The next time I take a notion to go to the Hartville Flea Market at 6:30 a.m. on a Monday morning please -- somebody, anybody -- remind me how much I hate it. We went once last year and though the only book I bought was a hardcover copy of my favorite cookbook, I did get a wonderful old photograph and a card table that looks like a painting and stands on its little easel-like legs charmingly folded against the wall in my dining room. It wasn’t books I was after anyway – I know a lost cause when I see one – but I thought maybe I could get display furniture for the antiques mall to replace the sold stuff, or at least a chair for people to sit. But no such luck. I’ve come to the conclusion that Hartville is the same as the dreaded Litchfield only with nicer walkways.
I’d hoped to post yesterday, but it was a day of phone calls from long-lost people, including a guy we didn’t buy books from due to their terminal commoness. I casually mentioned that he could try selling them online and – guess what – I created a brand new shiny bookseller to add to the critical mass. From now on I am NEVER, however casually, going to suggest any such thing. Turns out he has a new twist on the same-old/same-old. Instead of going to library sales three hours early and jockeying with the Cleveland area crazies for the honor of plastering himself to the door before the opening bell this guy goes to library sales only on bag day where he can fit 25 books in a grocery bag at twelve cents each. As he spoke I thought of my friend who has spent an entire lifetime in this business and now struggles due to the influx of sellers who are not serious about books and only want a down-and-dirty second income with the least expenditure of time and capital. I will spare you a rant, but it’s disturbing to think I contributed to this.
I didn’t expect to be able to post today because my friend Mary Lynn was supposed to be here from Dayton for a nine o’clock breakfast which usually stretches to noon. I talked to her Monday night and the gig was on, but here it is almost ten-thirty and I haven’t heard a peep. I tried to call her cell phone, but ended up having to leave a message. Of all my friends she’s the only one as crazed about time as I am. If the time is set for 9 a.m. and she walks in at 9:02 she will apologize profusely for her lateness. So yeah, I’m a little worried.
I just thought of something. Here I am blogging away about selling books, but rarely do I talk about reading them which of course I do and have done my entire life. I am currently reading, though I know I’m late to the party since the movie’s due out soon, Kathryn Stockett’s The Help. If you have not done so, get thee to a bookstore (oh, that's right, we don’t have many of those anymore) and buy a copy. Well, get online and buy one then. By now the penny sellers should be paying YOU for the order.
As a former writer I am stunned by Sackett’s audaciousness. Here’s this pretty, young, blond Caucasian author writing in the voice of a middle-aged African American maid working in the pre-Civil Rights South, an act which should send alarm bells reverberating from sea to shining sea.. She did grow up in a privileged southern home which employed “help”, but even so, it’s a leap to try assuming such a voice. You either get it right or you fall into the danger zone of offensiveness. Stockett, I’m happy to report, is standing tall – the woman totally NAILED it. The task isn’t just about capturing speech patterns, idioms and inflections –any writer with a good ear for dialogue could do that –its about living in the skin of your character and understanding the world as she does. And not in a surface way either, but deeply and truly. It’s a monumental task – and not for the faint of heart – which is why I mention this dazzling ahivement.
Well, it’s now almost eleven and still no Mary Lynn. I called her cell phone a second time and, again, it rang and rang, so I left another message. Wait – hang on! Phone!
Thank God, it was Mary Lynn. It seems she forgot to mention one small detail – she’s coming NEXT week. Even her son the doctor whose Cleveland apartment she stays at when she's here thought it was today. So I’m not going crazy and mixing up dates, she’s fine, and I can now get to work sprucing up eleven books for the antiques mall. Eric bought them over the counter at the store yesterday – all from the early 1900’s, all fairly common, but saleable in the booth and all in pretty darn good condition. When I get done with them they’ll be things of beauty.
But before I get to that there’s blueberry muffins, fruit, and coffee calling my name. I’ve been up since five. I think it’s time for breakfast.
No comments:
Post a Comment