The main problem with being an autodidact is that you never know how to pronounce anything properly. Books are all well and good but it’s difficult to detect from them the silent “t” in “Paolozzi” or where the emphasis lies in “Dalí” (which I only recently discovered last week while in Barcelona).
I hope this flaw didn’t betray my informal education too crudely in the job interview I attended today.
Many twentieth century artists were discussed.
The job? Librarian of Edinburgh’s Dean Gallery. I am not holding my breath over this. I think things went well in the the interview itself (though I may have jabbered a little too excitedly when we got around to discussion of modern art) but the competition is assuredly rather steep and I am frankly very proud to have even been invited to interview.
If I get the job I will be as happy as a bag of pickled pigs. I do not exaggerate when I say that it has everything I could want from a job: seclusion, nutritious surroundings, copious quantities of seriously great twentieth century art, green space, the perfect subject matter, seemingly lovely colleagues, great espresso at the in-house cafe. There is even a giant robot to keep me company, for goodness sake.
It would be entirely my element. Needless to say I wore my waistcoat today.
Walking around the grounds prior to the main event, I pause while a man takes photographs of some impressive statuary. “Come along!” he sings, as camp as Hi-de-hi, “you’d only enhance the photograph anyway!”
This is the sort of punter I would serve every single day.
The more I think I’ve probably not got it. It was a style-over-substance interview – a crime for any champion of the postmodern – and personality in such contexts only goes so far. But no counting robot chickens before they’re hatched.
My question to the panel: “Does it ever get boring, working in paradise?”
More photos taken today here.