Conversations with a female butcher (“The Schiz”) and a male mixed-media artist (“Bob on Bob”) produced words of interest and promises of follow-up – but sales of zero. I gave away one book (“Outlaws, Rebels…)” though, through a web of café connectives.
It reached Z, an author/publisher; but before we get to him, we must pass through the authors Y and X and W, another author/publisher. As I was headed to the rest room, X stopped me to say Y had been looking for me. When I speculated he probably wanted to know if I had read his latest book, which he had given me two weeks earlier which I have had trouble reading (but am about a third through), X asked who had published it. I said it seemed to be an Austrian company, which could do books in English but had no distribution in the US, o its business bona fides seemed questionable. I then asked how X’s own book was coming along. He said Y’s company had it, which, as he described it, seemed to have devolved from a non-profit dependant on grants to a hybrid that charged authors for services. It had Y’s book for six months and was still demanding revisions he disagreed with. X was asking about my book when Z arrived.
Now Z and I have a strained relationship. Usually we ignore each other but once we’d exchanged words of a nature most uncharacteristic of me, who is generally as serene as ‘enry ‘iggins at his most mannerly. Not long ago, as what I took to be a conciliatory gesture, Z had given me his new book (published by his company), which I have been unable to read and have spent much time considering how to rid myself of. But he now seemed sufficiently interested in and impressed by my forthcoming publication that I gave him what I did.
Which, I am sure, he won’t read and will have to figure out what to do with.
Meanwhile, we have resumed ignoring each other.

In other news…
1.) I received a FB “Message” from a woman who had somehow gotten hold of a “Goshkin.” “A much needed, desperately wonderful transfusion,” she wrote, “poignant and lovely…” What a delightful surprise!
2.) And my publisher confirms “Messiahs…” went to the printer’s Friday. (Or, if it didn’t, it will go today.) Furthermore, my copy for the web site announcing the availability of pre-publication orders has been approved. Once it is up, I will let all know.

PayPal notified me someone had bought “Most Outrageous” through my web site. I hadn’t sold a book there in months – and anyone who buys a MO always makes me curious, but when I asked the buyer for his address, he wondered if I could sell him a signed “Pirates/Mouse” and “Outlaws/Rebels” too, so I figured he was a regular – or irregular – comix guy and relaxed. (He was, he later clarified, a Bronx-based sound/writing/ drawing artist, who loved the “radical spirit and energy” behind comix. And visiting his web site revealed hm to be probably around 70 and someone of substance and acclaim.)
Since OR and PM are out-of-print, I can only replenish my supply on-line. Because anyone can do this, I feel bad about marking up the price to make a profit (and if not for profit, why sell them). After explaining this, I asked if my signature was worth a 10% add-on. It was, so I went shopping. I found best-available copies, figured in tax, shipping (dealer-to-me, me-to-buyer), and weighted this by what my royalties if the books had sold new. We struck a deal, and rather than making him wait for me to receive the books before sending them, I shipped two of at least comparable quality ones from my stock on hand.
I next asked how he had heard of me. He turned out to be the “partner” of the artist who had picked up an OR a couple of years ago at an art museum book store in Harrisburg and had emailed me because of how it had affected her. She had been after him to read it since, he said, plus “Your name kept coming up in conversation with other artists.”
That’s “artists,” plural. Which is more than among whom my name comes up in my home café. I’ve been thinking for a couple of weeks it’s a matter of forests and trees. The trees are that I write about comix and cartoonists, and most people’s reflective thinking keeps them from seeing the wondrous forest I’ve created doing this in the past 30 years. (I concede there is some of the “obscene, perverse and tasteless” I’ve been called out for in these woods, which can me a turn-off.)

In other news…
Faithful readers will recall (See “Adventures” 459) my racing to replace “Messiahs…” lost Author’s Note. Mission accomplished – but I have not heard from the publisher since. (Yes, I inquired.) Perhaps, like Berkeley’s hallowed Cheeseboard Collective, he has taken off the post-New Year’s week. I will follow up once I have judged I am past being annoying and his guilt has built up.

https://www.firstofthemonth.org/imperfection/

Adele and I have a joint mini-capsule film review up in the rew FOM. (I’d quote the opening but it is too mini-.) This seems an issue loaded with good stuff by many of my favorite contributors, featuring a number of Bob Dylan-related pieces, some original and some reprints, like my seminal “The Man, the Moment, the Italian Meats Sandwich,” my most reprinted piece, (twice, not including once by me), still the best thing about Bob ever written..

