One of the many books out there that look like nothing and sell for (relatively) big bucks.
I used to find copies out in the world with regularity, but the supply dried up once the internet let anyone do a price check. When I started out it was a $40 book. When online book sales were still limited to the proprietary Interloc network we were selling it in the shop for $95. Now, you see where it's at.
It's an anomaly because the internet absolutely crashed the price of most similarly 'scarce' books- suddenly, people could find them and in most cases the new ocean of supply drowned demand in Biblical fashion. The business is full of books that used to sell like hotcakes for fifty dollars plus that I wouldn't price over ten, or even bother buying.
The Face of the Clam just kept going up.
It's a novel about a local Utopian collective called the Dunites who lived in Oceano, a funky little place on the coast that now generates annual ATV-related deaths on the very dunes where the Utopians once squatted.
So very American.
It's a book that breaks one of the cardinal rules of internet bookselling, that any nonfiction title on a given subject is much more salable than any fictional treatment. I see the Dunite book regularly, the copy of Face of the Clam I just moved is the first one I've run across in a couple of years.
My amazon listings are ninety plus percent non-fiction, the few exceptions are either hot of the presses or collectible anomalies like this one.
9.06.2008
attn IVAN
A Hessian who labors at the record shop one door down bought a copy of The Great Metal Discography.
Unremarkable, except he was wearing your Sword tee.
I resisted asking him what the suspiciously penile garlands around the neck were.
Unremarkable, except he was wearing your Sword tee.
I resisted asking him what the suspiciously penile garlands around the neck were.
9.04.2008
9.03.2008
The Costco Rule
It has a $100 minimum.
If anyone has ever escaped for less than a C note, impart to me the secret ritual.
We re-upped today for a couple of very good reasons.
One, cheap diapers.
Two, the new place has a garage so bulk buying is viable.
Checkout delivered $125 reminders why we'd let it lapse.
When you look up 'slippery slope' in the capitalist dictionary there's a picture of Costco.
"Oh, look how cheap this bale of diapers is! And we need more wipes. The lid fell off our Brita pitcher...and this one comes with two filters! Say, this Parmesan cheese looks incredible..."
etc etc etc.
I think we need to make a list at home and then pay some kid in the parking lot $5 to hit the store and fill it for us. I'm not strong enough to shop there!
If anyone has ever escaped for less than a C note, impart to me the secret ritual.
We re-upped today for a couple of very good reasons.
One, cheap diapers.
Two, the new place has a garage so bulk buying is viable.
Checkout delivered $125 reminders why we'd let it lapse.
When you look up 'slippery slope' in the capitalist dictionary there's a picture of Costco.
"Oh, look how cheap this bale of diapers is! And we need more wipes. The lid fell off our Brita pitcher...and this one comes with two filters! Say, this Parmesan cheese looks incredible..."
etc etc etc.
I think we need to make a list at home and then pay some kid in the parking lot $5 to hit the store and fill it for us. I'm not strong enough to shop there!
trial balloon
baxblog podcast:
if I figure out how to do it, who'll listen?
Hudson is already on board, anyone else up for it?
if I figure out how to do it, who'll listen?
Hudson is already on board, anyone else up for it?
9.02.2008
9.01.2008
chatting with bobo
in the middle of a discussion about how convinient it is listening to the iPod at work:
me:
how lazy are you when burning a CD sounds like too much work? =(
Bobo:
its not lazy because its not necessary!
thats like saying its lazy to not make your own cheese!
me:
how lazy are you when burning a CD sounds like too much work? =(
Bobo:
its not lazy because its not necessary!
thats like saying its lazy to not make your own cheese!
Literary Deal Breakers
We’ve all been there. Or some of us have. Anyone who cares about books has at some point confronted the Pushkin problem: when a missed — or misguided — literary reference makes it chillingly clear that a romance is going nowhere fast. At least since Dante’s Paolo and Francesca fell in love over tales of Lancelot, literary taste has been a good shorthand for gauging compatibility.
full story.
Maybe this is a big problem for for lit majors from liberal arts colleges back east, but can't say literary taste has ever played a role in my failed relationships.
