No café sales.
But the construction worker who’s bought a “Cheesesteak” stopped by my table to say he was enjoying it, and the woman from the bicycle shop to whom I give the Datebook section of the paper, when I haven’t given it to the octogenarian aerobics instructor said, “Are those your books? I’ll have to pick one up sometime.”

In other news, I finally learned how the distributor did with “The Schiz.” The rumored 900 “pre-sales” seem to have turned into 548 actual orders, of which 280 (so far) have been returned. That looks like 268 copies sold, which seems pretty grim; but when you figure this was a book whose own back cover boldly declared it “much rejected” and “much reviled” and which had no advertising, no publicist, no reviews, and an author whose own former publisher had declared him someone “no one has never heard of,” it is somewhat astonishing it sold any copies at all. Then when you add the 80 or so books I sold myself, with no one else taking a cut, I am left less than a grand in the hole, which I can lose a hellova lot more than from my IRA in the blink of a tweet from the c**ksucker-in-chief, it’s pretty much “Pick yourself up; brush yourself off; and start all over again.” Besides, as my friend Robert the Glass Artist says, “That’s not the point, is it?”
Of course, it’s not. I know that. Yet the availability and convenience of numerical measures – sales, gross – even amidst others of more spiritual gradient, enables them to persistently weigh upon me.
Time to step up the meditation.

I recently received information from my distributor about sales of THE SCHIZ. Included was a list of stores which ordered it. This information was confusing since some of the buyers seemed themselves to be distributors (Ingram, Diamond) and some (Baker & Taylor, Bookazine) I didn’t know what they were. But some were clearly independent stores and I wanted to thank them for taking a chance on my book. If you live near any of these stores, I hope you patronize them. Those in the Bay Area are Books, Inc., City Lights, Dark Carnival, Green Apple, and Moe’s. Elsewhere, A Room of Ones Own (Madison), Atomic Books (Baltimore), Book Cellar and Quimby’s (Chicago), Changing Hands (Phoenix), Common Good (Saint Paul), Escape Pod (Huntington, NY), Forbidden Planet and Kinokuniya (NYC), Moon Palace (Minneapolis), Politics & Prose (D.C.), Tattered Cover (Denver), and Yankee Book Peddlar (Contocock, NH).

No further word from the friend’s friend with Alzheimer’s.
More surprisingly, no word from the son of the West Catholic father. He even was at the café once without acknowledging me or my books.
And no responses to inquiries about (1) a promised cover blurb for “Heart”; (2) the fate of a submitted article about Andy Kaufman and his biographers; (3) the sales figures for and royalties on “The Schiz.”
On the other hand, a reference to “Cheesesteak” in an e-mail led a woman I met in elementary school to say it “should be required reading for all 50s, 60s alums. You wrote the memory lane experiences beautifully with your personal enduring style of musical prose.” (She writes pretty good herself, don’t you think?) I sent her words to all my (surviving) high school classmates but did not check Amazon to see if sales had spiked.
One afternoon, when the noise from the World Cup on the café’s wall screen café was too distracting (Mexico was playing), I moved my books and sign and self outside. The only person who stoppedf was a poet of my acquaintance. “Selling anything?” he said.
“It’s all performance art,” I said.
I told him I had bought his latest collection.
He told me if he had money, he would buy a book of mine.
Watch the parade, I thought. See your thoughts.
I am both performer and audience.

Finished Season 2 of “Marcella.”
SPOILER ALERT WARNING!
Boy, does it go dark and twisted.
Brit TV does not deliver much sex and nudity, but when it comes to violence and snuffing secondary characters you care about…
Again, (See: Levin “Marcella” supra), there are enough plot holes to drive the Peterbilt that pursued Dennis Weaver through. With all the corpses littering the what-turn-out-to-be branch roads off the central plot line, I recall at least two murderers who seem to have gone unapprehended. There’s the rock guy. And if anybody can tell me who killed Nigel’s girl friend, I’d appreciate it. (She seems to have been the victim of a plot line the serial killer turned out to have nothing to do with, no?) Finally, while it seems the SK did off the truck driver, I’d like some clarification of how this was accomplished.
Shouldn’t script writers have an obligation to dot all “I”s and cross all “T”s? Or is it enough to keep an audience’s nerves jangled and knuckles chewed? Adele, who watched every episode alongside me, said none of this occurred to her or would have bothered her if it had. (She finds it a reflection of how I approach my own writing.) She is more apt to let things just happen, and, when watching shows – or reading books – she immerses herself in the central character’s psychology, emotions and situation. Here, she found herself pondering the implications of a deeply troubled detective wanting to save the world confronting a deeply disturbed killer wanting to do the same, each of them, in their climactic face-off traumatizing a child so that their entire future is in question.
Anyway, we are set up for quite a Season 3. (Not yet picked-up.)

The check arrived for “Best Ride.”
(So did a check for my next article in “Full Bleed.”)
A friend says a friend of hers wants a “Cheesesteak.” (“$10,” I said.) The friend’s friend also wants a “Heart.” But she has early stage Alzheimer’s, and by the time “Heart” is available, she may have forgotten. (She may have forgotten who Adele and I are.)
So would it be bad form to ask for payment now?

No sales.
The check from Massachusetts for “Best Ride” did not arrive.
The son of the West Catholic alum did not return to the café.
The camp/high school-connected fellow did not write or call.
But I received a “Thank you” e-mail from the West Philly photographer to whom I’d sent a “Cheesesteak.”

In other news…
When Adele’s brother called, I told him we would self-publish “Heart.” “Spruce Hill Press.”
“Moose Hill?” he said.
“Not ‘Moose Hill.’” I said. “Spruce Hill.”
“Goose Hill?” he said.
“Not ‘Goose Hill.’” He was on speaker phone and Adele was in hysterics. “Spruce Hill.”
I figure our list has not yet made us a household name, like Random House.

Reading three at the Vanne Café seemed, by most measures, a success.
When Adele and I arrived, four customers were on site. Three departed before the event began; one stayed – and fell asleep.
The reading drew a couple dozen people, not counting the late arrival wrapped in a parka, carrying his possessions in a giant Target plastic bag and a carton previously used to ship raspberries, who commandeered a back sofa for himself. Two attendees were café regulars, who’d been to both previous readings; a woman, who’d come to mine, returned with two freinds; one of the readers drew five friends and/or relatives; and the other the rest. The mike was again a problem for we are mechanically challenged to begin with, but the hook-up for viewing illustrations on the café’s flat screen wall TV was a success. Both readers sold copies of their books; the pricey beer and wine moved; and the barrista’s tips were ample.
I guess the sexual content of the readings raised eyebrows – particularly on the adult daughters of Reader One – but I heard plenty laughs and saw many smiles. If I’ve learned one thing from these readings, including my own, it is that writers seem to think more highly of their words than do those hearing them. Audience attention spans are limitied. Less is more.
My co-promoter suggests we have a pianist lightly cue people when to leave the stage.