Tuesday, July 29, 2008

You Gotta Have Heart...and a Good Memory


That stuff there on the left...yup, that stuff that you are straining to read...really not worth it. Those are some of my notes from last week's Heart-A-Rama writing meeting. Today, I get to dip into my memory bank and withdraw as much I can recall about what we were intending. This writing business is tricky, but our group works together nicely. We haven't had any flair-ups yet. I always enjoy a a little creative angst driven confrontation. Maybe they'll oblige me next time.
We're still hammering away at the musical, and need two or three more meetings to finish. We have all agreed on where the plot is going, so now, by pooling our varied ideas, we need to figure out how to get there. To recap briefly, HAR's theme for 09 in fairy tales. Our musical is a Frog Prince meets the Bachelor sort of idea.

Karen has been writing with our group for about ten years. She likes to keep us focused on the literal end of thing - always concerned about the audience's perception of what we craft. I must say that this year, she is obsessing about the proposed roundabout. Whenever we are stuck for a line to get us to the next section of the plot, she suggests working in something about a roundabout. We keep her around because she brings her rhyming dictionary to each meeting, along with yummy treats.

Chris is our devil's advocate. Most of the time, we are just happy to have an idea, any idea. Chris wants to explore our ideas, poke holes in them, figure out why they will or will not work. Sometimes, we end up abandoning ideas as a result. His other "contribution" is his overwhelming desire for sub-plot. We keep telling him it's HAR. Sub-plot is far too sophisticated for our purpose, and certainly more than we can handle as amateur writers. Ironically, he also enjoys a good sight gag - and reminds us that a cleverly placed banana peel can go a long way.

Our musical expert, Connie, has a great challenge before her. We each lobby for using our favorite artists' music in the show. For Chris, it's the Kinks, for me it's Jimmy Buffett and Patsy Cline. I don't even want to entertain any thoughts about Karen's favorite...which I believe is Barry Manilow. Can she be serious about that?

Anyway, Connie does her best to steer us in new and fresh directions; she forces us to expand our musical palates. Essentially, she prods in the sweetest voice you have ever heard; we don't even know that we are being bullied. Poor Connie is painfully aware that the rest of us couldn't keep a beat, or apply appropriate musical accents come hel...well, you get it. She is forever pounding out rhythms with her feet, her fingers, her pencils. It's all the same though. A beat is a beat, no matter what instrument the poor girl uses. or how loudly she stamps and pounds. We just don't get it, and still, we are writing the HAR musical... and enjoying every minute of it.

Since I'm not revealing full identities, I can also tell you that Connie gets a little sassy sometimes. I can always tell when she has some naughty bit rising to the surface. She gets pink, then red, then she smiles. Finally, there is a charming little giggle and she announces, "I just had an idea, but I can't tell you because you will think bad things about me." Eventually we pry it out of her, and try to use some iteration of her tantalizing tidbit.

As for myself, I try to stay logical about what will translate from page to stage. My staggering lack of directing abilitiy plays nicely into the fun but not-too-polished effect we want the final show to have. Basically, I type up the scripts, and plan rehearsal time. I am just glad that I get to hang around with these people.

We have HAR censors, you know. We turn our scripts into a steering committee in early February, right before auditions. They read and discuss. We keep our fingers crossed that nothing will be x'd out. We try to monitor ourselves when we write, but there are always a couple lines we worry about. Sometimes they can be toned down in the delivery, but that's tough for the committee to know until they actually see the show on stage.

So, that's that. The process is pretty straightforward. We'll keep chipping away until our assigned parts of the show are done. Anything more I would write about that would be repetitive, so I won't get back to you with HAR news until we move into the next phase, which will be auditioning. BUT...if we have one of those angst ridden writing blow-ups, I'll be sure to cover that for you.

Monday, July 28, 2008

APB: Missing Book!



