All today I've been typing up my footnotes for my book manuscript. In a way, this is the most tedious part of the job, but it has its compensations. I've been typing them while listening to Ebert and Siskel on YouTube, not to mention children playing in the avenue outside. I'm surprised at the pleasure I take in simply typing the cities and towns where the books were published, thinking how they originated from one place in the world rather than another. I had to double-check to make sure Ijamsville, Maryland was a real place, and it wasn't a typing error on my part. I've found myself wondering whether the people in Massachusetts say the whole name every time. There is a great poetry in place names.
I love the names of publishers as well; Clonmore and Reynolds, Burns and Oats, Benziger Brothers, Longmans, Greens and Company-- I can imagine the gold-leaf lettering on the office doors, back in the far-off days when most of the books I used were published.
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