ILAB Offers Internships to Young Rare Book Dealers

by Stephen J. Gertz

The International League of Antiquarian Booksellers (ILAB) has initiated an  Internship Program to help young dealers widen and deepen their knowledge and plug into the worldwide network of rare book dealers.

The two current interns, Alena Lavrenova and Anastasya Zhikhareva, got their Master degrees at the Moscow State University of the Printing Arts. Alena is now writing a thesis about the history of ILAB while Anastasya is working at an auction house in Moscow. In May they spent four weeks in Austria, Hungary, Germany and the Netherlands to work for and learn from antiquarian bookdealers in Vienna, Budapest, Munich and Amsterdam.

The Internship Program will continue with another student from Moscow, who will go to Australia very soon. The ILAB hopes that many other young students and dealers will follow and that this is the beginning of a global "ILAB School" without borders, offering interns learning opportunities and experiences at any time in any place in the world.

We asked an ILAB spokesperson for further information.

Is there an application process? How do applicants get chosen?

Applicants are chosen after they have contacted Norbert Donhofer, a member of the ILAB Committee and in charge of the ILAB Internships. He reports to the ILAB Committee, and if the Committee has found a reasonable number of candidates Norbert will  organize the next class of interns.

How are assignments to particular dealers made? If a dealer wishes to get involved to host an intern how is that handled?

Norbert Donhofer and Eric Waschke, ABAC Past President and owner of the Wayfarer's Bookshop (Canada), contacted dealers who volunteered to get involved with the internship program. Of those dealers, a selection was carefully and individually made so that each applicant would have the opportunity to learn exactly what they needed to know.

Alena and Anastasya, for example, worked at a Russian auction house, and Alena is writing a thesis on the history of ILAB. That's why Norbert Donhofer took care that they could work at a German auction house for a week and that Alena could meet past ILAB Presidents, Anton Gerits and Michael Steinbach, to learn about ILAB and conduct  interviews with them. So, then, when there are new applicants, the dealers will again be chosen carefully and according to the knowledge and the experience the young book dealers wish to gain.

How many ILAB internships per year?

In 2011 there are three internships. Alena and Anastasya spent 4 weeks in Hungary, Austria, Germany and Netherlands. Another young dealer from Russia will go to Australia in autum 2011. Another three internships are fixed for 2012. Afterwards ILAB will assess the Internship Program's progress, and make corrections and improvements as necessary. 

Along with  Rare Book School at the University of Virginia, Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminars at Colorado College, and California Rare Book School at UCLA, the ILAB Internship Program is fulfilling an important need. Uniquely, however, it provides an opportunity to those with ambition to enter the professional ranks of rare and antiquarian booksellers to gain invaluable, practical, hands-on experience out of the classroom and into the world.

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ILAB logo used with permission.
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Matching the Right Wine to the Right Rare Book

Let Vincent Vinmerde, the Rare Book Sommelier, former winemaker at Chateau Saint Livre and consultant to the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers (ILAB), help make your next bookish event a vintage affair fit to print. Maybe.

by Stephen J. Gertz

I'd like to thank the Director, Father Michael Suarez S.J., for inviting me to present this, the final class of the year at UV's Rare Book School, and for giving me a last only chance. The man's a saint, is what he is. A saint.

Of the debacle at the ILAB Congress in Madrid, where I denounced all Riojas as swill not suitable to even gargle with and to be accompanied only with cheap reprints of Lorca on a bad day, and of the subsequent riot outside the U.S. embassy and then nationwide strike, I shall say no more.

I promised to be on my best behavior but right now I imagine Father Suarez  is in a rectory praying that I don't make a complete wreckery of things.

I've brought a selection of some of the finest wines that starving librarians, rare book dealers, and collectors can buy. Which means that the only Lafite you'll be tasting will be the ones at the end of my ankles.

Hmmm. Not even a chuckle? Time for the first tasting. Mine. Since I got out of the car. Excuse my sumptuous sip; none of this polite thimbleful, swirl and spit nonsense for me!

Oh, dear, I seem to have forgotten to bring  the glasses. Oh, well. No shame in chug-a-lugging; the spirit of the winemaker is pleased when votaries of the vine tip the bottle back. Here's to Bacchus and rare books!

Well, now. Much better. Much, much better. Oh, yes! Great legs, insouciant nose, yet astringent, ultimately the dregs. But let's leave my ex out of it.

Hello?

Fuck-a-doodle-doo! Wake up, everybody.

