Customers of Distinction

I sold a small stack of very interesting books to magician, actor & comedian Ricky Jay yesterday.

Being halfway between SF and LA sightings of famous folk around town are not uncommon, but this was odd because he's been coming here for years and I just spotted him.

I mistook him for a book dealer, which is understandable given his eclectic taste in reading material.

99.9% of the books I sell are, to me, totally generic and forgettable.
Not judging them by literary merit- as a work of art you can't fault something like The Sound and the Fury. But it's a book I see a million times year...which is the case for nearly all of the titles I buy and stock.

I notice people who buy books that spark my jaded palate, but anyong buying several books of that sort get cataloged by my subconscious as book dealers.

But this time was different. I thought "oh, it's the dealer who asks if his dog can come in", but then I did a double take. And the credit card confirmed my suspicions.

It's like watching a movie you haven't seen in a long time and spotting a familiar face you don't remember being there.

Last night Devra was over and we screened Bullets Over Broadway and spotted Edie Falco (she has a small bit as a maid in the theater). Suddenly you notice something.

So Mr. Jay joins the short list of luminaries I've sold books to, along with Michael Stipe, Diane Lane, Bill Frisell, David Linley, Peter Case, the lead singer for Men at Work & the sax player for the Charles Mingus Big Band (either musicians buy a lot of used books, or I'm just better equipped to recognize them...).

And he vaults to the head of the line as having by far the most interesting taste in reading.

I've previously linked his excellent New Yorker profile, but here it is again. Deal!

/edit
oh, I forgot TC Boyle..but he's more of a family friend than a famous person.
Included for the sake of completeness.

Aqua Terrorist Hunger Force update

Two million dollar settlement reached.

Dirt cheap, given the promotional triumph of their LED screens getting them round-the-clock coverage on every news outlet in the country for most of the week.

official Baxblog condolances to our resident Bears fans

I transferred my allegiance to Da Bears after Mary Shittenheimer coached my Chargers out of the playoffs, and I stoically endured Rex Grossman's Kafka-esque impersonation of an NFL quarterback along with my spiritual brethren in the Windy City.

The silver lining for Prince fans was the diminutive lunatic delivering the greatest halftime show in the history of the event.

Cold comfort, I know.

Perhaps the knowledge that my Chargers still suffer the Curse of Shittenheimer will improve your disposition.

We will doubtless march through the regular season like Sherman through Georgia, then vanish into the countryside like Saddam's Republican Guard once the playoffs begin.


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note to DT:
I wrote Winky City in the first draft. =(

Clockwork Orange locations

clicky clicky

link provided by DT's Brother's Brother, who mislabled it "moderately cool".

nephew talk

Quoth my 6 year old nephew Alec during our babysit-a-thon the other evening:
(best if imagined in his voice which is high & sweet, like a small bird)

I feel better now, but I was I was I was very sick. The other the other morning I drank a sippy cup of water, and I felt like I was going to going to going to throw up. So I got up and went to the toilet, and then I threw up this nauseating green fluid. It was quite disgusting!

he also had a fine time showing me all of the "scary things" in his room, including a ghost hanging from a hook, a drawer full of skulls & skull-related items (pens, rings, etc), some ghoul masks and a remote controlled brain "with a monsterous mouth, and fangs".

Good stuff.

reading list

While babysitting for Erin's cousin last night I idly filipped through a copy of Odysseus in America by Johnathan Shay. By the time the wife and kids finished watching Toy Story I was 100 pages in and obvlivious to the world around me.

It's about dealing with PTSD in the context of the Vietnam veterans the author works with through the VA and how it complicates the lives of returning combat troops. But the topic is timeless and he ties the difficult homecoming of combat troops from various eras of conflict to the long delayed homecoming of Odysseus in The Odyssey.

The guy knows his topic inside out, he knows the Odyssey inside out, and he writes like a dream.

Recommended to all, and I'll be picking up a copy of his previous book (Achilles in Vietnam) ASAP.

more customer chatter

coming in fast and thick this morning.

An older woman on the phone, when asked if her requested title is a biography:

"well, it's an autobiography...an autobiography, but he didn't write it himself."

customer chatter

alterni-gal in a faux-cheetah lined hoodie to her tattooed beaux:

"oooooooo, it's cold in here and it smells like old people!"

lookout! a terrorist!

this is teh funniest bomb scare of all time...well, unless you live in Boston and your commute got jacked up because the geniuses in charge of public safety can't tell a cartoon character from a jihadist.

Made even funnier by the same ad campaign having been run in other cities including NYC with no mass public panic. The stiff-necked refusal of the people in charge of overreacting to admit they screwed up is impressive in its own right.

And I love the press conference with the nerds responsible. The only cats in the whole process who treat the situation with all the gravity and seriousness it deserves.