Reminder from the Bookselling Gods

On Tuesday I helped a customer looking for Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank. He was an older man with a walker, I'd say in his late 50s or early 60s. In the course of the conversation he told me that he only learned to read 7 years ago and was now working his way through the classics. We had a lovely conversation about his reading adventures so far-how tranformative he found The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, how he still read with a dictionary beside him and so forth. It was a great reminder about why I love what I do. On Tuesdays especially (new release day) it can be easy to forget my own advice to staff about how every book could be someone's favorite and think of all the piles I have to put in their proper spot as just a task I have to do. But they're books-books that might change someone's life or give them joy even if it just takes them out of themselves for a little while. And even though I am seeking other work it was a welcome reminder and affirmation for the now.

3:50:44

Do you know how hard it is to cry, cheer, ring a cowbell and take photos all at the same time?

Over the weekend Joe completed his first marathon. It's one of the classic acheivements of course, like climbing a mountain, and I couldn't be more proud. At our Derby party this year we were talking with another guest about why there is no reality show about marathons when every person entered is a success story before the race even begins. I can't speak for the networks but after watching close up for years I can attest to the truth in that. From the days when he came home with icicles on his eyebrows to days he baked and burned he did it. He could have stayed planted on the couch a thousand times but he didn't. Instead, like Nike says, he just did it.

Way to go Joe.

Living in the Golden State

My new favorite song (oh, how fickle the business of new favorite songs) is "The Golden State" from the forthcoming John Doe album, "A Year in the Wilderness". It's a duet with Kathleen Edwards, one of my favorites, whose voice blends great with Doe's.

"You are/the hole in my head/I am/the pain in your neck/You are /the lump in my throat/I am/ the aching in your heart"

It's a song of thorny, tempestous love-the kind of relationship you tell yourself you can't help having. 'It's fate' your heart says while other (pinker? harder?) parts who aren't fooled simply say 'I want this'. It's a song that Liz and Dick could have appreciated if they were both still living and into the rock and roll.

"We are tangled/we are stolen/we are living/where things are hidden"

While I don't know Doe as well as I know Kathleen (though there is of course the X song with the line "love is the Devil's crowbar") I can say for sure after witnessing her fury with her husband, Colin, at the last Chicago show I attended Kathleen has tempestuousness down.

"We are love/we are fate/we are the feeling/you get in the Golden State"

I don't know if Doe and Edwards know the Mary Oliver poem "Wild Geese" with it's great heated beginning:

"You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves."

but they sure sing like they do.



Thanks to Joe for getting the free CD, accurately predicting I would love the song and gallantly gifting it to me for my Best of 07 disc (we have a strict no repeats rule).

And the winner is

"Shout 2" from the "Beg, Scream and Shout" boxset was the first CD in my newly installed car CD player. A classic choice, some would say safe, but guaranteed not to disappoint. I used my new wee remote to scan to track 6, "Expressway to Your Heart" by the Soul Survivors. With a bit of tinkering (yes to more treble and bass, way more volume-we got up to 32 on the highway) it sounded sweet.

Ship of Fools, Store of Idiots

Sam at Circuit City getting her new CD player installed.

I go to drop off the car at 2 on my lunch break but the back door where you go for installation is locked but the bay door is open so I walk in the department but no one is there so I walk back out and go to the locked door and ring the bell but nobody comes so I ring the bell again and nobody comes and I ring the bell a third time and someone finally comes he takes a look at the car while I fill out the form and asks if I'm going to wait and I say no, I just work 3 stores down call me when it's done and I'll come down.

2 1/2 hours later.

I call the store and get their call routing machine which has 9 choices and when I choose the next one has 9 choices and we do this 2 more times before I speak to a human who says I have chosen incorrectly and tranfers my call to the right departement where it rings 20 times before I hang up swearing because I could have walked down there multiple times at this point.

So I walk down and back to the department where there is not surprisingly no one again so I ask one of the many greeter types if they can get me some help and they say Shawn will have to help you pointing to a guy with a customer and I say can someone else help me cause I gotta get back to work and they say no, he'll be right with you so I wait till he finishes and then explain I'm here to pick up my car is it ready cause no one ever called and he says yes, it is and gets the paperwork and an extra part that they didn't need which I can now return for full price but I can't do a return at the register in the departement where I paid for it I have to go the front of the store to Customer Service so I go up there and get my money back then come back to the department to find Shawn gone again and have to find someone else to let me out of the door by where my car is parked so I can rush back to work.