Help! I have lost a book. The truth is, I know where it is in a vague sort of way. One of you has it. I recall loaning it after a scintillating discussion on the Norman conquest and the resultant dramatic changes, and rapid growth of the English language.
The book at the left is not the title in question. I'm looking for The Miracle of Language, by the same author. Yesterday, I was intently ghost writing a magazine article for a friend, when I needed to reference some archaic term. Naturally, I knew my source would be Lederer. On my bookshelf, I was able to locate all his books except the one I needed.



Generally, I am a fickle reader, moving from author to author, genre to genre, but when it come to Lederer (and Sedaris) I am devoted groupie. Lederer's works often came in handy while I was teaching, and I still use them when I prepare for various workshops in the area. Check him out if you are a word junkie, or if you enjoy challenging and twisted word games http://www.vebivore.com/.


The Miracle of Language (the missing manual!) strays from his standard collections of captured misused phrases, and the hundreds of examples of the little winks and smiles sprinkled throughout our language. The essays in "Miracle" are more academic exploring the nature of language as it relates to class, social expectations and assumptions. He discusses the evolution of words, and the biases and prejudices they carry. Sound too dry? It really isn't. OK, maybe for a nerdy, ex-English teacher this is stuff crafted in paradise, but at the rate his books sell, I know there are droves of you closet wordaholics out there! So, if you have my book, please return it. Don't make me rent space on the side of milk carton to get it back.
While looking for the deeply missed volume (yes, I know I am beating a poor horse to death, but I love that book) I came across a rotten melon called Fractured English by Norton Mackridsge. Warning - DO NOT READ THIS BOOK. It is filled with innocuous statements and debasing examples that, I am afraid, were quite acceptable when the book was published in 1965. He dedicates a full chapter to the inane things that "housewives" say. The author begins, "Housewives, as we know, are useful in a number of ways. But now they have a new honor - the greatest of them all. My surveys prove that housewives as a group are the most prolific and dependable producers of Fractured English, wounded words, dizzy dialect, loony language, and idiotic idioms."
If that's not enough, he continues by writing about the wife of an ad exec, a friend of the author, who keeps a journal of his wife Jane's sayings. Mockridge writes, "For years he has compiled a log of her better efforts. He calls them "Janisms" - and he reads them at parties. People howl at them and Jane, a beautiful blond with a college degree, sits and smiles her appreciation, and sometimes she says, 'Gosh, I'm happy to be spreading a little sunbeam.'" I am not kidding - it all there right on page 13.
Read Richard Lederer for a wittier, more intelligent look at language...but before doing that, dig through your attics, look under you beds, check your bookshelves, glove boxes, winter purses, basement storage bins, and underwear drawers...find my book!
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Noted authors have given their suggestions for quality summer reading. You can find the list on www.harvard.com/onourshelves/summer.html.
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What am I reading? Gentlemen and Players by Joanne Harris , author of Chocolat (movie stars Johnny Depp) its sequel, The Girl With No Shadow...and lots more.

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

'Another Man's Moccassins' review by guest blogger, Steve Head





If you like Tony Hillerman’s blend of murder, law enforcement, and American Indian culture you might like Craig Johnson’s new book, ‘Another Man’s Moccasins’. This is the fourth in the Sheriff Walt Longmire series set in a fictitious county in Wyoming that approximates Johnson’s current home in Ucross, Wyoming, close to Sheridan.



The latest story was the result of a casual reference in ‘The Cold Dish’, Johnson’s first Longmire novel, that caught the eye and interest of a book critic. This time Longmire is faced with a western American lawman’s nightmare, a body drop. This particular body is of a young Vietnamese girl that sends Longmire on a bitter sweet nostalgic trip to his military service in 1968, the casual reference from ‘The Cold Dish’. Following his UCLA education Walt served as a Marine Investigator assigned to Tan Son Nhut Air Force Base just outside Khe Sanh during the Tet offensive.



