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.

Sold a “Schiz.” It was sort-of a “mercy” buy, since the purchaser, the poet/therapist J____, a sincere appreciator of my work, had asked when my next “Adventure” would appear, and I’d said I needed to sell a book first. (I then recommended IWKYA, but she felt more comfortable with my imagined blackly comic depravities than with my actual health crisis.)
I also gave a “Cheesesteak” to one of the new co-editors at tcj.com. It turned out that, not only was she from Philadelphia but, when she learned I was from 46th & Pine, revealed that was an area she walked her dog. (In my day, to cite B. Dylan, dogs ran free.) And speaking of tcj, the disclaimer I added to my last submission – See: previous “Adventure” – has received tweaking from both me and the other editor, and should be up next week, as written
.
My table also drew a few non-commercially inclined guests. There was a pair of 60-ish lesbians from South Carolina, fans of “the Wolf Pack,” in town for the Cal-NC State game. (We discussed how I came to Berkeley, one of my favored topics.) There was another woman, heavy set, with long grey hair, garbed in baggy grey, who took my card – and was never heard from again. And there was a 20-ish woman artist, who thought highly of J.T.’s brushwork on the sign he’d done for me. She was up from Santa Cruz “for a face-painting gig.” When I described my books, she showed the most interest in “The Pirates & the Mouse,” which I am not selling at the moment, so I directed her to the internet. (I gave her a card too, just in case.)

In other news…
1.) FOM will be putting up a “mini” by Adele and me shortly;
2.) I have a first draft of a longer piece done for it, which is in the process of being fact-checked by its subject, a zine artist in North Jersey. (I’d interviewed her by phone but – not for the first time – failed to work my cassette recorder properly. My notes, while 90% accurate I’m sure, had some holes.)
3.) “Messiahs” remains on hold. I had the lost scans re-sent, but the publishers’ auto-reply said that he was attending a comic-con in Italy, and, if the election didn’t work out properly, he might not return. Not that Italy’s PM, from what I read, is any bargain.
4.) And finally, in the realm of prophets being without honor in their hometown, the Berkeley Public Library hosted its second annual comics convention, with talks, panels, and guests, no invitation having been directed to me. I was temporarily amused/rankled, but then a pal, who took his 14-year-old son, said there was not a whiff of the transgressive on display, so I would have been an odd fit, I reckon. (Still, I plan to withhold my annual charitable contribution.)

Sold NO books.
In fact, drew no one to my table for an interesting/colorful/newsworthy chat. Have my books/sign/distinctively garbed presence become commonplace? Am I another potted ficus?
(I did receive a visit from a librarian/cartoonist in town from Maryland, with whom I have been in sporadic correspondence since my first article on the Air Pirates appeared 20 years ago. And a café regular introduced me to her boyfriend, a criminal defense lawyer in Sacramento, as the fellow who’d written “Bob.” “I read part,” he said.)

Gave TWO books away.
A “Cheesesteak” went to a jazz musician (“Lester” in its last chapter) whom I’d met in high school and who’d sent me a link to a documentary about book censorship in public high schools on which he’d been an executive producer.
And a “Best Ride” to the ex-wife of “Max Garden,” (See: same chapter) who now lives in Jamaica. She recently sold her house in Philly and lost her copy in the move. She sent me a photo of her granddaughter in full motorbike racing regalia. Her and Max’s son lives in Vietnam, where he runs a training center for tri-athletes.
How the world turns.

In other news…
Readers will recall that my final review of “Messiahs” was awaiting only incorporation of its illustrations. I had scanned and sent to the publisher those that it lacked, but when I did not receive a pdf for a week or so, I inquired. He had received the scans but had no idea what had happened to them, so I had another set sent and resumed awaiting. It is growing a bit uncomfortable on the edge of my seat, but I am not worried.
For one thing, my relationship with this publisher began 35-years ago with it losing the first article I sent it three times. So this disappearance may mark an auspicious new beginning.
For another, when writers of my stature get together, a basic topic of conversation is the indignities, abuses and kerfuffles we have suffered in pursuit of our art, and now I have added one more.