It's a Small Freakin World

Yesterday at a shift meeting one of my sellers, when playing the recommend game, recommended a movie just out on DVD written and directed by her nephew. He looked familiar so I asked what else he had done because I was positive I had seen him before. Turns out he is the leader of a band called Bishop Allen who had a CD a couple of years back called "Charm School" which I found, well, charming. She was knocked out that I had even heard of the band much less owned their CD (cool boss points for me!) and said she was sure if I could get myself to NYC she could wrangle me a part in his next movie, shooting soon. My acting chops are pretty rusty but I think I could pull it off.

Anyway it's fun to think about-it added some piquancy to an otherwise average day.

Little Miss Mixed Emotions

If I were a Little Miss character (of the popular 'Little Miss/Little Mister' series of kid's books today I would be "Little Miss Mixed Emotions". My best friend here has packed up and moved to Atlanta. While I am, of course, proud of her for finishing up her degree after some years away from school and landing a new job, a small selfish part of me is stamping her foot and saying "What about ME?" Unfortunately as far as friends go there's not a lot of local bench strength. I don't know that I ever made friends easily but it certainly hasn't gotten come easy as an adult. I am friendly with many people but real friends, well, not so much. I'm kind of like the kid who begs and pleads for a sleepover but then when it finally comes to pass cries and has to be picked up at 8:30. An example-at a party last weekend I met a woman who, on paper, would have seemed to be a perfect match-we were so alike in a 'seperated at birth' kind of way (both went to all girls high school named Mercy, both worked for Borders, both had no thyroid) but when the time came to seal the deal with a 'let's do something' I couldn't.

This leaving has racheted up all other emotions too. From the series finale of "The Gilmore Girls" which made me cry so hard I couldn't speak to the embarrassment from a weekend smackdown I'm feeling everything just a little too much. My emotional idle is revving too high and, for now, I can't find the switch.

So, as a giant carrot to brandish at these mixed emotions I took the remainder of my birthday and tax money and upgraded my car from a cassette to a CD player. It will be the first car I have ever owned that will have it's own CD player.

Let me repeat that.

It will be the first car I have ever owned that will have it's own CD player.

It's crazy, I know, I might as well be upgrading from an 8 Track and braking the Fred Flintstone way. And of course it doesn't fix the windshield crack or the dent in the trunk (I had a horrible thought as I was handing over my credit card that some repair will need to happen that will cost the exact amount the CD player did) but I took the plunge anyway.

My installation appointment isn't until Wednesday so I have some time to contemplate what the first CD will be. An old favorite? Something brand new? Something car related? It's a delicious question to consider.

Grab the Junk Food

My friend Mike, when describing a sorta cheesy read always says, "It's fun, like a Big Red and bag of Funyuns is fun." I was thinking of that as I was reading the new Barbara Kingsolver book, Animal Vegetable Miracle. Not because it's fun, cause it's not, but because that snack would be the antithesis of what she's writing about and I tend to get contrary when being beaten over the head.

The book tells the story of her family's decision to support themselves from their land eating only what they could grow or buy locally for a year. Since I am a big fan of Kingsolver's other work (she's a Kentucky girl too) and I believe in buying locally when possible, I thought I'd check it out. Her activism, which is kept more firmly under wraps in her fiction, is flying high in this book. Embedded in the family narrative are mini essays by her husband, Steven L. Hopp, explaining subjects like global warming and factory farming and vignettes and recipies written by her daughter, Camille Kingsolver. Though I get what they were going for with the different perspectives, as a reader I was distracted by the asides. I also grew tired of what felt like attacks. Unless a person was already interested in the subject I don't think they'd pick this one up-making those people who are already kind of on your side feel bad seems like poor activism to me which I assume was one of the goals of writing the book. It's the old hate the sin, love the sinner thing. More effective I think would be to tell the story compellingly and convincingly to encourage readers by example to do what they could (apartment dwellers like me would be hard pressed to completely comply no matter how large our balcony). If all I want to do is go eat junk food the Kingsolvers have failed in their mission with their 'hearts & minds' campaign. Perhaps they should have rewatched "An Inconvenient Truth"-though from my outside reading it seems like the stats Gore cites in that movie may have been inflated for emphasis, it's a good example of being convincing without alienating. (Though the Melissa Etheridge song truly sucks.) In the meantime, Big Red anyone?