Although Johnson says a good part of Walt Longmire is autobiographic he was not a Marine Investigator during the Tet offensive. Instead he was doing time as an elementary school student. Research for the Vietnamese segments including reading, viewing hours of home movies of service men transferred to DVD, and a chance encounter with a western states law enforcement officer familiar with the earlier books that was ‘in country’ during Tet.



Helping Walt in his investigation is his best friend, Henry Standing Bear, often referred to as the ‘Cheyenne Nation’. Henry has his own military history that overlaps Walt’s but I’ll save that for those interested enough to read the book. Walt also has his deputies, Vic(toria) Morretti filled with colorful language and from a Philadelphia law enforcement family, Double Tough, Frymyre, Ferg, and Sancho. And let us not forget the retired Sheriff, Lucian Connally, who lost a leg during a melee with Basque ranchers. Lucian is a central character in the second novel, ‘Death Without Company’.



Walt’s daughter Cady is the other consistent character in the series and during this book she is living with Walt while recovering from a head injury sustained in Philadelphia and the third book, ‘Death Without Company’. Visiting Cady is Michael Morretti, younger brother of Deputy Vic Morretti. Only the scent of the romance between the Longmire’s and the Morretti’s from ‘Death Without Company’ makes it into the new book yet is a source of tension for the widowed Walt.



By the 290th and final page Walt has solved the mystery of the murder, the perpetrator has been punished, and all without a shot being fired by a law enforcement officer. Walt has recalled a painful part of his past, made passing references to the classics, learned of a personal military history more tortured than his own, and criss crossed the fictional Absaroka County. And the sense of humor revealed in the earlier books continues to balance the brutality that goes with murder.



A special characteristic of the Walt Longmire series is the element of what I’ll call spirituality that appears during critic points of the first three books. This spiritual element reminded me of Jim Chee and his pursuit of medicine man status in the early Hillerman books. “Another Man’s Moccasins’ does not contain as much overt spirituality as the earlier books but it is part of the underlying fabric.



As you can imagine I highly recommend any of the Craig Johnson books. The latest book made me laugh out loud just like the others, and kept me wondering right along with Walt and his crew. For those wanting to know more about Craig you can check his website at http://www.craigallenjohnson.com/. If you sign up for his Post-Its you can get a monthly message from Craig that almost always generates a chuckle.

Saturday, July 19, 2008

A Page from the Archives



We used to keep a store journal. Whenever we had an interesting day, customer, thought or idea, we would jot it down. Because I was still teaching part-time, we had a lot of staff here, most of whom worked solo shifts. The journal helped us get to know one another and share some of the highs and lows of the book biz. So, from time time, I'll share some pages from the archives with you.



3.1.02
4:52...a woman came in at 3:15 asking if we had books on "attachment disorder". Even though we didn't, she stayed until just a few minutes ago. Probably got too attached to me
-Bev

3.2.02...Yup! I am here. All alone. In the storm. The whole city has shut down. I am nuts
-Bev



3.5.02...I really wish we didn't have to have a public bathroom.
-Jenny
3.8.02 Tomorrow is Saturday. It is bathroom cleaning day. O joy! O rapture! O &#@*
-Bev



Looks like we had a theme going there for a few days. but, honestly, the bathroom cleaning business is not fun. I seem to recall that Jacque was always brave when it came to that activity.


One Saturday Jacque and I were working together. Jacque offfered to clean the bathroom, but when I'm here on a Saturday, I prepare myself to enter the dreaded chamber, covered in plastic from head to toe, and armed with multiple disinfectants in the event that things don't go well in there. Without going into too much detail, I will say that I have a certain reflex that is easily triggered, and this particular type of cleaning brings it out in a power display of sounds and general hollering. Jacque, having never witnessed this drama, rushed in to save me, or at very least, to assess whether calling 911 was in order. All she found was me ready to survive a nuclear blast, brush in hand, scrubbing away, and accenting the process with a cacophony of unpleasant bellerings, croakings, and a few easily definable foreign phrases.


