show details 7:39 AM (5 hours ago)  |
Dear Henry,
Sorry, that I come back to your friendly mail only now. I was abroad and had asked the American editor of my book, Christopher Adams, at Taipei to send you a preprinted copy of the books (he only shortly informed me that they are out of preprinted copies, but he will send you a copy of the book as soon as they are printed in may!). I loved your remark: I retain an irreconcilable love for books To hold paper printed books alive and in the marked is also my attempt. Therefore I am still engaged in book fairs worldwide as an adviser. As long as paper printed books are a business they will survive! Of course we cannot drive this strategy by being against all what is going on at the electronic market.
What you write about Carlos Fuentes is terrible, to loose the kids during ones life cannot be measured in terms of yet the biggest success in the world, poor Carlos Fuentes. I had quite an experience with him, when he quarreled with Octavio Paz to be the leading Mexican writer at the Mexican guest country program at Frankfurt 1992. Octavio won the battle and held the speech at the opening ceremony of the fair.
I found in my archives a picture of you and me talking seriously, I send it to you. Hopefully you like it, we were still young!! Who the third person is, I don' t know!
O.k., the books will arrive during the month of May.
Hope, to hear from you again...
Best regards
Peter Weidhaas
Chairman
Chairman
Mobile phone +49-1704988611 - E-mail: peter@weidhaas.eu
www.interbookfairs.com
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show details 1:30 PM (1 minute ago) |
Forgive me, but at the risk of being considered a neoLuddite I say 'Fuck the prognosticators who prematurely want to bury our precious BOOKS". Let the kids play with their electronic toys as much as they want--provided they do not intrude on what ought to be held sacred. The Book.
You see, we Jews knew a thing or two at the outset when somebody (they say the Lord himself but I don't think he had the publishing industry in mind when he or one of his deputies chose to call us 'the people of the Book.' Alas, the last to understand that, and act accordingly, was the late Teddy Kollek--who learned so much from you when he started his own fair in Jerusalem.
One of these days, when Wendy and I decide to visit our painter son in Berlin we shall surely come to visit you in or near Frankfurt.
Which brings me to another question. Isn't a future fair devoted to Argentine writers? If so, I qualify.
The other day I had an idea which I am happy to share with you in case you have an innovative publisher who might be interested in some experimentation. I may have told you that I am working on a memoir and, quite naturally, one thinks of the many people and events that influenced one's life. For example, how can I ever be grateful enough to Erich Kleiber for inviting me to his rehearsals and performances in Buenos Aires, Santiago, Copenhagen and Vienna. Then it occurred to me that another approach, in fiction, of course, would be to trace the course of one's life by removing certain key people. For instance, take out Hans Busch (the son of conductor Fritz) from my curriculum and I would not have met the Fischer (Verlag) family or gone to get my degree to Bloomington, Indiana. I knew the Busches from Buenos Aires and when I went to Sweden and saw Hans's hilarious production in Swedish of Barbiere in Stockholm I quickly wrote a piece for the UP which appeared on the front pages of La Prensa (local boy makes good syndrome)
which made him, it seems, eternally grateful. Anyway, a few months later he came through New York, phoned me and invited me to join him and half the Fischer clan in Bloomington, Indiana, where he had been engaged to open an opera workshop. So I became his assistant in stage direction and got myself a degree in anthropology and philosophy. True, only in America. But it also represented another example how music and journalism became eternally intertwined in my life. And it all began in Buenos Aires where I spent as much time going to performances and rehearsals at the Teatro Colon as I did in the United Press offices.
Now tell me more about what you are doing, where you are living. And remember, whenever Frankfurt bows towards Argentina I shall be there.
Meanwhile, all the best and a fuerte abrazo,
Uncle Hank
2010/4/12 Peter Weidhaas <peter@weidhaas.eu>
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