The dark forest is filled with birdsong. It is almost as if they are calling up the sun, though that will not rise for another 45 minutes. The iPhone says a blue heron must have passed by. There is a pond at the bottom of the cliff. Perhaps it was heading there. This world is so rich with life. Flora and fauna. I’m a fauna. I live here. Perhaps I’m a part of the ecosystem and not an intruder.
It is 5:30. Why I woke at 4, I don’t know. I was dreaming I was in another place, and then I awoke in my bed.
It is Monday. Last week ended happily on Sunday. I was satisfied with my work and my life. I felt good for the first time in days.
Why?
The Merlin app says it heard a hermit thrush. Apparently, that’s a rare bird. I replayed all four times it was recorded, but I can’t distinguish it.
The dogs are taken care of. Pip had his meds. I made tea.
But until Sunday, the week was brutal. So much work. So many demands. So many people to interact with.
Sunday, I had the day to myself. Was it the first cart I looked at that had the big Maxfield Parrish’s The Knave of Hearts on it?
Great condition. Tight. Because of its size, it is usually “shaken”—that is, the binding is a little loose. The boards have some up and down play to them.
On the same carts was a Collected Poems of Robert Frost. I always look inside these if they are prior to 1960. (I can usually tell by the feel of the book.) Yep. This one was signed.
He signed a lot of his books. I imagine most were at his readings—his gigs. The rock-star American poet who appeared at JFK’s inauguration. The best signed ones are where he writes out a stanza or an entire poem. I’ve got a few of these. A book like that is alive. A tangible link to a creative genius who has withstood the test of time. I hope he is still taught in schools. I despair at some of the things published recently I hear being called great verse or prose. Who knows? Maybe I’m stuck in the 20th century.
…And the 19th, 18th, 17th, 16th…
So the day progressed, and the hard work was fun rather than the chore it often is.
My foot began hurting late in the day. I need to buy new clogs. Though the heel spur that tortured me for 5 or 6 years was cured by COVID—unless it was just a coincidence, and the prednisone the doctor prescribed for a different ache had nothing to do with it. He saw me on a zoom appointment. August 2020. I took the prednisone for my knee. Gout he diagnosed over the internet. The knee pain went away. My chronic heel spur did too. Forever! So far. I’d been to the best foot doctors and orthopedists. Why didn’t they try prednisone? Too cheap maybe. The surgeries and mechanical boots were where they wanted me to go. Not many were seeing people in person anywhere. August 2020, when my buddy John Adams fell over dead after a zoom conference with the Random House sales team. August, when my other close buddy, Cap, had a terrifying back problem, and his home was temporarily converted into hospital—with ramps and a hospital bed and a wheelchair. He’s recovered. My spur miraculously disappeared and hasn’t returned.
I had taken to wearing Danish clogs (made in Poland) because they wouldn’t rub the heel. I got so that I liked them. Easy to slip off and on at security checkpoints. And they add an inch or so to my height, which gives my vanity a one-inch boost. Now I wear sneakers usually except when I feel bold enough to wear one of the three pairs of clogs, only to pay for it later when the ball of my right foot starts burning.
So, when the ball of my feet my foot started hurting Sunday, I switched to sit down work. I finally went through the three carts of (mostly) French leather I bought out of a back of a mini-van a few months ago. I priced them primarily for the Boutique on our Books by the Foot site. I could guess at prices for most of them. The conditions were great. I know enough French to decipher words indicating later printings. I know enough literary history to know if the author was long gone before the edition in my hands was printed. If I can rule out a book being a first or early or important edition, I can price it for its looks—book furniture. So, I put a Post It on almost all of them. The sets also had a note as to how many volumes we would be offering. There are a lot of pretty things available in our Boutique.
Both sides of the carts are loaded. The note reads:
Christine
Boutique
Polish
(Polish isn’t the language—the leather treatment.)
The Post Its have a dollar value on them and any description I feel may aid in the item’s sale.
There were some that concerned me about perhaps having more inherent value than their pretty bindings. Those I took to Annika’s room and put on a cart for her to research. This Baudelaire, for instance.
When I went to Montreal, I searched the city for a nice Baudelaire for a friend with no success.
Now they come to Wonder Book pretty regularly.
Come to think of it, I searched out his grave in Paris last year.
Time to return, I think.
When I finished the three carts, I felt satisfied enough to head out.
I’m also experimenting with some inexpensive “book bundles” there. We call those “Off the Rack.” Certainly not fine bindings, but yet another attempt to rescue books we can’t do anything else with.
I surveyed my work, and it was good.