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Fannie Flagg provides a nice diversion for me. I needed a quick book to read Saturday night and Sunday morning, so I grabbed this one from our used books section. I really enjoyed Fried Green Tomatoes...the movie didn't work as well as the book. When I read that book about 10 years ago, I remember thinking about the rituals her characters had - the mornings they gathered at the local diner to catch up the newsy items, talk a little politics, and maybe even cause some trouble. They took evening walks, listened to the birds, sniffed the heliotrope and chatted with neighbors relaxing on front porches. I also remember thinking, "I want that life. I want my time to be more casual, and not measured by check marks on a to-do list. I don't want to work so hard to squeeze time in to see friends, like they are some sort of agenda item.

Well, guess what? Today, I have that life! It's not at the local diner, or on a neighbor's front porch, but here at the bookstore. Friends pop in and I am so lucky to be able to sit and visit. They don't mind minor interruptions like the phone, or deliveries, and sometimes, customers even sit and join in on the conversations. We have been here five years, maybe it's six - doesn't really matter. I have become one of the neighbors. I get invited to neighborhood parties, have celebrated birthdays with neighbors' grandchildren, get reports on what and how kids are doing in school. People share their successes and, occasionally, their disappointments. We have welcomed new babies. One new mom even stopped in with her newborn on their way home from the hospital. Really! We have pictures of our "store babies" hanging all over! Our biggest thrill is when one of those babies walks up to the counter on his/her own wobbly two feet, chest proudly puffed, wearing that look-at-me-grin. Generally, the first store related word they utter is 'Candy".


We know all the neighborhood dogs, too. Digger, Eddie, Sophie, and Max. They stop by for drinks of water on hot days, and we keep treats on hand.


The perks of being a neighborhood bookstore far outweighs the disadvantages of not being downtown where I know we would be busier and the register would be ringing more often. The trade-off is fine by me.




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Long ago, I promised I'd share the process of how we put Heart-A-Rama together. A couple weeks ago, the directors met with the general co-chairs to pick a theme for the 2009 show. We decided on "Fairy Tales" but I am not sure how that will be worded on the shirts yet. We decided what parts of the show each director would be responsible for, and now we're on our own.

I put together a committee to write the musical, two tweeners (those are short little pieces) and the musical finale for the show. Our first meeting was a brainstormer...we decided what we wanted to do with each of the segments we were assigned. We made an outline for the musical and decided what characters would be in it, and what songs we would use.

Now, the slow work begins. Last Thursday we met and started writing dialogue for the musical. After two hours we only had two pages and one song done. I like our group. We have Connie, Karen, Chris, and me. There is always plenty of red licorice, which seems to appear at all HAR meetings. For us, it eases the pain of the grand silence. And believe me, there was plenty of that at our first two meetings. We try to pitch ideas as fast as they come to us, and some are just dogs. They totally stink up the process. When someone tosses a really stupid idea out, everyone else gets quiet. Eyes grow big as we silently check to see who is in agreement. This lasts a looong time. Painfully long, if it your idea getting the treatment. Normally, this disolves into laughter...starting with one of those sputtering laughs, the kind we all try to hold back. But that crazy laughter must trigger endorphins or something. Between the snorts, guffaws and giggles, we start to piggyback on the idea that started the ruckus. Those stink-o ideas sometimes lead us to pretty funny places.

We meet again tomorrow...two more pages, perhaps! The working title for the musical is "Give Peas a chance." (Yes, you read correctly, it's peas, not peace.)