*For those not in the know Big Red is a red cream soda and Funyuns? Well, I'm not really sure what Funyuns are and if you're going to eat them it's probably best not to know.*

The Horse that God Built

As a rule, animal books fall into one of three categories:

-Informational ones, like care or breed books
-Gift books that feature photos and essays, frequently using words like "bond" or "miracle"
-Biographies of specific animals like Seabiscuit or Marley

Now, as an animal lover who can go on and on about how when my cat puts her paw on my shoulder while I'm writing it feels like a benediction, I've got nothing personal againest any of these it just seems like an author has to pick one and stick with it. It's a rare author, like Jon Katz (who counterintitutively writes about dogs) who can combine two successfully.

Not so with the new Secretariat book, The Horse God Built by Lawrence Scanlan. Scanlan, who has written other horse books both gift (Wild About Horses) and biography (Big Ben, about the Canadian show jumping champion) was approached by his publisher with a proposal to revisit the Secretariat story 30 years out. A racing novice, Scanlan found that when he delved into the story he became more facinated by the relationship of the great horse and his groom during his racing years, Eddie 'Shorty' Sweat than of the overall success story. The original and changed ideas seem to work at cross purposes. Nowhere is this more obvious than the cover which, though it bears the bold subtitle The Untold Story of Secretariat The World's Greatest Racehorse, has no mention of Eddie Sweat at all. And while I realize most authors probably don't have a lot of say in the art on their book, since this cover features Secretariat on the track being ridden by someone else it looks like the message about the change in focus didn't get to the art department either. How ironic that a book hoping to give some credit where it sees it belatedly due gets it so wrong from the get go.

Unfortunately, that is just one glaring example of the myraid of inconsistancies in this book. If we are truly telling the untold story it would seem that we would be taking on the other biographies out there-correcting what they got wrong, putting in what they left out-but instead Scanlan worked closely with the two authors of the two definative Secretariat bios, William Nack (who Scanlan cites 21 times) and Raymond Woolfe (whose photos are used and who is cited 15 times) and gives them lavish praise for their assistance. Since both men cited Sweat as a key player in the Meadow Stable team in their books, calling his story "untold" seems a bit of a stretch. Even the Thoroughbred Legends series, which are prefunctory histories at best, has a photo and multiple cititions for Sweat in it's Secretariat book.

Scanlan also meanders terribly. He talks to many of the key players who are still alive (Sweat died in 1998) but fails to draw any conclusions from those conversations. (Some say Sweat died penniless because was overgenerous with family and friends, some say he was ill used by the owners and trainers he worked for.) In the chapter "Eulogy for a Horse" Scalan goes into great detail about the deaths of Man O' War and Ruffian which have little to do with Secretariat. It seems he felt compelled to include every fact he learned, pertinant or not.

All these details make me wonder who the audience for this book is. Racing fans would of course be interested in any untold story but they don't need an explanation of what a furlong is (just one example of the author's expositionary zeal). Scanlan doesn't write charmingly enough as a novice to keep experts interested and the book lacks the narrative punch to interest nonracing fans. (Beware of any new racing book that does not have a blurb by Laura Hilledebrant, who wrote a book for both novices and fans in Seabiscuit.)

And if it seems like Scanlan thought he was blowing the lid off the hardscrabble lives of grooms that theory is blown too when he alludes to William Nack's Sports Illustrated article "Nobody Knows Their Names" published in 1991 which called for higher wages and better accommodations for backstretch workers.

So did Eddie Sweat get his proper due? I can't say I know from this mess of a book. I hope so. Everytime the Triple Crown in mentioned in the next few weeks Secretariat's name will come up and one could make a compelling arguement that he would have been less great without Sweat behind him. Hopefully owners of any new superstars will make sure to amply reward all the members of their team and not repeat any possible mistakes from the past.

The Bruen Cure

Sometimes, when you have the feeling that your life is hydroplaning out of control, it can help to read or watch something about someone far worse off than you.