Not the case for the wife, who dumped one fellow for insufficient adulation of Nabokov.
And my literary tastes are decidedly lowbrow.
I've improved significantly the last few years, to the point where I'll read straight fiction if the wife is really over the moon about it, and I genuinely like everything I've read by Michael Chabon.
But I'm happiest with genre slop skimmed off the top of the SF/Fantasy bucket, leavened with the occasional mystery.
My problem is the more 'real' fiction I read the less tolerant I am for the kind of linguistic butchers who hide out in the genre stacks, camouflaging pre-school school prose with phalanxes of elves and spacemen.
I've historically had more trouble with musical tastes.
One ex, who's entire collection consisted of Jimmy Buffet cassettes, caused me no end of consternation. She literally had no opinion on anything, everything was "ok".
Except Jimmy, who she adored.
That was rough.
And I knew it would never work with another gal when every song on the mix tape she made me provoked groans of dismay. I just have no room in my heart for low fi indie pewp like Sparklehorse, Palace Brothers and Sebadoh. I lack the gene to appreciate them...sorry Jamesy!
Although I didn't actually hate Neutral Milk Hotel. Maybe there's hope for me after all.
Also, I just realized that I'm old enough to have gotten mix tapes, fossils my YOUNGFRIENDS (tm) recognize only because they saw High Fidelity on DVD.
One Month Reflections
At the pediatricians I glanced at an open file on the receptionists desk, a little girl named Emma was having seizures and they'd prescribed a range of medications. Eamonn disdains sleep and sings his arias in the middle of the night, but he's a solid package of ruddy good health. We're both suitably thankful even as we plead with him to abandon his dream of singing Wagner at the Bayreuth festival.
I go to work, clean house, cook, shop, do the dishes and get ready for the move- normal life stuff.
The wife meanwhile is at the beck and call of an inarticulate dictator who communicates via the fluctuating volume of his screams and who must be fed every few hours lest his displeasure end reality.
I've got the easy job.
When he came out everything about him was unexpected.
That hasn't changed, every day is a fresh amazement.
Babies have an unmatched purity of expression, fully embodying their emotions. Calm he looks like a small orange Buddha. Gazing at such depthless placidity is to forget the chaos of the storm, until he reminds you.
Given his heredity we shouldn't be surprised by his size, yet we are.
We've broached the cask on his 3-6 month wardrobe.
He doesn't seem fragile any more, he radiates. He's such a bundle of life it's like holding a forest fire in your arms.
The suff you worry about when they're pure potential doesn't signify once they incarnate. Things need doing, you do them. So far it all seems inevitable and right.
It's tremendously grueling, but that was in the brochure.
I am glad I put in all the work I did to prepare the ground and get comfortable with the idea of family. It would be a nightmare if you weren't 100% on board and dedicated.
I think about my parents and their shotgun wedding and shudder, but when I hold him and look in his eyes I can't see the path either of them chose.
I go to work, clean house, cook, shop, do the dishes and get ready for the move- normal life stuff.
The wife meanwhile is at the beck and call of an inarticulate dictator who communicates via the fluctuating volume of his screams and who must be fed every few hours lest his displeasure end reality.
I've got the easy job.
When he came out everything about him was unexpected.
That hasn't changed, every day is a fresh amazement.
Babies have an unmatched purity of expression, fully embodying their emotions. Calm he looks like a small orange Buddha. Gazing at such depthless placidity is to forget the chaos of the storm, until he reminds you.
Given his heredity we shouldn't be surprised by his size, yet we are.
We've broached the cask on his 3-6 month wardrobe.
He doesn't seem fragile any more, he radiates. He's such a bundle of life it's like holding a forest fire in your arms.
The suff you worry about when they're pure potential doesn't signify once they incarnate. Things need doing, you do them. So far it all seems inevitable and right.
It's tremendously grueling, but that was in the brochure.
I am glad I put in all the work I did to prepare the ground and get comfortable with the idea of family. It would be a nightmare if you weren't 100% on board and dedicated.
I think about my parents and their shotgun wedding and shudder, but when I hold him and look in his eyes I can't see the path either of them chose.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)