I just might have the best clients ever....

I love getting surprises in the post and the holidays are typically the best time for such things. This year has been the best ever (at least from a chocolate standpoint). We received a banner number of cards and notes (though have not yet sent our own....very pathetic). We received the usual bit of Harry and David, fruit, fruitcake and passable chocolates...BUT THEN....

I have a lovely client in Chicago who sent me a wonderful box of Fannie May chocolates (currently on sale and I will vouch for them.). The company has been making chocolate in the Chicago area for about 85 years and makes some wonderful things. This would have been treat enough...AND YET...

A few days later we received this quite remarkable box of Godiva's "G Collection". The flavors include Lemon Drop, Tart Raspberry, Bananas Foster, Apple Pie, Tahitian 

Vanilla, P.B. & Jam, Salted Caramel, Caramel Macchiato, Wild Bolivian Dark Chocolate, Mexican Hot Cocoa (with ancho pepper). Suz and I are being very selfish and not sharing this box with the kids at all . We are splitting each one...except the raspberry, for as good as it appears, the whole anaphylactic thing is so tedious... 
 
Oh, and I got a Toblerone the size of a small dog in my stocking. Needless to say, this is all helping my diet and weight-loss program enormously...

On that note, we will be bringing another dozen of Simply Divine's amazing brownies to the SF ABAA book fair. WooHoo.

Finally, to top off my warm/fuzzy feelings towards my clients, I have received a number of cards and emails saying genuinely lovely things. At a time when the economy appears so shaking, winter is upon us and things are just generally dicey on many fronts...having one's client's go out of their way say thanks, etc is just...well...one more reason I love doing the things I do. Here's to a great new year...I'll do my best to keep you all amused and shelving things that bring you pleasure...

Keeping your house cool, have I got something for you....

A sleeping bag you can wear around you house (or campsite). We keep the house rather cool during the winter (cooler still when it is just old people in the house). I prefer it cool and Suz prefers to suffer rather than burn oil. She spends much of the winter in several layers and/or down around the house...

Mom and dad picked her up a Lippi Selk' bag. It has arms and legs and vent holes and a hood....you can get your hands out so you can type (or cook, or whatever). Personally, I think she looks far too cute in her Selk .

One of the first to sell these (originally created by Chilian graphic designer, Rodrigo Alonso Schramm) in the US was bookseller Dan Wyman at his "Wyman Outdoors" arm...some are currently on sale there. Some of the iterations can be found at Amazon, too.

I'm pretty certain we can shut the heat completely off now...woohoo ...

RIP Ertha Kitt...bad few weeks...

First Betty Page, now Ertha Kitt. I've never looked at white mink the same after seeing this many years ago....

Fun bits of weirdness...

So my parents put a Utilikilt under the tree for me (appalling picture...not the Utilikilt's fault). I may never wear pants again. I've wanted one for several years, but now it is all mine. Appears to be very well made and way too comfortable for words. What fun.

My wonderful wife replaced by all-but- completely destroyed electric razor  with a new Braun. It is very cool and sleek and long overdue (my last Braun electric razor is about 11  years old or so and died about a month or so ago). I hope it lasts as long...paying for razors make me itchy...though not as much as facial hair...

My sister and BiL gave me a green laser pen. Red laser is easy...and common...GREEN on the other hand is very cool. Better yet, it is bright enough that you can see the beam in the air in the dark (great for star gazing). Now I have to do more presentations so I have an excuse to use my cool green beam....or just play with the cat...

Many books changed hands, the kids are Legoing their brains out. The boys both got wooden model war engines (Thing One a trebuchet and Thing Two a catapult). Mom and dad gave Suz a Lippi Selk wearable sleeping bag (in red)...she is WAYYYY too cute in it...and toasty warm.

The afternoon has been lazy fun, hardware setup (mom got an iPhone and dad a MacBookPro). Dinner is started (traditional English xmas...roast beef, yorkshire pudding, etc). Movies to follow. Just a very nice day. I hope yours has been as amusing...

Child's Christmas in Wales - Holiday traditions...

One Christmas was so much like another, in those years around the sea-town corner now and out of all sound except the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I can never remember whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve nights when I was six.

We have many holiday traditions...some are more entertaining than others...some are more meaningful than others...and some are just great fun. The best are combinations of all.