I took home some books—mostly remainder samples from Powell’s. That will vex my librarian, who is unhappy when her perfection needs to be rearranged. I also took home a box of rags.
We bought a semi-trailer truckload of books in Gaylords from a mega-charity. We were that desperate to not run out of “raw” books to keep the sorters and data entry folks busy. The charity warehouses are like factories of used stuff. Donations are glanced at and usually tossed into Gaylord’s. They generate Gaylords of shoes, purses, clothes… as well as books. I guess the folks there have to go so fast that things often get tossed into the wrong “box.” So, in addition to books, we get other “stuff.” Viable clothes we usually re-donate to local charities. Odd shoes and other hopeless things go to the landfill. When I come across cotton or woolen “trash”, I often take them home to bury under mulch as weed blocks and “filler.” It won’t take long for the worms and other underground organisms to break these things down to their organic origins.
Waste of time? Maybe. But I enjoy the recycling. Maybe I’m just an advanced earthworm.
When I got home Sunday evening, there was no question of doing more work. It was rainy, and I had no energy for indoor duties.
When Joe Phillips (Commonwealth Books—Boston and Newport, Crescent City Books—New Orleans, and A. Parker’s Books—Sarasota) came to the house last week, and we shared wine and pizza (from Cugino Forno) and some stinky cheese. I forgot about the salads I’d picked up at the pizza place. I guess we were both tired from a very long day. The wine and the conversation added to the potential absentmindedness forgetting these salads.
So, I had them all for myself. I dined on them over several days as well a good amount of the three pizzas leftover.
I put on another William Powell/Myrna Loy romantic comedy and ate the last of the salads while the pizza margarita was heating. I’ve watched the Thin Man movies plenty of times. This box set of their lesser-known movies is a pleasure.
The dialogue is full of rapid repartee. The cast is full of exotic 1930s weirdos. Myrna Loy is drop-dead beautiful and funny as hell. Powell is a sort of “superman” who hides his brilliance under the guise of haplessness.
Then the last NHL first round game came on. Game 7. Whoever wins advances. The loser goes home. St Louis was ahead 3-1 with only a couple minutes. Winnipeg pulled their goalie, leaving an empty net so they could get an extra player skating to score. Hopeless. They scored. Then scored again with only 3 seconds left. Epic. St Louis lost in the second overtime period. Epic. The latest series tying goal ever. The previous record was in the 1950s, I think.
Then to bed.
At 7 a.m., the first absentee email comes from the office. I usually look for key people whose absence might change my plans for the day.
This week will be “epic” for me.
Time to shower, put on my sneakers and head out.
Looking out the window, it is a sea of green.
Spring is raising new life everywhere.
And perhaps giving me a bit of rejuvenation.
After all, the dryness of early spring is very wet now.
Bryan is driving us down to Gaithersburg with heavy gray clouds above.
Today’s projects involve figuring out window treatments for a LOT of glass. Because they get so much sun, they have always looked like crap. Stuff fades quickly. They always look dingy and dirty.
I’ll check and see where they are with the category shifts and make up the next plans.
There are problems with the HVAC there.
In Frederick and Hagerstown, there are problems with some light fixtures.
Frederick has a number of broken locks on the glass cases.
Both crushers at the warehouse need major repairs—5 figures. While they are not working, empty boxes pile sky high.
A warehouse helper is out. He knows that Mondays are when we urgently need help. The weekend also had no warehouse help. Travis and I can be far more productive on weekends if there’s some muscle present.
My Ford Explorer’s floor was flooded this morning. Last time that happened, it had to be taken apart to clean some blocked drains in the moon roof—over $2000. I don’t use the moon roof. Somehow, forest organic material gets into every little space. Living in a forest means organic bits are falling from the sky almost all year.
I started a “to do” list of all the problems that need attention.
On the way back.
Rain.
I made a bunch of plans for the store’s reorientation.
Moving law, crime, espionage, first responders to empty shelves in the former DVD section. They are currently in American History. Crime is not ALWAYS American. Presidents will go into Crime etc. African American and American West will go into evacuated Presidential section. That will get all the American “history” in adjacent sections. From Colonial times to contemporary states and regions, you’ll find most things “American” in 6 adjacent rows.
Architecture and Photography will go into the tall shelves in the row behind Art. Art can then expand.
There are 7 double windows we can cover exterior treatments.
Now we need to come up with appropriate text for them. Maybe graphics too.