Lesson #1: It is not necessary to drink white wine while reading rare books on marine natural history. I once shared a bottle of '76 Romanée-Conte so ruby we called it Tuesday, with a fish. At least she drank like one. The phone number she gave me afterward was for a mortuary.  I hate bad reviews.

Another tasting? Why, sure, thank you for asking!

That takes care of that bottle. Oh, fuckity. Where do we toss the damned empties?

Lesson #2: When reading the Christian Hebraists do not, under any circumstances, drink Manischewitz. Do not engage in literalism - in religion or wine-drinking.

Oh, fuckity-fuck - I've insulted religion. Fortunately, I brought along a nice Châteauneuf-du-Pape so I'll drink just a tiny little bit strictly in honor of His Holiness; maybe get a dispensation out of it.

Whad'I do with the corkscrew? Fuckity-fuck-fuck! Oh, there's the little sucker.

Lesson #3: When using a corkscrew be sure to carefully center it on the cork, like THIS, and begin screwing. At least, that's what she said last night.

What a crowd. I'm searching for signs of intelligent life here, folks; terrestrial, extra-, makes no difference to me.

Now pull out carefully. The cork, you filthy book lovers! Oh, fuckity-fuck-fuck!  Damned cork!

Lesson #4: When the fuckity cork breaks off  in the fuckity bottle, grab a pencil, jam it into the bottle's neck and ram what remains of the demonic bottle-stop down in there. Allow for spillage. No time to grieve; immediately, raise bottle to lips, and swig, like this.

Divane pipisy, er, divine papacy! Ah, sweet mystery of life at last I've found you!

Lesson #5: In vino veritas. And in truth, I don't give a fuckity-fuck. Let's drink some more! Or, anyway, I'll drink some more. That a problem, my little fuckadees?

Lesson #6: When reading rare volumes of Charles Bukowski the obvious  vinous accompaniment is what, class?

Thunderbird. Come on, people! Do I have to spell everything out for you?

Okay, nest, er nesh, eh next!

Answer: Gewürztraminer.

Question:  When shitting, er sittting down for some nice Szechuan while reading Schopenhauer what minor Alsacian philosopher should you drink?

A scholastic detour: Let me put to rest, once and for all, the Shakespeare - Bacon controversy. The bard preferred pancetta, end of story, okay? Geesh!

Lesson #7: It should go without saying, so, naturally, I will anyway, that alcohol and the literature of psychotropic drugs do not mix. Recently, I was drinking an '81 Martin Ray Stelzner Vinyard Cabernet while reading a few lines from a beautiful first edition copy of Mortimer's Peru: History of Coca. The Divine Plant of the Incas (1901). Soon, I was compulsively reading long lines from the book, one after another after another after another after another, while simultaneously running a NG-tube from the bottle, up a nostril and down into my stomach to avoid the inconvenient labor of swallowing. Wine is an intellectual experience; at this point I don't need to taste it to enjoy it.

Which reminds me, when attending a wine-tasting, always follow the advice that all mothers give to their daughters upon reaching sexual maturity: Don't. Swallow, that is. That, at least, has been my experience. What am I, poison?

What? Have I offended someone? Well, fuckity-fuck la-dee-fucking-la!

Did I just hear the track bugler call the horses to post? I'll drink to that!

Don't let the name Gallo throw you off. This is good shit; can’t be beat - but Beat it is. Goes with everything: Burroughs, Ginsberg, Kerouac, Ferlinghetti, Corso, 'course not - anything.

You give a bunch of women the best years of your married life and whad'ya get? You wind up alone, living in a crap bachelor with a hot plate and cruising Craigslist for distaff members of the desperately seeking solace club. So much for gratitude!

You there, the ugly one with hairy arms, wearing glasses and a thrift shop rag, looking at me with such scorn - my place, later? I'll read you sonnets from my latest collection, The Bilious Imbibing Bibliophile: An Alky's Misadventures in Rare Book Land.

Oh, fuckity-fuck-fuck-FUCK!! I knocked the bottle over with my expansive, gross motor coordination-be-damned gesticulations and the wine's spilling over the side. A wandalous scaste, er, scandalous waste! Quick, someone lie down on the floor and let it cascade into your gullet!

Fuckity-doo-dah, fuckity-aye, my oh my what a wonderful fuckity day - I guess I'll have to do it myself; the cultivated oeno-bibliophile's work is never done. Put THAT in your English Short Title Catalogue and drink it!

I will.

Ah, good to the lasht drop.

Pop-quizh: What did Dom Perignon shay when he took his first ship of champagne?

"I'm drinking stars!"

And I'm sheeing them.

Clash dishmisshd!

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