Sunday, February 07, 2010

the word as archipelago

i'd rather watch the puppy bowl on animal planet channel than watch the superbowl but we are doing neither. it is a beautiful day. big, silvery clouds punctuated by golden shafts of sunlight, after a rainy saturday, warmish, thoughts turn to spring and we all have a touch of spring fever.

so instead we headed to the farmers' market located under the freeway on x st and loaded up on citrus fruits and root vegetables and a clutch of tulips. as one would suspect on superbowl sunday the crowds were light. a perfect day to head off to the bookstores.

haven't been to a bookstore alone in some time. i went to town. had a credit at an indie bookstore and a gift certificate for a commercial shop. and i bought these.

metapolitics by alain badiou [verso, 2005]

first as tragedy, then as farce by slavoj zizek [verso, 2009]

columbia poetry review #22

american hybrid ed. by cole swensen and david st. john [norton, 2009]

the balloonist by eula biss [hanging loose press, 2002]

ufo religions ed. by christopher partridge [routledge, 2003]

it takes one to know one by michael lally [black sparrow press, 2001]

trashfiend by scott stine [headpress, 2009]

yeah sure, lists of books bought might be boring as a post but man i like reading them and i like the variety of these books. the last on the list is a book on collecting 1960s and 1970s horror movie memorabilia and the book edited by partridge won me over because of an essay about the history of ufo's in finland. so there. it has turned into a lovely evening and it is time to watch a little scooby-doo with nicholas.



3 Comments:

At 9:15 AM, Blogger William Keckler said...

i suspect you have better bookstores than i do, richard.

that's why i use abebooks.

but i miss the good bookstore experience, which at its best involves the (usually delightfully eccentric) personality of the bookstore owner(s).

i miss tarman's books in hummelstown, pa....right down the road from indian echo caverns in the small town square (town which is connected to Hershey).

ellen (pretty sure that was her name) had a sharpei that slept in the bay window.

it was an old house and the books were on all floors.

she had some great weird dollhouses out of one of those twilight episodes and banquettes with nice cushions and rooms with all different types of natural and manmade lighting so you could find the one whose lighting suited your mood and sit down and test drive a book.

she also had great cases and cabinets filled with ephemera for sale.

i love ephemera.

poor lady died of cancer and she couldn't have been more than the age i am now.

it was horrific to see the dogless window and the dark rooms.

at least on abe i don't get invested in these colorful people, who are invariably great conversationalists.

great finds yesterday!

 
At 9:15 AM, Blogger William Keckler said...

*twilight zone episodes

 
At 10:18 PM, Blogger richard lopez said...

i don't know bill, if we do have better bookstores here but we do have a few indies left and the one where i went to yesterday do indeed have a big fluffy calico cat who was stretched upon the table facing the street and in the sun where the kitty was directly on an oversized coffee table book about STAR WARS that i had my eye one but didn't have the heart to shoo the cat off.

 

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