The storm roared in last night while I was watching the hockey playoff game. Giles and Merry are especially frightened by thunder and lightning. Giles wanted to climb in my lap. He is far too big for that. Merry did as well. I had to be firm with them to “Stop!” Merry buried his head under the couch. Giles curled up at my feet, whined softly and looked up at me balefully. I dread to see if my car got flooded.
The driveway is paved with maple seeds—”helicopters” we used to call them when I was a kid because of the way they flutter from the sky like whirlybirds.
It is Tuesday. Things might dry out some today, but there is a chance of rain. I’d closed all the windows to keep the humidity out. I opened them this morning because it is 55 degrees.
The dawn was mystical with the patchy fog down in the valley.
I put the phone on the windowsill with the Merlin app turned on. It heard and recorded 16 bird species in just five minutes. Beside the usual suspects, it picked up a yellow warbler, American redstart, Blackburnian warbler, common yellowthroat and red-eyed vireo. The blue heron must have flown over again. Maybe it nests up here. They can nest in tall trees, and there are plenty of those up here.
I put the phone on the sill again while I reheated some tea and did some dishes. More different voices! What’s a northern parula? The app shows a photo of the bird and a bar next to that blinks on when the phone is hearing a bird’s call.
I wish I could see these exotics. (A black and white warbler.) I’ve no patience to sit out in the woods with binoculars. Mostly, I see the regulars that come to the feeders. The seed eaters.
The housekeeper is supposed to come this morning. She misses more than half her appointments. But I like her, and she does great work. I need to “pre-clean” before she gets here. I take care of the most egregious messes and put away clothes and papers and stuff on my bed…
Last Friday was an absolute zoo.
Goes with the territory.
I went to the Gaithersburg store with Bryan.
That project is eating a lot of time and money. I’ll be glad when my work there is finished.
With the expansion, we now have 8 big double windows. 7 of those face the sun and always have looked ugly. (I’ve been going there since before 1980.) I’ve decided to get “treatments” on all but one. That one does not face the sun. The treatments cover the window and also provide space for advertising or info. I need to be creative, but not wild. Otherwise, our windows might look like this.
But that gives you an idea of the possibilities.
So, I will number the windows 1 through 7 and come up with ideas.
Bryan cleaned up the tabletops. We have about 15 temporary 8-foot tables until all the shelving is in. A lot of the tables have had ugly crates of old stuff on them for a long time. I asked him to create LP tables and other more homogenous tables that look appealing.
I went around looking for potential category shifts that will give sections more space and ideally get categories next to each other that are somehow related.
Like moving Horror next to Sci Fi, for instance. Currently, Horror is hidden back in a corner—almost invisible.
It was an intense but productive visit.
When I returned, the guy who had emailed about the Easton Press Sci Fi collection was waiting. We’d negotiated a deal via emails.
Wow!
So beautiful.
And a lot of them were still shrink-wrapped.
“My uncle was kind of a hoarder. He’d buy books and put them in the basement and not even take them from the mailers sometimes…”
I paid a lot because these are far more viable than most types of Easton Press and Franklin Mint. Also, many of them are “Signed First Editions.”
I was planning on dropping into the Capital Rare Book Fair that evening. If I left by 4, I could maybe be there by 5. But if there’s bad traffic, it could be 6… or 7…
“What time does it close?”
Late in the day, I got a text from Larry, “500 boxes. Stuck in traffic around Philly. I could use a check.”
Hmmm… that’s not good. Fridays seem to attract problems.
Fridays, we close at 4:30. SHARP. We gave up trying to stay open later. All the younger people wanted out early. All the older people too. We surrendered. So at 4:30, the place is empty unless I want to work late.
He pulled in at 4:20. The warehouse guys were leaning toward the exit. Except one.
“You need me to stay?”
I felt sorry for Larry unloading 500 boxes by himself. I’d also checked the phone. It might rain tonight. We can get 100 boxes under the overhang at the docks. But 500 meant a lot of boxes would be exposed to the elements.
“Please,” I replied. My esteem went up significantly for this guy.
That also meant I’d have to stay to set the alarms and lock up.
They finished at 6. No way I could get to the University Club before the book show closed. Plus, my day had started at 5 a.m. I’d worked hard. I’d be a no show at the book show.
I forgot! I’d actually dug up some redbud seedlings and blackberry lilies and planted them that morning. The spots I picked ended up being quite rocky, so digging a big enough hole involved prying out a lot of stones.
No wonder I was tired and sore.
Saturday, I made my usual weekend devotions at the Wonder Book temple of books.
