Anodyne
Friday, November 21, 2008
 
The Rising Tide

Grey late November sky, light leaking through in the west.

Clive Barker pocketbooks. The Marx/Engels Reader. Bukowski's Tales of Ordinary Madness. An Alice Munro collection. A Richard Woodman collection. Minima Moralia. Stephanie Meyers' teen vampire books. Van Halen: A Pictorial Biography. The Red Pony. The Bell Jar.

Wired-up old alkie, grey hair slicked back in a duck's tail -- probably the same haircut he wore at nineteen or twenty -- with some suspiciously recent books and a few Sally Ann purchases scattered on top, like cupcake sprinkles.

New father wasting time by repeatedly wheeling his baby stroller round and round the stacks, as if completing laps on an outdoor track. So far as I can tell, this guy hasn't ever bought -- or even looked at -- a book in what by now must be several hundred kilometers of circuits.

Good books offered for sale.

Good books offered for trade.

Middle-aged English man with an ostentatious wristwatch and a big box of garbage (Grisham; Cornwell; Richard North Patterson hardcovers).

MAEM: I can't believe you don't want these. What kind of shop are you running here? [ACTUAL QUOTE]

CJB: A successful one. Good day!

Guy looking for Raptor Red.

"It was common knowledge among his commanding officers and fellow soldiers, the document states, that Specialist Marko, who is being held without bond, believed he was an 'alien dinosaur-like creature, and that he would transform from his human form into his Black Raptor form on his 21st birthday — 13 Oct 08.'"

Thousand Splendid Suns in paperback.

Donald Allen's New American Poetry, including Spicer's Imaginary Elegies I-IV.

The sense of being human.
- posted by cjb @ 11:43 AM


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