Preliminary Note: After prefacing my last “Adventure” with the complaint that they were netting me only two-to-four “Like”s apiece, I received about a dozen for my last one. To all, my thanks. But then, a couple days later, I linked to my “poem” at FOM and got one “Like” and one e-mail. Everyone’s a critic.
Anyway, Adele liked it.
Sold a “Lollipop” to the retired radiologist from Chicago who had settled for a “Goshkin” last week when I hadn’t had one with me.
And I sent a “Cheesesteak” to the fellow who’s writing the “introduction” I mentioned. He had asked me several interesting questions to answer as background, and, since the book went into some of them more deeply, I thought he would get a kick out of it – and might even find it useful.
One thing I couldn’t get a handle on was that while, like any kid, I wanted to fit in, as early as elementary school I was attracted to the deviant – EC Comics, Bob and Ray, Ernie Kovacs – and, certainly, by adolescence, when I became aware of the dangers of “conformity,” I knew I didn’t want to be easily pigeon-holed. But where this came from, I couldn’t say.
Adele said, “Parents are the usual suspects”; but we didn’t get much beyond that.
In other news…
The week brought several conversations, one of which with an elderly woman who shied away from books as soon as she heard the words “Half a dozen murders” (“The Schiz”) and “True crime” (“Most Outrageous”) but offered to retrieve from her car one I could add to my wares. I had to explain I was not only the seller but the author of those I displayed.
Then, in a single morning, I spoke with (1) a comics world pal, who was reading – and recommended – a work of 18th century science-fiction of which I had never heard (and in which I had no interest); (2) a used book dealer of middle-eastern heritage, who had no interest in mine, but was reading – and recommended – the works of a Russian Orthodox priest, a “spiritual father,” who had spent most of his life imprisoned in the Gulag – and, subsequent research revealed, may or may not have actually existed; and (3) a 60-year-old woman in a Phillies sweatshirt. Oh good, I thought. I can sell her a “Cheesesteak.”
She turned out to be a journalist, in town for a conference. She had recently, to her delight, moved back to Philly and the Inquirer from Miami, where she had worked for the Herald. She told me her name and said she too had written a book and I could Google her.
Which I did.
Julie K. Brown.
So many Bob Levins on the Internet; I'm the Bob Levin who writes.