Steal These Books

The New York Times has an essay about shoplifted books.

From the piece...

With the recession, shoplifting is on the rise, according to booksellers. At BookPeople in Austin, Tex., the rate of theft has increased to approximately one book per hour. I asked Steve Bercu, BookPeople’s owner, what the most frequently stolen title was.

“The Bible,” he said, without pausing.

Apparently the thieves have not yet read the “Thou shalt not steal” part — or maybe they believe that Bibles don’t need to be paid for. “Some people think the word of God should be free,” Bercu said. As it turns out, Bibles are snatched even at the Parable Christian Store in Springfield, Ore., the manager told me, despite the fact that if a person asks for a Bible, they’ll be given a copy without charge.

Personally, the biggest heist I ever had was at a B. Dalton Bookseller when I was a kid. Circa 1980, Capital Mall, Olympia, Washington - Jonathan Shipley unbuttons his long-sleeved shirt, places a large baseball card price guide against his belly, rebuttons said shirt, and walks out of the store. He hides the price guide under his bed for one year so no one finds out. What he finds out is how much his Dale Murphy rookie cards are worth.

The Blog Might Be Slow This Week, So Wish Upon a Star

Me and my French-loving kid is heading to Disneyland this week so the blog will be a little lean this week.

In the meantime, sing along!

Steve Martin in the Banjo Underground

Steve Martin is one of my heroes so I am more than a little excited about seeing him play banjo at Benaroya Hall in November. He talks to the Toronto Star about his recent foray into bluegrass music.

And, for your edification - dueling banjos...with Muppets!

Five Reasons Tori Amos Is Cooler Than You Think She Is

And she's already pretty damn cool. Washington D.C. AV breaks it down for you.

In college, I did a 10 page report on "Space Dog," one of her songs on her "Under the Pink" album. I sort of did a psychological interpretation of it. I, for the most part, pulled it out of, yes, my proverbial ass. It was good though, my essay, to be sure, talking about the "duality of femininity" and so forth. The professor read it in class as a marvelous example of the musical criticism. I got an A. The professor said, "You should do a thesis just on this one song. Seriously." Seriously? I just pulled it out of my...well, you know.

The song:

And For Something Completely Different

The posts in the next few days will be few and far between while I play with my kid. In the meantime... I played the trombone through college (and still pick it up from time to time to play stunning duets with my 5-year-old daughter). So I was tickled to find Douglas Yeo's swell Trombone Photo Gallery.

I was even more excited to find Handel's "Trombone Concerto in F Minor" done by the illustrious Bogotá Philharmonic Orchestra!

Enjoy, and we'll blog again soon.

Revisiting Shakespeare & Company

Jeanette Winterson, for The Guardian, revisits Paris and one of the world's most famous bookstores.

Last year, when I visited Paris, I sat up in the loft looking out the window, books everywhere and thoughts of writing a book zinging through my little head. I mean, this is PARIS, further the Latin Quarter, where Hemingway wandered the streets, Gertrude Stein, T.S. Eliot. I pulled out my travel notebook and just wrote and wrote and wrote. It was late, dark, cold and I wondered if I stayed up in the loft if they would accidentally lock me in. I was kind of hoping they didn't. But, no. Up the stairwell an employee said, "We're closing," in that delightful French accent. And I chuffed my books back into my bag, literally trying to suck the spirit of that place one last time, then trundled out, and walked along the Seine, Notre Dame watching me go.

SNOW DAY

It's snowing like crazy here in Seattle. I've decided to take the day off from work. It's really rather beautiful out the window - the evergreens laden with snow across the way, the sky a muted gray, the cars outside nestled in those cold blankets.

That said, a snow poem I found...

Shoveling Snow With Buddha
by Billy Collins

In the usual iconography of the temple or the local Wok
you would never see him doing such a thing,
tossing the dry snow over a mountain
of his bare, round shoulder,
his hair tied in a knot,
a model of concentration.

Sitting is more his speed, if that is the word
for what he does, or does not do.

Even the season is wrong for him.
In all his manifestations, is it not warm or slightly humid?
Is this not implied by his serene expression,
that smile so wide it wraps itself around the waist of the universe?

