The summer doldrums have definitely set in, dragging behind them a gunny sack of slow sales, hot humid weather, gathering clouds, and a recalcitrant cat. Today is one of those days where you ask yourself if perhaps you might be happier painting the toenails of poodles. Or stuffing envelopes for fun and profit. Or – I know! – selling magazines door to door. Now that I think about it I might actually SELL some magazines which would be a very novel concept.
But of course, in fact, there is only one thing to do on a day such as this. To quote Gerald Murphy, who partied on the beaches of Cap d’Antibes with Hemingway and the Fitzgeralds, “listing well is the best revenge.” Well, actually he recommended LIVING well, but when you’re a full-time bookseller living and listing are pretty much the same thing. And so listing is what I set out to do at 7:30 a.m. armed with a giant mug of coffee and my digital camera.
First the light was wrong. Then by the time it was right Mickey,the cat, had declared the red cloth I put on the window seat in the living room to photograph books Motel 6. I asked him politely to leave. He ignored me. I gave him a gentle push. He laid firm. Finally, I picked him up and bodily removed him whereupon he paid me back by leaving three-quarters of himself hehind. Without a word, I cleaned the cat hair off the red fuzzy cloth, took my pictures, and went away. But when I came back so had he. Only this time I actually YELLED at him and now he is under an antique cupboard sulking, or worse, planning revenge. Either way, he hates me and I don't even blame him because I'm a big grouch today.
As any bookseller will tell you, listing books is not always fun, especially when there are few sales and lots of cat hair. So it definitely helps to love the books you're listing. I did love, and do love four of them, but the rest have been here so long that any affection I ever had for them has departed. That’s because human nature, or the nature of booksellers, is this – you go to a sale, buy a bunch of stuff, turn cartwheels over some, at least mildly like the majority, and regard the rest as rodents who’d diabolically jumped into your bags when you weren’t looking. So what happens is you cherry pick. First the best go online, then the next best, and so on until all that’s left are the dregs. Then you get some new stuff and the same thing happens again, only now the dregs are multiplying like bunnies. So why did you even BUY the dregs, you might ask? Because in the heat of the moment they didn’t seem like dregs. I’m sure if you think about it you'll hit on a more vivid example of the same situation.
Anyway, I have no idea why I’m telling you all this stuff, so I'll stop now and go see if the cat still hates me.
He does. Just look at the picture on the top.
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