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Imagined Realities

By guest blogger Thomas Maltman, author of The Night Birds

How much of this really happened? At readings and author events this question ranks right up there with the standard where do you get your ideas from? But I’ve been thinking about it recently since my family moved back to Minnesota where we are spending the summer on a small family farm. Last summer, I baled hay with my father-in-law at sundown. There was a rain-cooled wind, a storm on the horizon, and the swallows skimming insects just above the mown hay. We raced to beat the rain and it was a perfectly lovely time. The next day I wrote this idyllic passage about haying for my second book, Little Wolves, a redemptive scene that follows a dark moment in the book. There’s too much else happening in the novel to explain in a short blog entry. Little Wolves is based on a true story of murder and betrayal I heard in a small town we lived in. I’d like to show just a brief page-long passage here and then discuss whether or not it’s realistic. Did I really capture the truth of hard physical labor?

Late afternoon finds them in the hayfields once more, the old man driving a lumbering International tractor that is trailed by a baler and Bear standing on the hayrack. The tractor glints silver; the baler licks up lumps of hay from the green ground and spits out neatly-roped, twenty pound bales that Bear catches and stacks on the hayrack behind him. He has to keep a wide stance as the rack sways over the uneven ground and the bales come without ceasing. Each bale has to be wedged in tight, a mountain of hay that might all come tumbling down if Bear’s aim is not quick and true.

Hay sticks to sweat-streaked skin. Blades of it probe for tender places to make fresh wounds. He breathes in the tractor’s exhaust and dust and bugs kicked up from the fields.

And yet it is beautiful to be with the old man in the hot sundown. Swallows dip and dive around him, hunting insects the tractor stirs up from the soil. The fields shine emerald in the fading light. From this upper meadow, they have a view of the river valley and the old man is turning now to point toward the west where black clouds are flexing into thunderheads. They will have to hurry before rain comes. If the hay gets soaked, it will mold and rot and all their hard work will be for nothing. The wind already carries the sweet smell of wet. A shadow from a chicken hawk passes over the field and chases away the swallows. Bear takes the bales and forms neat square stacks while Seth kicks the tractor into a higher gear. They work in wordless rhythm, moving faster to beat the rain, the old man’s focus on maneuvering the tractor in tight turns, Bear yanking out bales and tossing and stacking.

Then the work is done and Bear rides down the hill standing atop his lurching hay mound, sapped but triumphant. From his perch, twenty feet above the mowed ground, he can see Aden’s Landing on the other side of the valley and the copper glitter of the river, and beyond it the rim of the world itself, turning black now with storm.

There’s more to this scene as the storm unleashes itself and Bear fights wind and rain to get a tarp stretched over the rack in time to save the hay. Did I capture the truth of the moment, what it’s really like to bale hay? It’s easy to sentimentalize physical labor. Think about it. Writers spend all day in dark basement rooms fighting off carpal tunnel syndrome while working on stories, poems, and chapters and sometimes at the end of the day they throw all that work away! There’s something deeply satisfying about the outdoor life, about working with your hands. But since writing that scene I’ve baled many racks of hay and alfalfa. I’ve climbed into the loft of the barn where the temperature roasts well over a hundred degrees. I’ve been gashed and bled and drained and inhaled so much alfalfa chaff that even my teeth went green.

Is it true? Is it a realistic scene? Would I write it differently after coming to know the labor of haying so much better this summer?

No. I don’t think I could change that moment in the book. It has to happen. Our work shapes and changes us and sometimes, and if we are very lucky, even a hardship can make us into a better human being. Some moments in our life are transcendent and sometimes these moments happen even while doing our ordinary jobs.

Hello to my friends in Manitowoc! You are missed! I hope to come and read other passages (ones more exciting and haunting) to you when Little Wolves is finished and has gone to the publisher!

Tom Maltman, Night Birds

Monday, July 14, 2008

It's Good to be the Queen Part II, and... I Found Angela!





As promised, I'm back with more thoughts on the Barbara Walters autobiography. Throughout the book, I kept questioning how she could remember details from her childhood, after all, it was a few years back. I laughed when she recounted Frank Sinatra's disdain for her. It was so strong that he trash talked her from the Vegas stage on more than one occasion. However, this woman who recalls childhood minutia, just could not recall the cause of Sinatra's anger. Selective memory, surely!