But here we are, working our way down the driveway,
one shovelful at a time.
We toss the light powder into the clear air.
We feel the cold mist on our faces.
And with every heave we disappear
and become lost to each other
in these sudden clouds of our own making,
these fountain-bursts of snow.

This is so much better than a sermon in church,
I say out loud, but Buddha keeps on shoveling.
This is the true religion, the religion of snow,
and sunlight and winter geese barking in the sky,
I say, but he is too busy to hear me.

He has thrown himself into shoveling snow
as if it were the purpose of existence,
as if the sign of a perfect life were a clear driveway
you could back the car down easily
and drive off into the vanities of the world
with a broken heater fan and a song on the radio.

All morning long we work side by side,
me with my commentary
and he inside his generous pocket of silence,
until the hour is nearly noon
and the snow is piled high all around us;
then, I hear him speak.

After this, he asks,
can we go inside and play cards?

Certainly, I reply, and I will heat some milk
and bring cups of hot chocolate to the table
while you shuffle the deck.
and our boots stand dripping by the door.

Aaah, says the Buddha, lifting his eyes
and leaning for a moment on his shovel
before he drives the thin blade again
deep into the glittering white snow.

THE A-TEAM (A-True Story)

In 1972, a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn't commit. These men promptly escaped a maximum security stockade to the Los Angeles underground. Today, still wanted by the government, they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire...the A-Team.

So begins the best action show of the 80s. It’s inspiring isn’t it? There are people out there who can help you in your time of need. If you’re a shopkeeper in need of protection from neighborhood racketeers, perhaps Hannibal can help. If a contractor who lost a bid on a construction site you own sabotages it, perhaps you need B.A. Baracus. Do you need someone to infiltrate a gambling ring to save your foster home? Face is there for you, buddy. Are you a Mideast prince that thinks assassins have targeted his soon-to-be-wed daughter and need someone to walk her down the aisle? Think Murdock. Who better?

So began my quest, back in fifth grade at Garfield Elementary School in Olympia, Washington, to rid the world of bad guys, one recess at a time.
I started my own A-Team. We put up posters around the school yard. We were ready for hire. You need some fifth graders to solve a problem? Come to us, no questions asked.

I was Murdock because I was borderline crazy. Blair Keithley, a guy who went to Annapolis and is now flying helicopters somewhere saving the U.S. from God knows who, and one of the smartest guys I know, was Hannibal because he could put plans together into a good plan, a plan that comes together. Quon Huong, my Vietnamese friend, was Face. He was a good looking fellow and popular with the ladies (don’t get me started about what those fourth grade girls said about him!). Finally, we needed a B.A. Baracus and who better to play the part than a thug with the initials B.A.? Brett Altmeyer was our B.A. Baracus. No one much liked him (me, Quon, and Blair included) but he was NFL linebacker big and didn’t take guff from anyone. He could also say, “Shut up, fool,” really funny.

We put up our posters. Sure we were supposed to be “underground” like the real A-Team but who would know we existed? We drew a picture of the sweet A-Team van on it. We gave them our names and where they could find us (math class, probably). We waited, four brothers (friends) of do-goodness, four friends (acquaintances) who would do what it took to make things right in the world, four men (pre-pubescent boys) ready to take on any challenge (so long as it was during recess and not during lunch because we liked eating lunch, bags of Fritos and Capri Suns in our bags).

A second grader, a small meek boy, came to us. “I lost my coat,” he said to us A-Team members, huddled near the four square court. “I’ll get in big trouble if I lose my coat,” he said.

”No problem,” Blair (Hannibal) said. “We’ll find your coat, son.”

And off we went, me, the crazed sugar-addled boy, Blair, bubble gum cigar in his mouth, Quon, hair nicely quaffed, and B.A., a lumbering ogre in a Totally Awesome T-shirt. It took all recess but we found the boy’s coat. It was in the bathroom, the one closest to the library. The face on the small meek boy who thought he had lost his coat but was found instead by the A-Team was worth everything we put into the group (almost nothing except the cost of copies that my mom did for us at her job at the middle school across town).

”Thank you,” the boy said to Quon (Face).

”Don’t thank me,” Quon said. “Thank the A-Team.”

”Thanks A-Team,” the boy said, glowing.

Ah, I love it when a plan comes together.