In this last category is the annual reading/listening to Dylan Thomas's A Child's Christmas in Wales. This goes back to my very earliest memories...listening to my grandfather read it each Christmas Eve. He was born in Belfast, Ireland and had a reading voice that was just astounding. Later, we would take turns reading passages from it. In the last 5 years or so, we switch off, reading it one year and listening to a recording of Dylan Thomas himself reading it the next. This was a Dylan Thomas year...

If you have not heard him read this, do not miss the chance. Happy holidays.

Phrases not often seen together

While wrapping a model for Thing One. I noticed the front and thus my
day was made:
* Working model trenuchet
* Ideal for indoor use

Heavy snow and good company

So we came through the first real snowstorm of the year with flying colors. Stayed in, watched the snow fly and wind blow and played games with the family. The boys received some fun new things for their birthdays (celebrated on the 20th)...a very fun board game "Apples to Apples" and the Guitar Heros Aerosmith Edition (complete with TWO guitars ("guitar" in the loosest sense of the word)). Both have been great fun.

It should be no surprise that a game that plays with words and meaning would work well with this crowd. Much more surprising is Guitar Hero. I, and probably most of the rest of the family, assumed this would be a "let the boys play it and hope we can figure out things to do in other parts of the house" sort of thing. It has turned out to be pretty fun...both to play and to watch (or at least have it on in the room while you talk about other things...). Heavy on Aerosmith (as should be expected by the name), there is a nice smattering of other classics and...even better...some less mainstream material. Watching Thing One "play" the New York Dolls' "Personality Crisis" was extremely amusing...having him be shocked that I knew all the words was nice. I am very cool in his eyes at the moment...it will not be so in the not so distant future so I like to revel in these moments when they present themselves...

We spent a few hours shoveling. Tomorrow will be busy with last minute wrapping and errands and a party in the evening. Great fun had by all...

Abandon all hope...now for kids:

Birthday book for Thing One. The main characters are Milton and Marlo
Fauster. When *I* was 11, all I had to read was Paradise Lost, Inferno
and the like. These kids are so lucky.

Flame, because everything is sexier when it smells like a Whopper...

I have just discovered the perfect Holiday Gift. "Flame" is a BODY SPRAY that smells like a Whopper. [I'll pause here where that sinks in...]

Do not miss the site...and be certain to click the spray bottle to change the "ambiance". There is one scene that I promise you will lurk in the back of your mind for far too long. It can be purchased at Ricky's and, apparently, at some BKs.

I know it is so very wrong...but my first thought about this is how much entertaining it would be to take it to the nice vegetarian restaurant we go to now and again and pour some into the flower vase on the table just before leaving. Or visiting the local PETA HQ and spraying it in various corners. More fun than a bag of snakes... 

Body spray....that smells like Whoppers. I am not certain this day could get more entertaining...

Big news in the Bookfair world...economic trickle down?

I just received an email from Bruce Gventer announcing that due to feedback from exhibitors and potential exhibitors and the economy in general, he is putting his New York bookfairs on hiatus. This would appear to mean that there will be no shadow show to the NY ABAA Bookfair. This would be a great shame, on many fronts...especially as the new location at Hunter College was quite wonderful.

I hope things change in the near term and that the shadow show is able to go forward. It would be a real loss for the weekend as a whole...

Little Rare Book Room...a holiday favorite.

I am very pleased this year, to provide the video (audio, really) above in addition to the lyrics below.

From the Scary Solstice collection (1, 2, or 3) of holiday music offered by the HP Lovecraft Society, please enjoy a favorite of mine, "Little Rare Book Room" (Lyrics by Sean Branney and Andrew Leman, based on 'Little Drummer Boy,' written in 1958 by Katherine Davis, Henry Onorati, and Harry Simeone):

Come, they called me
The special book room
The rarest books to see
Librarian's tomb
Kept under lock and key
In terrible gloom
To save man's sanity,
It's pointless, we're doomed, thoroughly doomed, utterly doomed.
Necronomicon
The first I exhumed
From the book room.

Book of Eibon
So frightfully old
Vermis Mysteriis
A sight to behold
The Monstres and Their Kynde
With edges of gold
Could make me lose my mind
All covered with mold, fungus and mold, poisonous mold.
Kitab al Azif
Its horrors untold.
Still I am bold.