I kept struggling to find a reason to keep reading, looking for some value in what she had to share. Buried beneath the frivolous tales of love escapades, and the everybody- hates -me dramas, lies the story of woman with fortitude. Honing her journalistic skills when she did - faced with the lack of respect for women in the workplace, pre-feminist enlightenment - obviously kept lesser females out of the profession. She stood firm against the good-old boy networks she encountered time and time again. She knew when to bide her time, and when to fight back. She learned what battles to fight and how to fight them. Those are the stories I wanted to hear more of, along with greater details on her groundbreaking meeting with numerous world leaders. But, she told the stories she wanted to tell, which, unfortunately, left me wanting less.


It seems that most people who commit a life to paper share some common elements: poverty so great they often lived in boxes under a bridge; hard childhood, including the pre-mature death of at least one parent, fish, dog, or other close relative; shunned by peers and left out of childhood games because they didn't have shoes to wear; let's not forget that most were told they would never succeed, usually due to a learning disability- typically dyslexia; oh, let's add in failed romances, blackmail, stalkers, and some sort of addcition. Just once, I would like to stumble across a celeb confessional that begins, "I was born rich. Life was easy for me. I am still rich."


Celebrity autobiographies have led to a new, inventive theatre form. Apparently, there is a revolving group of readers, ala the V-Monologues, that stage reading of scintillating passages from star's philosophisings. Paris Hilton... on world peace! Marc Anthony...on sustainability! Paula Abdul...on education! Sounds like a night of great laughs.


The whole confessional movement is gaining momentum. David Nadelberg, author of Mortified, encouraged everyday folks to share their most humiliating experiences. Then he published them. He, too, has launched a staged version, crossing the country with this array of stories, and getting audience members to join the fun with on the spot revelations. I've had a couple conversations with Nadelberg, hoping to produce a good-natured version of his show. He doesn't have a formal script available for production yet, but he gave me some suggestions on how to incorporate his book into a simple show. Maybe we'll give it a try in the future.


If Mortified interests you, try Postsecret and My Secret. Frank Warren randomly placed postcards asking the finders to send him a tiny, personal secret. He got hundreds of replies, many included artwork. He published them. There's also Found. Davy Rothbart's collection of grocery lists, torn photos, bits of Dear John letters...anything written and intended to be shared or used in some respect.


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Yesterday, I went to the Renaissance Faire in Bristol, which is always a great time. While there, I ran into Joe Ferlo, and his always charming daughter, Alyssa. Joe is the former manager of the Capitol Civic Centre in Manitowoc, and currently holds a similar position at the Grand Opera House in Oshkosh. They were at the faire to see his oldest daughter, Angela, who is part of this season's Ren Faire cast. Some of you might remember when Angela played the title role in the Masquers' production of "Annie." Other notable local roles included Peter Pan, and Louisa in "The Fantastics."

Angela just graduated from Stevens Point and is contemplating a move to Chicago in fall. At the faire, she is preforming on the kids' stage, and doing some greenspace performance throughout the grounds as a marionette. That's Angela on the right. She did a great job!


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I got a nice note from Jean Feraca last week. Jean promised to send me a picture of her wearing her Aunt Tooties's nightgown as a wedding dress. In her book, Jean described the dress and talked about all sort of embellishments, including feathers. I had visions of showgirl feathers blooming from everywhere. Jean saw the need to set me straight. I do think she looks quite lovely, and the understated feathers on her shoulder are a nice touch. But, my mental image of Jean as Carmen Miranda has merit as well, don't you think?

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What am I reading? I picked up a play script - the mysterious title got my attention: Alice Invents a Little Game and Alice Always Wins. I think I want to be Alice!

