Sold a “Fully Armed’ and a café journal.
The latter went to my former client (See: “Adventures” 398), who paid me a visit while in the East Bay taking his dog to the vet. We had not seen each other in, oh, 45 years, and he now works as a film/video editor and plays Appalachian-style folk guitar on the side. While we were catching up, he recognized two of the cafes pre-eminent personages, one whom he knew from the music scene back in Detroit and one who had worked closely in avant-garde theater in SF with another friend of his. Both had contributed to the journal, so I didn’t hesitate pushing one on him. With all three of us signing, who knows what it might fetch on eBay.
The FA went to “Stan.” (See multiple recent “Adventures.”) I had thought I only had three copies left, but then I noticed a carton-full in the basement, along with three boxes of “Best Ride,” holding my heavy bag in place. So Stan bought a book, meaning he lacks only a “Pirates and the Mouse” for a complete set of Levins. He’s already read most of FA, engaging me in a discussion of narrative voices (Jimmy’s and mine) and their effect on readers (him), which is a good discussion to have about this book in particular.
In other news…
1.) Had a pleasant meeting with “Vlad Z,” a Serbian engineering student, and “Lizzie,” his Japanese-American girlfriend, a Russian history and lit major, whom I impressed by name-dropping “Oblomov.” They didn’t buy, but now we smile and nod across the café.
2.) Two more requests for “Bob on Bob” have arrived, one from an old basketball buddy and one from a woman at the café. And the first two checks have arrived, one from a college friend and one from a lawyer/Dylanphile, whom I was planning on gifting but insisted on supporting my “art.”
3.) The proof-read “Messiahs, Meshuganahs…” has reached the publisher. I have secured two “name” comix artist/writers, one from my generation, one from the subsequent, to provide cover blurbs and a not-just-comix critic to consider reviewing it. (“I’m always interested in what you write, Bob.”) So that is rolling along.
4.) May not have previously mentioned my newest project, but I have been asked to write a feature article about the controversial editor of a controversial comics magazine of the 1990s. All issues of the magazine are available on-line, which is fortunate, but the controversy is such that so far no member of the fellow’s family and only one of his co-workers and/or friends has agreed to speak to me. But I carry on.
5.) There is one more even better story, but I have spun it off into a separate piece for FOM. Follow this space for future details.
So many Bob Levins on the Internet; I'm the Bob Levin who writes.