Business, as opposed to the more traditional lack of business, accounts (mostly) for my absence.
A café pal, who lives in his truck, had it impounded, along with most of his possessions, due to unpaid tickets and has been sleeping outside. He asked for something to read, so I gave him a “Best Ride,” upon which he has not commented.
A friend (and prior reader), whom I’d met in college and went on to become (a) a newspaper reporter and (b) attorney, after frequently expressing his intent to purchase “Bob on Bob,” came by the café and picked one up. He has not commented either – though someone purporting to be him e-mailed he was in the hospital for knee surgery and asking I wire funds to a relative.
J___ , another repeat customer, picked up “Cheesesteak.” A retired physician from Hawthorne (“Where the Beach Boys are from”), he gave me a reminiscense from his childhood. He said he had hundreds (or was it a thousand) he was thinking ot publishing, so I shared, without his asking, my general approach.
J____, the poet/therapist, bought both “Bob on Bob” and “Cheesesteak.” (“Beyond admirable,” she said of the first and “You are a true scholar,” of the second.) A couple days later, she led me into a discussion of the absence of darkness in my work. (She has a perfectly reasonable preference for memoirs in which narrators confront and rise from theirs.) Coincidentally, a couple days earlier, I had looked at my journal from 60 years ago. “Boy, was I miserable,” I’d thought. (It was a period friends and I could seriously say we did not know anyone who was happy.) But now I look back with – and write from – a fond (and recognizably fortunate) bemusement at it all. (It is not just the Lexapro.) The darknesses remain undiscussed – or undiscussed darkly.
Then there was D_____, a 40-something Bay Area native now living in Germany. (A self-described “late starter in academia,” he works in “human-centered digital health.”) He was in town visiting family and had been led to me because he had a recently revived interest in Golden Age comics and had heard I knew about them. (After reading my article on ECs, he invited me to speak at an art museum in Berlin. I explained I never went further than San Francisco these days and then, usually, only for medical reasons, and asked if Zoom would work. I was already fantasizing this might be where I would donate my archives when he admitted the idea for my talk had not gone beyond his head so far, but he would bring it up with a curator.) We had a delightful conversation, which veered into his scraping together nearly the full cover price of “Bob” and acquiring a copy – upon which he has not yet commented.

In other news…
1.) No news on the Air Pirates film.
2.) Shown work of a words-and-pictures artist that interested me, I emailed to ask if I might write about her. Assuming she did not know me, I told her the venues where my piece might go. She said she did not regard herself as a cartoonist, which ruled out tcj.com, but having checked out First of the Month, found it appealed. So that it where I will be aiming.
3.) Speaking of tcj,, the last article I submitted has been read by an editor, who received it with a less-than ringing “pretty good.” However, unbeknownst to me, one of the creators whose work I’d discussed had been the target of outrage in the indie comics world because of his alleged harassment/abuse of trans-sexual women (and others). This was an elephant whose presence in the room I had missed, and which the editor felt needed addressing lest the internet ring. So I have been working on that.
4.) But the BIG STORY is “MESSIAHS.” The cover is done! It’s a knock-out – and if I knew how to transfer it from an e-mail, I would post it. All that seems left is selecting the illustrations – one per piece. Then it should nearly be ready to go. I have expressed my preferences; Fantagraphics will see what it has, and I will scan and send them the rest. I can barely contain myself from drawing up the list of invitees to the launch party.

(In order of completion)

1. Mark Z. Danielewski. “House of Leaves.” Recommended by friend Fran. Struck me as among the best novels by an American I had read in decades. It seemed to winningly combine Pynchon, Nabokov, and “The Blair Witch Project.” But when I mentioned it to three well-situated-in-the-literary-world others, not one had heard of it – or of Danielewski.

2. Mike Silver. “The Arc of Boxing.” Recommended by friend Michael. Makes a strong, if unexpected, case for the superiority of boxers from the first 60 or so years of the 20th century over those who came along later. I can’t argue, and my main contact with the current boxing world does not disagree.

3. Mark Z. Danielewski. “The Whalestone Chronicles.” In “Leaves” (see above), a woman in an insane asylum sends letters to her son without. This volume purports to contain additional letters. They turn out to be unnecessary, irrelevant, and perhaps even an unseemly cash grab by the author worthy of Donald Trump.

4. James Atlas. “Delmore Schwartz.” I read that this was an excellent biography and, even though I had no interest in Schwartz or his poetry or prose, I like literary biographies so I read it. I can’t say it did much for me, but I knew Schwartz was the basis for…

5. Saul Bellow. “Humboldt’s Gift.” …so I re-read that. I had forgotten – or maybe never knew – how funny Bellow was. You can skim his philosophical remarks and just enjoy the colorful characters, among whom his protagonist, Charley Citrine, ping-pongs.

6. Stacy Schiff. “Vera.” An enjoyable and educational bio of Mrs. Vladimir Nabakov, written with good humor and full appreciation of her life and work with her husband. Did you know Vera was a crack shot, suspected of involvement in a plot to assassinate Trotsky, and was a strong supporter of Sen. Joseph McCarthy?

7. Alice Munro. “The Beggar’s Maid.” Recommended by Adele. Good book. Simultaneously conventional and original. Well-grounded in place and psychology and moving. (I do not hold the recent revelations about her daughter against Munro.)

8. Walker Percy. “The Moviegoer.” Another re-read. Recalled it as fitting a piece I was writing. Struck now by how unlikely/out of time it now seems. The existentially questing “hero” is an investment counselor, and he doesn’t have sex with the young woman he pursues. That may have won an National Book Award in 1961, but I can’t imagine that happening now.

9. Lydia Davis. “Our Strangers.” I like Davis. She opens the possibilities of what makes a “story”
and I pick up ideas for things to write. I scored three – two short-shorts, one substantial – from this collection.

10. Elfriede Jelinek. “Lust.” Recommended by my friend Jaden. Powerful, devastating. An exegesis on man’s brutality to women, capitalism’s brutality toward workers, and society’s brutality to all. Sometimes all three seem to be going on in the same sentence. Not a line of dialogue. I didn’t think I could make it through. But then the sex started – and I had Jelinek’s Nobel Prize as a carrot to lead me on.