Friday, July 11, 2008

It's Good to Be the Queen, Part I

Memoir/biography is my go-to genre when I know I have significant time to mull. Good bios normally come with a generous dose of history - social, political and cultural, - as well as the invitation to read between the lines and learn something. Long car rides are perfect memoir reading opportunities.

Celebrity biography and autobiography are totally different. Of the two, I prefer the biographies. They are often written by inept researchers who deal in speculation, and Inquirer style red-herrings. Lots of drama, little substance; but the logic and black holes result in lots of laughs.

In general, I find celebrity autobiographies self serving (that's a given, isn't it?) and silly. Such is the case with the new Barbara Walters doorstop. Most impressive about this work is the plethora of tell-tale signs that this woman is powerful - untouchable...the queen! As I wend my way thorough non-sequiturs, pronoun disagreements, cutsey parentheticals, and continuous promises of "more about that later," I can only conclude that no editor was allowed to touch one word. Want some examples? Speaking of her second husband and their apartment near MOMA in NYC, she writes "I have a touching memory of him carrying me into the bedroom on our first night together. We didn't stay there too long because we were able to find another rent-controlled apartment..." . Sure, logic dictates that she talking about not staying in the apartment too long, but her grammar tells us they didn't stay in the bedroom too long.

Want more? A bit later in the book, she fills us in on how much she wanted a baby: "I cannot tell you how exhilarated I felt when I came home and my gynecologist told me that indeed I was pregnant." What? Her OB/GYN lived at her apartment?

Besides that, her transitions are abrupt and her topic subordination, awkward. For some reason, she combined her thoughts on Robert Kennedy, and Maureen O'Sullivan, one-time, ill-fated, "Today Girl." "There wasn't a eye dry on the floor, " she writes of Robert Kennedy's unity speech at the conclusion of the Democratic National Convention, where his brother surely would have garnered his second run for office had he not been assassinated. This, she immediately follows with "Maureen O'Sullivan cried, too, but for a different reason. She got fired." Puzzling isn't it?

I am afraid this is going to get rather long, so more later in Part II. This topic brought so much to mind, and I got a note from Jean Feraca. You see, I have learned the fine art of pitching, learned to effectively combine ideas, mastered the smooth segue (transitions, not the upright scooters people zoom around big cities on) , and conquered the parenthetical. Thanks, Babs.

Thursday, July 3, 2008

BREAKING NEWS!

July 3rd started out with a bang here at LaDeDa! We open at 10 A.M., but those in the know understand that I am frequently lurking around as early as 8, doing paperwork, entering books into inventory, or experimenting with displays that an employee will ultimately have to fix.

Today, I came in early to take care of odds and ends before the holiday weekend, and decided to hang the flags at about 9:30, and get the day going. A panicky shout greeted me, "Bev, are these your dogs?" Across the street I saw my friend, Fritz, valiantly attempting to keep two beautiful, energetic dogs from running into the street. Of course, the dogs weren't mine, still we had to save them. They kept darting everywhere, and the two of us must have looked ridiculous, chasing and fetching dogs.
Eventually, we got them under control, and Fritz carried the larger of the two across the street, and into the store. We figured the little one would be easier to maneuver. Not true. I got her halfway across the street, and she decided to plant herself in the middle of 17th street, traffic whizzing around us as she looked at me and smiled. Fritz carried her over to the store as well...that's the little one in his arms. When the two seemed safe and secure, Fritz went on his way, with a lovely story to tell his three daughters who have been begging for a dog for years. Nice going Fritzie! Go ahead and tell them about the dogs they almost had! But seriously, Sophia, Emma, and Clara, you can be very proud of your dad. If you had seen how these dogs were running in and out of the street, you would know that your dad saved their lives today. Shucks! He's a dog-gone hero!
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The escapees appeared to enjoy their accommodations. I keep treats on hand for the neighborhood dogs; Thelma and Louise had a couple of those, they had some water, and did some shopping. There was nothing threatening about them in the least, so I got a good laugh when the police officer arrived to collect them. He opened the door a crack and hollered, "Friendly dogs?" Now, I ask you, why would I stay cooped up alone with two vicious dogs? After returning to his vehicle to get one leash, he asked if I would mind luring them into his car. I nearly lost Thelma in the process, but, quick thinking as I am on a good day, I tossed some treats into the back seat, and they were happily munching away as they left for the shelter. They didn't even wave goodbye.
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Have a great 4th everyone... take some time to think past the picnics and beautiful fireworks to remember why we celebrate this day.

