Archives - Weekly Update

On Tuesday, Greg and I went to Astoria, Queens, for a tour of the Steinway Piano Factory, which I later learned is one of the top factory tours in the United States. At a time when so much is manufactured overseas and machine-made, not handcrafted, it was awe-inspiring to spend two hours watching craftsmanship at work. The tour started with a perfectly choreographed segment of creating the piano rim, where a team of four men glued 18 thin sheets of wood together and stacked them. These were then glued into a single form of wood and moved to a rim-bending press. This team centered the layers of the rim on the press and clamped the wood into place. The entire process only took eight minutes and nary a word was spoken by the team. Later, when dried, this rim would be moved to a temperature-controlled conditioning room for 10-16 weeks. Awe-inspiring!

I love the summer solstice, the day of the year with the longest hours of daylight. There is something energizing about long hours of brightness, renewing my idea that the perfect life would be spent with six months in each hemisphere. I had contemplated throwing a party this weekend, as it’s not every year that this date falls on a Saturday, but I never pulled that together. The warm weather this week meant the pool has been delightful; there have been a few night swims. I love being outside in the evening, but often wish I could watch a movie or television show outside. I got home one night, and Cory had come up with a plan for that. He had brought a flat-screen television outside, along with the Google box, and put them on one of the coffee tables on the patio, so the menfolk could watch “Top Gear.” I love when he puts his engineering skills to work. There will be additional outdoor evening screenings with less guy-oriented fare now that this configuration is in place.

Last night, my mom joined me at Mary Kay Andrews’s event for SAVE THE DATE at the Jersey Shore. This is the fifth year that MKA has done this event, which always boasts an enthusiastic crowd. The price of a ticket gets you a copy of the book and a great swag bag, plus nibbles and treats. MKA does an informal talk and then spends lots of time with readers and signs books. Also, there always are great raffle prizes. The bookseller is River Run Books located in Fair Haven.

The opener to this newsletter has been rewritten in my head about a dozen times this week. So much has happened in my world of books since we left off. There were times I thought about subtitling this “My Week with Nat Wolff,” though before last Saturday, I did not even know who he was. I think it’s easiest to work backwards, so let’s hit the rewind switch.