King in Yellow
Left me feeling glum
The Ponape Scriptures
I'd stay away from
And then The Golden Bough
My brain had gone numb
I read them all out loud
Well that was quite dumb, terribly dumb, fatally dumb.
Freed the Great Old Ones
Mankind will succumb.
What have I done?

Dope Menace is "Pick of the Week"

One our own is the "Web Pick of the Week" over at Publishers Weekly. Stephen Gertz (of David Brass Rare Books), just received a great plug for his recent work, The Dope Menace [N.B. the previous link benefits SG a bit, please use it if not picking a copy up from his very self]. From the post:

Readers will dig Gertz’s enthusiasm and formidable knowledge; the stories behind key titles like The Polluters (in which the nation’s water supply is spiked with LSD) are almost as enjoyable as the beautifully reproduced, full-color covers for titles like H is for Harlot, Narco Nympho, The Junk Pusher, and scores of others.

Ode to Joy

Thanks to Brian Cassidy for this...

Reason number 374 to love one's clients...

Lead soldiers. So I stop by to visit a client and when I entered, my octogenarian client said, "Oh, come to the basement,  I want you to see what I've been working on." She then led me down to where a large table was covered and set up as shown (only partially...and with her permission). 






She has collected lead soldiers for many years and sets up elaborate scenes each holiday season.

There are actually two soldier sets blended here. One set is based upon "Beau Geste". The other set is based on Khartoum. She built the forts and mountains, etc (covering forms in cloth and sand infused paint/plaster). 

She told me how she never thought it was fair that her brothers, many years ago, where able to pour lead into molds to make their lead soldiers and she was not allowed to do so. She has made up for it. 

How to weigh a cat...

Step 1: Leave empty paper box in strategically cat populated area.

Step 2: Wait for cat to jam himself into box and fall asleep...just all know that being crammed into a box with your head balanced on a vertical edge is the best bed one could hope to find.

Step 3: Lift said cat in box and place on scale. Voila.

Result: The Proto-Book Cat (rapidly outgrowing that name) currently weighs 8 pounds, 4.5 ounces.

Post Ice, Pending Snow...

Well, our neighbor lost a truly lovely tree, but we made it through the Big Ice relatively unscathed. The house, luckily, is wedged between two of Maine's largest hospitals (Mercy and Maine Medical Center)...as a result, we lose power very rarely and when we do, they get it back on in this neighborhood before almost any others...

It was amazing to walk around out back the next day, listening to the ice in the massive maples in the back, as the branches blew (or swung, as the case may be) in the breeze, there was a constant crackling and popping of ice. Amazing.

My folks were on the generator for a while and midcoast was hit pretty hard. We had a guest stay with us while her house was dark and cold. The worst hit here in Maine was in the Alfred area...still without power after many days. This is, of course the local of the famed farm of Don and Sam, proprietors of Rabelais Books, the best foodie bookstore in Maine (and, in my not remotely humble opinion, the most/all landmasses in the western hemisphere...perhaps more). In the midst of their suffering, they hosts a *very* fun holiday cookie exchange (bring 1 type, leave with many). With luck, they are warm again this evening...tomorrow at the latest.

Amazing to see .25 to .5 inch of ice covering things. Amazing and very unpleasant. Snow tonight and for later in the week. Much more fun, that.

Did I miss a career in Medicine???

Who knew:

"Sarcasm may be the lowest form of wit, but Australian scientists are using it to diagnose dementia, according to a new study. Researchers at the University of New South Wales, found that patients under the age of 65 suffering from frontotemporal dementia (FTD), the second most common form of dementia, cannot detect when someone is being sarcastic."

Original article is getting /.ed. 

Betty Page - RIP

A sad (and tacitly bookish) post.

Background.

Gallery.

quick tech post...facebook and beyond...

I've created a Lux Mentis, Booksellers Page on Facebook, please consider becoming a "fan".

On tech and bookseller, there are many interesting things afoot. I'm working on a few related posts on such subjects...expect them over the next few days/weeks. With luck, a bit of signal within the noise...

Chaos theory? I think not...

Joyce has a great post on the BBC's article on "constructive messiness". 

