely believe. Before Alcoa could build its smelter it had to defer to a government expert to scour the enclosed plant site and certify that no elves were on or under it. It was a delicate corporate situation, an Alcoa spokesman told me, because they had to pay hard cash to declare the site elf-free but, as he put it, “we couldn’t as a company be in a position of acknowledging the existence of hidden people.”
I want to certify places as elf-free. Or, sometimes, not elf-free, just because I can.

...

And while I have you here, a reminder about the pre-show for those of you coming to the signing at Books of Wonder on Saturday, here cut and pasted for your delight in all its multicoloured glory from http://www.booksofwonder.com/events030709.asp:

Blueberry Girl Art Show

Private Preview Saturday 11:00 am - noon
Public Viewing Saturday  noon  -  Sunday March 29th 

To celebrate the publication of Blueberry GirlBooks of Wonder will also be hosting a show and sale of the stunning original art from this new book, as well as several signed prints of the art byCHARLES VESS. The art show will run from Saturday, March 7th through Sunday, March 29th. 10% from the sale of each painting will be donated to RAINN

PRIVATE PREVIEW of the art show with the artist will be available to the first 100 people who make a $10 donation to RAINN. This PRIVATE PREVIEW will be from 11am to 12 noon on Saturday, March 7th and those attending will have the exclusive opportunity to purchase the artwork before anyone else has seen it. The show will then be open to the general public from 12 noon on. If you wish to make a donation and attend the PRIVATE PREVIEW, please contact the store at (212) 989-3270.


Rainn, incidentally is at http://rainn.org/

& so to bed. 

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