Now it has to be fictional, I'm not talking schedenfrude here. I'm talking watching Alex Cox's "Sid & Nancy" and feeling emotionally healthy and oh so clean afterwards. Or, as a more recent example, reading Ken Bruen's Jack Taylor novels. Taylor is one unholy mess of a man. A former Guard kicked off the force for giving the beatdown to the wrong VIP, he staggers through the streets of Galway scraping by as an ersatz investigator. An alcoholic drug addict, Taylor gets beaten to the point of death at least once in nearly every book and he hates his mother. But Bruen is so skillful Taylor has all our sympathy. Both protaganist and author are avid quoters and namedrop more than Dennis Miller (funny pre 9/11 Miller, let's be clear) and the cast of "The Gilmore Girls" combined. Bruen also seems to be obsessed with grouping things in threes and

typing
them
like this.

Surely that drove some editor, somewhere absolutely crazy but they're still in there. Gotta love that.

One word of caution about this cure-it's powerful medicine. As with all powerful medicines it should be taken with care. One book at a time. I made the mistake of taking The Killing of the Tinkers and The Dramatist on my trip and reading them back to back.

Big mistake.

I was left, as Taylor might say, gobsmacked. So please check the Taylor books out but use caution.

The Muhammad Ali Center

Hoyden on the Road

The Muhammad Ali Center
Louisville, KY

The Center, which bills itself as "a not for profit organization that serves as a place to celebrate the deeply rooted values and worldwide influence of Muhammad Ali. Essentially, it is a place that redeems and esteems the core values behind Ali himself-peace, social responsibility, respect and personal growth".

Yes, it was that but I wonder how many people notice, while visiting what they thought was a historical or sports museum, how intensely religious it is. In addition to its other charms, the Center is a terrific introduction to the Islamic religion. On the top floor where the tours begin, adjacent to what are billed as 'Journeylines' (the chronological historical material narrated by Diane Sawyer, the second most famous Louisvillian) there are 6 pavilions dedicated to "the core values in Ali's life" which, not coincidentally, are the 6 tenants of Islam-Dedication, Confidence, Giving, Respect, Spirituality and Conviction. This adjacentancy was one of the chief complaints among our group-if someone was listening to another Journeyline it was occasionally hard to hear your own. I enjoyed the history, bite sized as it was, and was sorry it didn't extend farther and deeper into his life.

A highlight of the Center was the introductory film, narrated by Maya Angelou, which tackled the formidable challenge of how to introduce someone everyone thinks they already know by setting it to Rudyard Kipling poem, "If", an Ali favorite. (The irony of a black man using Kipling of all poets for inspiration was not commented on.) As the poem was an inspiration to a personal hero of mine, the explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton who carried a copy of it in his Bible, I was well familiar with it and had to restrain myself from elbowing my neighbors to tell them so.

Also good was the film "The Greatest", narrated by Samuel L. Jackson, that featured stories and highlights from Ali's greatest fights. It's projected down onto a boxing ring and visitors watch it from above, which sounds gimmicky but actually works very well.

Though it's very worthwhile overall (and sure to be a field trip favorite), I would say the Center suffers most from trying too hard. In its effort to be more than just a museum, to use one life to highlight much more, it undercuts itself and gets in it's own way. The religion, sports and politics don't blend so much as bounce off of one another and the almost total absence of anything negative about Ali doesn't really do him justice despite all attempts otherwise. An axe to grind, no matter how handsome or dressed up, is still a grinding axe. Far better, I think, to show the flaws fully to get even more inspiration from a life that has meant so much to so many.

Best_Hunch_Bet_Ever

Hoyden on the Road
Derby Week-Louisville, KY

Yesterday while making our annual pigrimage to one of my favorite places on the planet (aka Churchill Downs) we, being the master handicappers we are, played a hunch. Rayona, the number 2 horse in the 7th race, came through for us. The hunch? One only book nerds (or believers in kismet) could appreciate. Rayona is one of the protaganists in Michael Dorris' Yellow Raft in Blue Water. Michael Dorris was a Louisville native who went to St. Xavier High School. Dorris was actually Alumni of the Year in 1990 when my brother graduated. The name of the race? The St X Alumni Association.

Rayona won driving, by two lengths.