The only problem I have with her post is her claim that this image is "frightening"...shocking! Personally, this image fills me with warmth and happiness. A nice representation of my system...love the iMac tucked in.

Philogelos: The Laugh Addict

And you thought Monty Python was original...

In Philogelos, a fourth century (and arguably the first) joke book has been getting a bit of press lately. William Berg, a classics professor in the US, has translated it and created a digital iteration (see below). It is confirmation that there really are no new jokes.

Consider the brilliant "Dead Parrot" skit by the collective genius that was Monty Python (e.g. "he's resting"). 1600 years ago, when a man complains that the slave he purchased was dead, he's told, '"By the gods," answers the slave's seller, "when he was with me, he never did any such thing."'

You can literally hear Dangerfield, Rickles, Youngman, etc tell:

"A misogynist is attending to the burial of his wife, who has just died. When someone asks, 'Who is it who rests in peace here?', he answers, 'Me, now that I'm rid of her!'."

"I had your wife, without paying a penny". He replied: "It's my duty as a husband to couple with such a monstrosity. What made you do it?"

"A student dunce goes to the doctor and says, ‘Doctor, when I wake up, I’m all dizzy, then after half-an-hour I’m O.K.’ ‘Well, wait a half hour before waking up,’ advises the doctor."

Articles on the translation(s): here, here, here, and here.

Translations of some here, here and here:

Greek here.

A "free highlights" version of his digital translation of this work can be found here.

W. Gibson's Agrippa Files re-introduced...

It has been a nice day for geeky bookish news. /. recently posted the following:

"While the text of William Gibson's elusive electronic poem AGRIPPA is widely posted around the Web, it has not been seen in its original incarnation — custom-built software designed to scroll the poem through a single play before encrypting each line with an RSA algorithm — since 1992. Today is the 16th anniversary, to the day, of the poem's initial release. A team of scholars at the University of Maryland and UC Santa Barbara used forensic computing to restore the code from an original diskette loaned by a collector and have placed video of the complete 'run,' as well as never-before-seen footage from the night of AGRIPPA's public debut in 1992, up on a Web site called the Agrippa Files. There's also a detailed essay documenting the forensic process, plus a mess of stills, screenshots, and a copy of the disk image itself." [emphasis mine]

Agrippa and the related files can be found here...expect to loose some time...

Will Mario kick Dickens' tush or vice versa...

TimesOnline just posted that Nintendo is rolling out "100 Classic Book Collection" for the NintendoDS. The "ebook" collection will include the likes of Shakespeare and Dickens to Jane Austen and the Brontë sisters. It is only being rolled out in the UK...US to follow, perhaps.

For a geek/snark review of this announcement, see /.

How to improve one's mood: Lesson 42

Still in a bit of a funk today...but I did just get a note that makes it hard to be grumpy... After telling me how pleased they were with a book that just arrived, they wrote:

But beyond that, your presentation of the book is lovely. I felt like I was getting a special present, the wrapping, the packaging. It set the stage for me to fall in love with my purchasing decision.

I tend to like all my clients. Some I like a lot. Made my day.

Bowdlerizing alive and well and living in New Rochelle...

Bowdlerizing has a long, rich literary history. Named for a 16/17th century physician who published a heavily edited edition of  William Shakespeare "safe" for women and children, it is a practice that has had a small but passionate following ever since...generally within communities that wallow in moralizing, self-righteous indignation and a healthy sense of holier-than-thouness. Admittedly, I may be slightly biased, as I find gutting of literature to be on about the same plane as any other "abuse of innocents" activity...

The Talk of the Sound posted a cleverly titled entry yesterday: Now Playing in New Rochelle, "Book, Interrupted"! on the English Departments' decision to require students to return copies of the class book, "Girl, Interrupted" so that they could...literally...tear out pages 64 through 70 before returning them to the students continue their lernin'. 

Per English Dept. chairwoman Leslie Altschul, "The material was of a sexual nature that we deemed inappropriate for teachers to present to their students, since the book has other redeeming features, we took the liberty of bowdlerizing." [emphasis mine]. Bowdlerizing is not a "liberty" to be taken..it is an offense to be inflicted (c.f. "I took the liberty of thwacking Ms. Altschul in the forehead with a copy of Girl, Interrupted."). The article notes that the District has a "book challenge process", but that the district failed to follow their own policies. 