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

A Message from Mike Perry and a New, Local Writer



Here's a little note from Mike Perry, one of our fave authors and occasional guest at LaDeDa. He is the author of Population 485, Truck, and Off Main Street. Of course, you already know all that...and if you don't, what are you waiting for? Here's his message.....

Howdy. Lately I have been raising pigs and chickens and will therefore leave my boots at the door. This is a relatively new habit developed on the advice of my wife. I cannot lie - I am lazy about unlacing, and sometimes when she travels I get pertinacious and track up the kitchen. I watch the clock and calendar and mop up shortly before she is due to return. As I am a disciple of distraction she regularly walks through the door and catches me in my steel-toes trying to nudge clumps of dried mud out of sight against the mopboard, all the while sporting the same ghastly grin of ingratiation employed by cookie-thieving six-year-olds and willfully incontinent puppies.
I meant to say thank-you, and already I am off track. This is a recurring theme with my writing. Not everyone is enamored of the tendency. People sometimes ask me why I skip around, and I can only reply because that's how it's going in my head. In the early years I attempted to write seamless prose. I insisted on taking the reader by the elbow and gently introducing each narrative thread as if it were a timid child on its first day at a new school. Then one day in the mid-1990's I sat in my old green chair and read several of the essays in Jim Harrison's Just Before Dark, and as he jumped for haute cuisine to Budwiser to stag hunting in the south of France to ice fishing in Michigan and so on, it struck me that all my solicitous handholding was presumptive and made me not a Boy Scout but rather an overbearing lunkhead who mistrusted the navigational abilities of the unknown reader. So now when I come to the end of a thought, I just jump. I don't always make the right leap. Readers and reviewers sometimes point this out. I don't mind. Nonstop encomiums artificially enhance the ego while softening one's critical midsection, which is where the blows are absorbed.

Originally this book (Truck) was supposed to be about two things: the resurrection of my old pickup truck, and a year in the life of my garden. I wanted to write a book about gardening because I was fed up with happy gardening books. I felt it was time for a grim gardening book, and I'm eminently qualified. I wanted to write about fixing up my truck because I dreamed of claiming brake pads as a business expense - sadly, the tax lady said no. The third thread - the real love story - came as a complete surprise. Tangent of a lifetime, really. Things are going good: I am currently in the process of trying to figure out how to adjust a four-point racing harness in order that it might secure a baby seat.
It's fun to joke and ramble, but here's the main deal: I am baffled and overjoyed at the wrong turns and coincidences leading to the book... It would not exist were it not for word-of-mouth readers talking to readers, book lovers talking about books. And for that I owe a great debt...Thanks. Thanks. For you, I remove my boots.


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Joe Keil, a local author and 20-Year veteran of law enforcement, dropped this book off last week hoping that I would stock it. Honestly, I am not a fan of self-published books, but there are a few that have the right ingredients, and this is one of them.

Joe and his wife, Deb, spent a long time visiting with me, and their belief in this project and their sincere efforts to do the hard work needed to get this book into the right hands is impressive.

As a former educator, I know how important it is to have detailed knowledge on the signs of drug use/abuse, and even with that knowledge firmly in hand, we sometimes get it wrong. This book shakes the subject down to readable bits, not in police jargon, but in language that we all can understand. It is an exhausting, frightening, but necessary book. If you do nothing else but look at the pictures in the appendix, you will be a wiser, more aware protector of our youth and their future.