A friend in NYC told me that an on-line discussion group in which she devotedly participates recently spent an hour on Bob Dylan. After she mentioned my book, several people, including the leader, said they would buy it. She provided my POB, but, so far, no checks have arrived. However I sold a “Bob” at the café to a professionally well-credentialed French horn player who had eyed my several of books previously without purchasing. But having seen the new movie, he took the plunge.
The movie has sparked a lot of Dylan chatter at the café. I have mainly stayed clear and an unlikely to see the film. I see no point to it. I liked the Todd Haynes movie for its imagination, and I liked the Coen brothers recapitulation of the scene, but I was “there.” I lived through it and have my own Dylan in place. Why watch some fictionalized bio-pic and ponder why and where “Judas!” was screamed? I read the book on which it’s based and don’t recall taking much away from it – unlike, say “Positively Fourth Street,” which I thought dishonest crap.
I take it one question on people’s minds is to what extent was Dylan a scheming, back-stabbing, success-hungry opportunist? I don’t credit this line of thinking much. In 1964/65, I doubt anyone was thinking, Hmmm, if I add some amps and symbolist imagery to folk music, I bet I’ll be bigger than Trini Lopez.

In other news…
The “Messiah…” covers are done! Knock-outs! Ready to go. Except my first footnote to my introductory Author’s Note, in which I thanked my proofreaders had disappeared. Then when I re-drafted it for inclusion, the entire Note couldn’t be found.
I’m on it.

Phillip has chronic health problems (lungs) and, as far as I knew, had not left his house since Covid. I had thought of calling him but, I explained when he walked into the café, “The longer it went and I didn’t, the less I wanted to…” “Because you thought I was dead,” he finished for me. “I thought the same about you.” We had a good laugh.
Phillip’s thinning hair seemed to have gone months without trimming. Patches of grey beard splotched his cheeks and jaw line. He has lived for extended periods in Paris, where he has a publisher who, in an arrangement I do not understand – and about which I do not inquire – releases his books in English; but distribution is entirely Phillip’s responsibility. He keeps a mental log of local stores which will not even take his work on consignment.
He had been among a group of promising young writers in S. F. in the early ‘70s, centered around North Beach’s Intersection for the Arts, most of whom had eclipsed him. His conversation is full of references to men by whom he was betrayed him and women who have rejected him for others. I sometimes thinks he tolerates me only because he views my literary career as not having as risen as far from the launch pad as even his before exploding.
Through it all, Phillip has kept writing. He has written four books since we were last in touch, and he gave me the most recent, a seemingly autobiographical 550-page novel about failed relationships. In return, I gave him a “Bob on Bob” and the café journal in which I appeared, the only books I had with me he did not already have.
Phillip’s prose is crammed with ideas and attitude. It does not make the slightest concession toward commerce or affability. His work has my respect without being something I look forward to grabbing off the bedside table. Any White Whale he has landed will not be easily consumed.

In other news…
“Messiahs…” is at the point of minor fixes and preparing back cover copy. My editor/ publisher says, due to the printer being in China, it will not be available for five or six months, but pre-publication orders will be solicited in two. It will be 350-pages, 6″ X 9″, retailing for $25 or $30, depending on the printer’s charges (and maybe Trump’s tariffs). I am thrilled.
And Phillip was “…jealous.”

Sold a “Pirates and the Mouse.”
Faithful readers will recall the gentleman (See “Adventure” 454) to whom I had promised to sell a copy for $10, half my former asking price, because he could pick one up on-line, used, for about $8. He had never reappeared, but a café friend/customer had spotted it and said she would buy it once she had the cash on hand.
That moment having arrived, she handed me a $20. But I felt I should give her the same deal as the other guy, so I gave her back $10. However, when I checked on-line, I learned that the least expensive copy available now cost $15. (Had the scoundrel – see above bought it himself?) My friend gave me another $5. Then I saw I had neglected to figure in the sales tax, so I returned the $5 to her and she the $20 to me.