That was our only case. Our teacher, the evil Mrs. Tranum, our own Colonel Decker, put a stop to our role playing. “We can’t have these posters around the school. What are you doing? You can’t do that? It’s against the rules.”

”But Mrs. Tranum (Colonel Decker), we’re just doing good in the world. Don’t you want us to do good?”

”This is silly,” Mrs. Tranum (Satan?) said. “We can’t have you going around glorifying action stars on television.”

”But they do good. They’re do-gooders.”

”Sorry,” Mrs. Tranum (Satan) said. “You’re officially disbanded.”

We were disbanded. It was sad. We wondered why we were thwarted in our efforts to make Garfield Elementary School a safer happier place. We ate bubble gum cigars. We bought matching Totally Awesome T-shirts. We moved on to lip synching Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” album at recess, but it wasn’t the same. How could it?

Today's Short Story - Angst Riddled Rheingold

In an effort to spice up my blog a bit with personal writings, observations, etc., a short story I worked up the other day after reading a reference book on words the English language has usurped from other languages (FYI: Usurped taken from Middle English usurpen, from Old French usurper, from Latin ūsūrpāre, to take into use, usurp; see reup- in Indo-European roots)...



ANGST RIDDLED RHEINGOLD

A former wunderkind, now a Latin professor at his old alma mater, Klaus Rheingold was primus inter pares at the university, his weltan schauung an apologia pro vita sua that touched the sprachgefuhls of his peers. Many who opposed his teaching methods thought him kitschy and felt a genuine weltschmerz at his lofty position and credentials inter alia.

With a mens san in corpora sano he wasn’t leaving any time soon and the spiels of the other faculty at the kafeeklatch were primarily about their verboten desires to go flagrante delicto against Rheingold. Rheingold was persona non grata at the school and his downfall, discussed sub rosa, were not obiter dictums but more along the lines of schaden freud among the other members. They wondered if his house frau felt the same as they did. They had echt laughter over that.

A leitmotiv throughout the school year was one of Gotterdammerung, wanting Rheingold to en nune et simper die or get a disease or in fra dignitatem into drugs or something so the university would have to let him go. But Rheingold had an annus mirabilis, the students loved him. They would always love him as they loved their country, amor patriae. And ipso facto the staff was stuck with him though they thought Rheingold and the students who loved him non compos mentis.

It was a schmaltzy faculty function in the hinterland when the faculty that opposed Rheingold’s teachings had a plan. They’d be gemuttich to Rheingold, perhaps even produce a festschrift though it would be all ersatz because once they had him close they’d have, and have always had in their opinion, casus belli and de profundus of their rotting souls, they, ex more, planted cocaine and pornography in his classroom desk for the head of the department to see and see she did making an ex cathedra saying, de facto, Rheingold was no longer fit to teach for the corpus delicti was plentiful.

Angst riddled Rheingold as he collected his things. The gestalt wasn’t quite right to him though he couldn’t pinpoint why. But with wanderlust in his heart he knew he’d find work again somewhere. The staffers who set him up, ex post facto, thought cui bono and couldn’t come up with any sort of a posteriori.

Personal Bits on This Blog

There's been some backlash of late when I stopped another blog I kept up that had some silly observations by me, some silly bacon recipes, and some silly short stories, many of them involving dimwits doing something dimwitted.



It was random, the blog, odd. "There's nothing like that on your writing blog! It's all about writing and books and stuff!" True. True.

To appease the masses I will do my best to interject more personal bits and humorous gobbets on this blog as it relates to, well, books and writing. It'll be profound or perfectly preposterous depending on my mood. Maybe I'll post a short story I wrote. Maybe I'll write about how Sesame Street shaped my writing (thank you, Super Grover). Maybe I'll discuss the thoughtful poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay or the songwriting of one Steve Perry (thank you, Journey).



Maybe I'll relay to you a novel I've been noodling in my head or perhaps I'll write haiku about squash.

I'm not saying I'll do this every day but I'll do it when it strikes me. Like on Tuesdays. Yes, Tuesdays (and maybe other days, too) I'll do my best to post more personal tidbits (because Tuesdays are days for personal reflection, much like bathroom mirrors).



I hope this will alleviate some of the frustrations of those people (I think about four of you) who miss my other blog and want more whimsy from me on this blog. I can deliver whimsy. Oh yes I can:

Some Questions

I recently found a series of questions on the So Many Books blog that I thought I'd answer myself...