At midafternoon, I decided it was show time. I had a tie and my brother Jimmie’s Orvis blue blazer. I have other jackets, but this three-decade-old warhorse has meaning when it wraps around my torso. The drive down had traffic issues. On a Saturday afternoon? Why? There was plenty of parking around the long closed (for renovations) National Geographic building. Unfortunately, the parking meters have a maximum of two hours, so I’d need to top it up a couple of times. The site of the Fine Book Fairs’ production was the iconic University Club founded in part by President William Taft. The show was smaller this year. All the booksellers were located in a second-floor gallery. Here was our booth:
When I arrived, there was a good crowd browsing all the booths. Annika told me she had lines in the Wonder Book booth on Friday night.
I wanted to look around as there were only a couple of hours left until the show closed. I’d spent all day looking at old books. (Hell, I spend most every day looking at books.) Mostly, I just wanted to say hi to old friends and acquaintances.
Jeff Bergman would not let just me say hi. “I’ve got some things to show you.” Jeff is a great friend and supporter. When I’m controversial amongst some of my stodgy or woke peers, he’s always there to remind me of my mission and to not let the “B’s get you down.”
Indeed, he had Andrew Carnegie’s book inscribed to a close relative. Walter Chrysler’s book inscribed to the president of Packard. Pershing’s book inscribed to another important general. A book signed by Amelia Earhart… What caught my eye was a first of The Natural History of Selbourne.
I passed through Selbourne many years ago. I see the book often. (It has gone through over 300 editions.) It predates Darwin by about a century. Indeed:
Charles Darwin read the Natural History as a young man, inspiring him to take “much pleasure in watching the habits of birds” and to wonder “why every gentleman did not become an ornithologist.”
Gilbert White, a parson, was also a proto-naturalist in the bucolic pre-Industrial Revolution times in England. As an innocent amateur observer of nature, he can also be described as a precursor to Thoreau.
Well, I had to have that.
When the show ended, we walked the few blocks to the dinner for exhibitors at another venerable institution—the Army Navy Club. The place is an art gallery as well. The halls lined with paintings of officers and battles and ships, busts of presidents… it was fun to wander the halls during the cocktail reception.
My younger son had come down, and we sat at a table with about 10 friends and acquaintances. It was a lovely and classy event. I only wish I wasn’t so exhausted and under the weather.
Annika did a marvelous job. It was a success in many ways. The booth was beautiful and something to be proud of. She sold a good amount of books. Wonder Book was also “sold” to many booklovers, who I hope make their way to our stores in the provinces sometime. Most of all, I think she had fun. A show booth used to be like playing “store” for me in the years when I did a few score of them.
She said Sunday was pretty busy.
We had a couple from Florida visit Tuesday. Blindhorse Books. (They have some fun posts on Instagram.) They picked out 2 cartloads of books from the just one of the warehouse collectible rooms. “We’ll have to come back next year.”
That ended our show season.
Spring is aging, and I am loath to let it go.
I emptied load number 7 of mulch onto Mulch Road. The unused firestarter newspapers were buried, as were the odd socks and other cotton and wool junk.
I’ve blown off the first covering of maple seeds and other spring tree debris. They’d dried out and weren’t clinging to the pavement. When I’m within 20 feet of the two lilacs along the lower drive, I’m enveloped in their scent, like the hug of an over-perfumed elderly aunt in those long-ago days when there were such things.
The rhododendrons are blooming. The largest is now about 15 feet high. It makes me think of those I saw in Cornwall a couple of years ago, which were as big as a house.
The Italian arum is blooming as well. Their phallic stamen rise up within a creamy colored shroud.
I have a lot of Jack in the pulpit seedlings I need to rescue and put in safer places so they can colonize.
Phlox paints the roadsides lavender.
The mountain laurel should bloom this weekend. There are many of them on the property, including a little grove you can walk under like a bower.
This spring has been pretty good. Lots of good work at the book business and on the mountain. Three young grandchildren ripening—one to toddlerhood. Two advancing through baby stages.
It is a wet Friday morning. I’m sure my car’s floor is flooded again. I have an appointment next week. Stupid moon roof.
The dawn was moody and filled with birdsong.
I was startled awake in the middle of the night by the car alarm going off. Was a bear breaking into it? There’s no food out there, I’m sure. I went out, and the doors were locked. That was a clue to my foggy mind. Yep. One of the dogs had jumped off the bed onto my cast off jeans and landed on the key in my pocket. He triggered the panic button.
So much to do.
Tempus fugit…
And there’s the sunrise. I need to go out into the driveway south of the house to have a view of the northern moving sunrises. Soon, they will be out of sight because of the verdant canopy of the leaf-laden forest.
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