Business has been slow. Not only am I selling few books, I am attracting few interesting conversationalists. Not that the café has been interesting conversation-free. It is that generally they do not directly involve me, often by my choice.
Take the fellow who caught my ear by telling the barista he had been dropping by the café for decades (though not recently), and was startled to learn it shared space with a hotel, which it had since the 1980s. He had many questions, including the cost of a room ($175), whether he could see them (no), where the entrance was (same as the café’s), how many people were on duty at night (one), whether it would be a good place for he and his girl to spend a “night of passion.” I didn’t know whether he was planning a hoist or was just out of his mind.
He then reported a memorable morning when he had arrived and seen a dead body lying in the street with no one around it. He must have been first upon the scene and the most striking thing he recalled was that the victim was shoeless and wore blue socks.

In other news…
Much progress on “Messiahs…” Gary (the publisher) sent me the revised pdf (interior pages only). I caught one minor problem (I can live with it) and a significant one I had pointed out before, which didn’t seem to have been addressed. (An illustration had been selected for a chapter which didn’t seem to be from the book under discussion.) However, a terrific illustration had been selected for a chapter, replacing one which had been a mere space-holder.)
Also I would like to see the covers. Given that one misspelled my name and another omitted a key word from the title this is not a minor matter.
But otherwise, we are ready to ship to the printer. Which is thrilling and exciting.

If this works, it should directly link you to my latest piece at First of the Month. (If it doesn’t, you can find it at www.firstofthemonth.org. )

https://www.firstofthemonth.org/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR0q6FHx1MJsFQzP3Wp_x-XI4cEF_N68JcSZ-3pd5New6aw4YuXBqHL-Je8_aem_-OlwjMZYsFDS6MvX6sDl-w

Good luck.
It begins like this:

In September, a friend, the artist/electrician/musician Fran Holland showed me a work by Eileen Ramos, a Filipina-American from Piscataway, New Jersey, which he had purchased at the just-concluded San Francisco Zine Fest. After he did, I ordered an assortment of ten ($50, including postage) from her web site [https://eileenramos.com]. They arrived in a 6″ X 9.25″ bubble mailer. On both sides, black magic marker instructed the USPO not to bend.

Last Ten Books Read: XXVII
(In order of completion)

1. Stacy Schiff. “Cleopatra.” I had liked “Vera” a great deal (See “Last Ten… XXVI), so I wondered what Schiff would do here. I learned Cleopatra wasn’t Egyptian. (She was Macedonian.) I enjoyed hearing about all the throne-seeking children killing their parents (and vice-versa) and sisters killing their brothers (and vice-versa), but the problem is we don’t know much about Cleopatra herself and most of what we do comes from a couple bios written a couple thousand years ago, each with its own agenda, of which Schiff is skeptical. She hasn’t uncovered any new facts I recall, but she does deliver old ones through a contemporary pro-feminist lens.

2. Rachel Aviv. “Strangers to Ourselves.” A scattered history of approaches to mental illness through a collection of magazine pieces by a quality journalist, who was herself hospitalized, at age six, for an eating disorder. That account struck me as the most powerful but the collection didn’t build upon it. No thesis was spelled out; perhaps there is none to be had. Try talk; try drugs; keep fingers crossed.

3, Elfriede Jelinek. “The Piano Teacher.” I had liked “Lust” a great deal (See “Last Ten… XXVI), so I wondered what Jelinek would do here. This was also excellent. About mid- way through, I realized it was funny. So I wondered if “Lust” had been funny too and I had missed it. But then “Teacher” became intense and brutal and I realized I had been temporarily misdirected. (It did make me curious as to what the movie was like.)

4. Kazuo Ishiguro. “Never Let Me Go.” I can’t remember a thing about this book. It was on the NYT’s top 100 books of the 21st century so it must be something, but my memory has been over run by its exposure to the (also Japanese-in-focus) film “Perfect Days.” So, sorry, I can’t help you.

5. Carolyn Woods Eisenberg. “Fire and Rain.” An exhaustively researched and undeviating condemnation of the Nixon-Kissinger war on Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia (with some blame, less clearly spelled out, attributable to Russia and China). Politics and personal power predominate over all. Talk about war crimes.