Do you remember how you developed a love of reading?
In 2nd grade, Mrs. Harbison was my teacher. We were supposed to be doing math studies. I had my math workbook open but behind it I was reading a book (undoubtedly it was The Hoboken Chicken Emergency). She found me out. "Jonathan, you're supposed to be doing your math." I looked up at her and said, "But Mrs. Harbison, I was BORN to read."

What are some books you loved as a child?
Garfield comics, Ed Emberley, Maurice Sendak, Dr. Seuss.

What is your favorite genre?
Non-fiction (magazine journalism, mainly) though, for the longest time, I read nothing but novels (most contemporary).

Do you have a favorite novel?
I waffle between "To Kill a Mockingbird" and "Of Mice and Men."

Where do you usually read?
On the bus.

When do you usually read?
Whenever I'm able to (usually during my commute in the morning and evening).

Do you usually have more than one book you are reading at a time?
Of course. I can't read more than three books at a time though. Usually, I'll read two. One that's mentally challenging, one that's a breeze.

Do you read nonfiction in a different way or place than you read fiction?
I have to concentrate more when reading non-fiction so I usually do that during the peak hours (morning, afternoon) rather than when I'm sleepy (I'm not what you'd consider a night owl though lately I keep myself awake to watch 'Seinfeld' reruns. Still funny, those).

Do you buy most of the books you read, or borrow them, or check them out from the library?
I get most all my books at the library. I love reading hardcovers and there's no way I'm going to fork over $30 for a hardcover that I'll read in a few days that I can get at the library for free.

Do you keep most of the books you buy?
I try to, though space is limited so I have to weed from time to time.

If you have children, what are some of the favorite books you have shared with them?
Mo Willems makes me, and my daughter, laugh.

What are you reading now?
Netherland, by Joseph O'Neill; The Book of Questions, by Pablo Neruda; The Great Derangement: A Terrifying True Story of War, Politics & Religion At the Twilight of the American Empire, by Matt Taibbi.

Do you keep a To Be Read List?
Not particularly. I thumb through Publisher Weekly's and then make note of the books I think I might want to read. Then I put holds on those specific books at the library.

What’s next?
The Full Burn : On the Set, At the Bar, Behind the Wheel, and Over the Edge with Hollywood Stuntmen, by Kevin Conley

What books would you like to re-read?
I re-read Catcher in the Rye every few years. It's always those books that you read when you were younger that made an impression on you. For me, it's books by Orwell and London and Twain.

Who are your favorite authors?
Impossible to list them all but a few...
Dead Ones: John Steinbeck, Pablo Neruda, William Shakespeare
Living Ones: T.C. Boyle, Jose Saramago, Annie Dillard

Happy Birthday...

Harper Lee.

I know at this point it's a bit of a cliche, but reading To Kill a Mockingbird has changed my life in some unknowable subtle way.

Copland in Hollywood

There is an interesting story in the Wall Street Journal about Aaron Copland's time in Hollywood.

From the story:

Copland's part-time career as a film composer is one of the most fascinating chapters in the story of his professional life. Yet few know much about it. Nowadays, of course, it's perfectly respectable for a serious musician to moonlight in Hollywood, and scholars pore over the scores of Bernard Herrmann and Erich Wolfgang Korngold the same way they once sifted through Beethoven's sketchbooks. But none of Copland's half-dozen Hollywood film scores, not even the Oscar-winning one he wrote for "The Heiress," has been recorded in its entirety.

Why has so important a part of Copland's output been so completely ignored? I haven't a clue.

I was enthralled with Copland's music in high school. I begged my band director at Capital High School (Olympia, WA) to play as much Copland and Leonard Bernstein as we could. And, we did. He wouldn't let us play "Fanfare for the Common Man" though. He said it was "too hard." RUBBISH! I'm going to play it! So I ordered the whole score from a music company and passed it around furtively to my band mates (trumpets, trombones, tubas). We practiced, furtively, away from the watchful eyes and tuned ears of our band director. Oh, we were so naughty! Oh, we were such enormous band geeks! We never played it for a public performance anywhere, though I wish we could have. We practiced enough to make us passable, anyway. Copland would have been proud, maybe. We were just, you know, passable. Ah well.