The article also provides a succinct summary of why Bowdlerizing is such an ugly thing: "Bowdlerizing is a particularly disturbing form of censorship since it not only suppresses specific content deemed 'objectionable,' but also does violence to the work by removing material that the author thought integral," said Joan Bertin, Executive Director of the National Coalition Against Censorship. "It is a kind of literary fraud perpetrated on an unsuspecting audience."

I'm tired of the lowest-common-denominator controlling the "public good". I'm tired of small-minded, pseudo-religious bigots setting the bar for what is and is not acceptable. Shouldn't school be where you are *challenged* in your conceptions and analysis...where you *learn* to think critically and cogently? Do we *really* want out classrooms defined by material that does not offend anyone, lest it be purged (or, you know, the offending pages be purged). 

 I suggest that one's willingness to rip pages out of a book should be inversely proportional to one's ability to hold the job of "English Department Chair"...in fact, I think I might go so far as to say that if one is happy to tear great chunks of text out of books before handing them to students, one should not be teaching at all. There are plenty of stalls that need mucking, fish that need gutting and/or graves that need digging...just about anything that keeps books from your hands. 

Thanks (so to speak) to Joyce and LB for the late night posts about the good times in New Rochelle...

A very brief, over-cute, moment...

Lolcats-icanhascheezburger is a strange of often stupid site. At times, however, very cute kitties with silly text can make things...er...better.

In for a penny, in for a pound...or...more blood in the water.

Apparently the Miami Herald is up for sale, too.

Next up, the WSJ will announce they will be printing the paper on Fruit-Roll-Ups. That way you can eat the paper when you're done reading it (value-add) *and* they can get in on that much-sought-after school lunch program subsidy...

and in other print-media spiraling the drain news...

Tribune Co., owner of the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times (and the Chicago Cubs), etc. is apparently heading toward bankruptcy. Just a great day. I am going back to bed.

The other shoe falls...appears Rare Book Review is gone, too

Following on the heels of Fine Books & Collections' decision to abandon print for a digital existence, it appears that Rare Book Review has also ceased publication. Published since 1974, RBR "is to be 'mothballed' with immediate effect!". There is no indication as to what direction they may take...perhaps they will publish periodically. They do, it appears, intend to keep the website live and to sell banner space there but there is no clear sign that they will be adding content. We shall see.

Icky way to start the week...with luck, the news will improve...

Tagged, banded and threatened with liver eating....

Chris Lowenstein "tagged" me, I am thus required by some unwritten blogger law to complete the tasks as set to me or risk the wrath of the Ether Gods (related to the Elder Gods) or some such thing. Thus...

Here are the rules:

1. Link to the person or persons who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them.
5. Let each person know they’ve been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

Six Random Things About Me:

1: I am a recovering attorney.

2: I have developed a very pathetic, symbiotic relationship with my iPhone.

3: I am renovating the schoolhouse where Sarah Orne Jewett is believed to have written Country of the Pointed Fir.

4: I have a weakness for really crappy movies (and for Black Books).

5: I *really* dislike being in a car that I am not driving.

6: I would very much like to live on an island, with housing such that others could come and visit for as long as they liked, but I would not have to leave and/or interact with anyone "out there" .

Six more taggees:

1: Forest Proper @ Foggygates

2: Sarah @ Sarah's Books (she is still with us, you know )

3: Joyce @ Bibliophile Bullpen

4: JBD @ PhiloBiblos

5: Bill @ HangFireBooks

6: Michael et al @ Wessel & Lieberman

Cocoa-based Typography

Printeresting has a great post on Cocoa-based typography. As much as I love Apple, it seems like type in German chocolate is much more enjoyable than coding in cocoa. 

Also, Printeresting, whose tagline is "Since 2008, the thinking person's favorite online resource for interesting printmaking miscellany...", it a great read.

Thanks to LB for the heads up on this...

The Great Turkey Massacree [coincidentally nearby the "other" Great Massacree]...

Just when you thought bookselling couldn't be any more exciting (and/or "why posts from FP are more fun to read than just about anyone else's")...an update on events and a new catalogue from Joslin Hall.