6. Frank Olaseski. “The Five Invitations.” A Zen priest type guy I know suggested it would change my life. That didn’t happen, but it was a good enough collection of Buddhist-inspired wisdoms, some familiar, some not. I will add it the stack of Buddhistic how-to volumes I keep beside the bed to kick-start my morning meditations.

7. Han Kang. “The Vegetarian.” Recommended by the same woman at the café who’d recommended Jelinek – another Nobel Prize winner of whom I’d previously never heard. This was also excellent. Direct and powerful. I have another novel by Kang on order as we speak.

8. Patrick Haden Keefe. “Say Nothing.” This was on the NYT Top 100 list too. (I should note that since only a quarter of the century has passed, it can be presumed three-quarters of this 100 won’t make the final cut.) I had read a portion in the “New Yorker” years ago and meant to read the book. Found a used softcover in Moe’s – and can’t honestly say it was worth the wait. It was okay but shook no earth.

9. Edward P. Jones. “The Known World.” Number four of the Top 100, and the highest ranked one I hadn’t already read. Informative, moving, heart-wrenching, innovative. You sit back periodically and utter “Wow!” (My only criticism is that Jones didn’t place a list of characters in the front of the book like Ferrante did in “My Brilliant Friend” (the list’s Number One). It’s at the end in a Glossary, so I kept forgetting who was who, and, by the time I found it, was too late to do me any good.

10. Sigrid Nunez. “The Vulnerables.” This is the sixth book I’ve read by Nunez and the least pleasing. It’s her Covid-novel and while it shares commonalities with other Nunez books (unsatisfactory men, more than satisfactory animals), and has some clear thinking and classy paragraphs, it reads more like a collection of thoughts (and quotations) she picked up along the way to a fleshed-out novel and strung like ornaments on a scrawny tree. Near the end, Nunez postulates the novel may have run its course. Things may be too troubled and complex for it to provide relief or value. But I had just read Jones, so I think that’s more her problem.

Sold a “Lollipop” and an “IWKYA,” which turned into a swap of books with a fellow Authors Guild member.
The former was a café sale to a nice young couple, both UC students, he of Afghani descent and in electrical engineering, she Chinese-Mexican and studying micro-biology. Isn’t that the best recent argument you’ve run into for liberalized immigration laws?
The swap came about this way. A Guild member asked at the members’ forum why people self-published. Usually I find nothing here relevant to me, but since I figured my approach is pretty idiosyncratic (it sure is), I decided to describe it. This led one reader to my web site and to my receiving an order from Pay Pal. When I learned she wrote romance novels and memoirs (and taught creative writing), I proposed we trade my and Adele’s book for a memoir of hers. Done! (I will be refunding what she paid PP.)
[I had hoped someone might want to make a documentary — but this will do.]

Almost sold a “Pirates & Mouse” too. A fellow looked over my books and took a card. He returned to his table and, having checked my web site, came back and said it was the one wanted. Now, I have recently stopped selling “Pirates” (and “Outlaws, Rebels…”) because they are out of print and the only way I get new stock is buying them on line and marking up the price, so I profit, which doesn’t seem entirely hamish. But I checked Bookfinders, saw what used copies were going for, and offered a better-conditioned, signed one for $2 more. He accepted my proposal – and I never saw him again.
However, another woman/ex-customer spotted the book , which I was still toting it with me, and said she’d buy it. But first a check had to arrive – or a ship enter port – or a horse come in.

In other news…
1. There has been none on “Messiahs…” I will inquire further.
2. My article on “Moon Ray” and “MeduSalem” went up at tcj.com. (Because of the controversy over the author of the former, it had been so long since I’d submitted it, contrary to my custom, I read it – and it was pretty good.) The creator of “MeduSalem” was pleased and the publisher of “Moon Ray” was too – but a tad less so. As expected, the “Comments” space drew some negativity which, in my view, tended toward the inane and unrelalted to anything I wrote.
What drew my attention more was that for several days my Facebook link to the article drew zero response. (The total last time I checked had swelled two, which is still low, even for me.) At the same time, I had posted praise of a local jeweler at Next Door, following the fine service I received. That drew 12,000 views and 84 comments. (Praise I posted for our garage door repairman drew 1,100 views and a half-dozen comments.)
Maybe, I thought, I am in the wrong business.
Maybe I should become an influencer.
Happy Thanksgiving.