Copland's "Fanfare" as played by the U.S. Marine Band:

Off for a Few Days...

So posts will be few and far between. Fear not, I'll return next week after a brief time off to spend time in my old hometown - Olympia, WA. Have fun out there.

Look Who Is On USA Today's Groovy Blog

Wow! Me. Thanks, Whitney!

Paris is Booked

The Sunday Herald does a nice profile on Paris's famed bookstore Shakespeare & Company. I was there just last month. What a thrill! I sat in front of it, writing in my journal, the Seine flowing across the way, the Notre Dame standing against a sheet of blue sky. It felt good to be there, right to be there as a writer myself, knowing the history of Shakespeare & Co and those famous writers who haunted the doorway.

I only spent a few days in Paris but I found myself amongst the Shakespeare & Company stacks a few times, like a moth, as the cliche goes, to flame. Upstairs there's a little writing nook (complete with old typewriter) and beyond that a sitting room. Late one night I sat up there, again, writing in my journal. It was tremendously quiet up there and I could look out the window and see the buildings opposite the river alit in the dusk and I just kept writing and writing and writing. No one bothered me. No one even came up stairs. I checked my watch a couple of times. Should I be up here?! When does the store close? Would they lock me in?

I left really late at night, wandered up the streets past the Parthenon to my little hovel of a hotel. It was near perfect.

Thou Doest Scoff at Shakespeare for Young Ones?

Nay! The New York Times has a brief story discussing how children should be introduced to Shakespeare at the age of 4, which, in some ways makes good sense. Those little ones are sponges! My daughter, in a French immersion preschool, knows more French than anyone I know. If she had gone to Paris with me recently I would have been much better off. She's also enjoyed a Shakespeare play or two in that I've been a part of, in the last couple of years, Bard in the Yard and she always finds the spectacle of spectacularly bad Shakespearean acting great. So, perhaps I'll start reading her A Midsummer Night's Dream tonight before she goes to bed. Perhaps we shall wait, however, on reading Titus Andronicus. How do you explain to a preschooler why Chiron and Demetrius have take Lavinia away and sexually ravaged her over her husband's dead body? Yes, I think I'll wait on that one.

My Recent Trip to Europe - A Brief Slideshow

The Holocaust

There's a new way that teachers are having their students learn about the horrors of the Holocaust - through comic books. In other news in regards to the Jews during World War II, a burnt diary has been found, highlighting the horrors of the Warsaw Ghetto.

Also, there are a few bits of Anne Frank news of late:
1) There's a new photo exhibit, her father being the photographer.
2) A photo has surfaced, and is now on display, of Peter Schiff, Anne Frank's one true love.
3) Protests continue to mount in regards to the Anne Frank Musical that's having its world premiere in Madrid.

Having just returned from Paris, I must say I don't think there's a museum that has hit me more powerfully than the Memorial de la Shoah. I also visited the Memorial de la Deportation (pictured above), a small memorial on the tip of Ile de la Cite. It's a memorial to the 200,000 people deported from Vichy France to Nazi concentration camps. Somber, to be sure. More somber knowing that the site of the memorial is on the site of a former morgue.

Flying Off the Shelves

Seattle's Stranger has a funny piece about an independent bookseller and the shoplifters he chases down Seattle's city streets, highlighting the types of books that most often get stolen (most all the Beat poets, for instance).

Ah, remembrances of things past! I worked in the men's department at Lamonts, a crappy chain department store that has since (there is a God) gone bankrupt. If we assisted in the apprehension of a vile shoplifter we got a $50 gift certificate. SWEET! I'm fast, too, so I had that in my favor as well. The best catch I remember was this dude who ran out of the store with a maroon Nike hooded sweatshirt. Boom, out the door I went sprinting after him in the parking lot, not quite jumping over the hoods of cars, but weaving anyway. "I can run fast!" I yelled at the villian, "and I can run for a looonnnggg time!" He threw the sweatshirt onto the ground and leapt up this grassy embankment and into the trees. "We'll find you!" I yelled, panting. The police came soon after and, perhaps they were bored (?), but they let out the dogs to sniff him out. Sniff him out they did. He was promptly arrested, I got a $50 gift certificate and, because the sweatshirt fell into a puddle, I got a good discount on that, too.