(In order of completion)
1. William Maxwell. Time Will Darken It. The first of three novels by Maxwell in a single volume I found in a Free Little Library. (I had already read the third and am now reading the second.) This one is a portrait of a family’s life in a small mid-western town in pre-World War I America. Steady, re-assuring old-fashioned fiction.

2. Jarislav Hasek. The Good Soldier Schwek. Recommended by a young man in the café. Schwek may have inspired Catch-22, but I am about the only one I know not to have been crazy about Catch-22, and I didn’t care for this either.

3. Claire Keegan. Small Things Like This. Another fine miniature by Keegan. Immaculate style and strong story.

4. R. Crumb. The Book of Mr. Natural. If you were a Mr. Natural fan, this compilation of his strips and stories may knock you out, but I wasn’t, and it didn’t.

5. Benjamin Labatut. When We Cease to Understand the World. I had read this two years ago and realized I had forgotten everything about it, so I decided to re-read it, and, boy, was it terrific. I am sure it will stick with me now.

6. Sarah Bakewell. How to Live. A biography of Montaigne. A philosopher/neighbor recommended it as superior to Bakewell’s At the Existentialist Café. I disagree.

7. Italo Calvino. If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler… Not for me. Way over my head. Maybe in the future, but I doubt I’ll try again.

8. Iris Murdoch. Jackson’s Dilemma. I am a big fan of Murdoch, and Bakewell touted this, her final novel, but it seems primarily of interest because Murdoch wrote it while in the early stages of Alzheimer’s and the effects are observable.

9. Ivana Armanini. Love, Resist, Etc. A collection of strips by a cartoonist to whom language is mainly a page marker and visuals are paramount. It gives your eyes a trip and your mind a workout.

10. Amor Towles. A Gentleman in Moscow. Two friends had raved about this so imagine my excitement to find it in a “Free” box. Now I will be even more excited to pit it back in one.

Sold a “Best Ride” and a café journal.
They come with a story.
When a new owner bought the café and re-did it to suit his vision of what would play in Paris, he put up shelves for authors to display their work. Several did, including some I’d never laid eyes on and some who believed the cafe needed several of their books. I contributed a “Best Ride.”
The other day a fellow held up a copy and told me how much he’d liked it. “Where’d you get it?” I said.
He pointed at the shelf.
“Wanna pay me?” I said.
This led to a fun conversation. Hank is from Detroit, an ex-ballplayer, current writer, and friend of Lenny, who, when the cafe’s Hall of Fame opens, will be the first inductee. Lenny had tipped Hank to my book. Hank has just published “Jive 95,” a history of KSAN, the San Francisco radio station which was my favorite the first years I was here. We arranged to swap works the next day. He did not appear, but Lenny, who has multiple pieces in the journal and is out of copies himself, acquired one from me for Hank.
I look forward to further conversations – and transactions.

In other news…
1.) That sale of IWKYA to a 6th grade friend I reported last “Adventure” fell through in an unsettling way. I had mailed it and he was to mail a check. Calling to learn my address, he mentioned he was sending me a book which, he recalled my saying, I was short copies of, a statement I did not. His check never arrived but the book did – the IWKYA I had sent him. Inquiries confirmed his advancing dementia. The next day I read in the “Chronicle” the obit of a woman I had made out with in Philly 60 years ago. She had become a physician – and lived five minutes away in El Cerrito, all news to me.
Both of which served to further unsettle my sense of footing in the universe.
2.) Foot traffic has been, well, mixed. (A) Middle-aged white guy picks up a “Lollipop,” and when I ask “You have a Chicago connection?”, puts it down and leaves. (B) College-aged African-American woman excitedly looks at several of my books. She is in a rush, accepts my card – and hasn’t been heard from since. (C) Colorfully dressed 30-ish African-American woman examines “Outlaws, Rebels…” “Are you an artist?” I ask. “An enthusiast,” she says. She takes out several dollar bills but is short. I give her a card, and she promises to be back.
3.) Received an e-mail from a cartoonist who said he enjoyed my stuff at TCJ and wanted to send me his new book about a family of goth vultures. While I am familiar with vultures, I say, goths are after my time. But, sure, I will be delighted.
Still a kick to know strangers read me.

Sold an IWKYA to a fellow I’ve known since 6th grade when my literary claim to fame was “Dognet,” a “Dragnet” satire I’d cribbed from a stand-up comic’s routine. We remained friends through my law school years and in sporadic – sometimes very sporadic – touch until recently when email and phone contact became frequent, a common phenomenon, I suspect, among us older folks.
Then sold a “Lollipop” to an electrical engineer in town from San Diego with his wife to settle their son in at UC. The Dad works in the manufacture of computer chips of the type the US is trying to keep China from getting its hands on. His conversation was full of words like “photons” and “plasma” and “lasers,” with which I was familiar, but I could not understand a single sentence. He was ten when the events described in my book were on TV and decided to learn more about them.
My next transaction was not as easy as it sounds. The local chapter of the Authors’ Guild has been holding monthly get-togethers at a downtown brew pub. Five of us at the most recent: the organizer, Sven, me, another guy, a Caucasian woman and a Korean-American woman. When I mentioned I sold my books at a café, the Caucasian woman said she walked by it every day and would buy one. Let’s say her name was July X. But when I got home, I realized I would not be there as early as I’d said I would, so I decided to e-mail her.
When I retrieved the email to the group announcing the meeting, there was no July X among the recipients but there was a, let-us-say, June Z. So I e-mailed her.
June Z replied she did not know who I was or what I was talking about.
I apologized.
Then Sven sent another group e-mail. Again, June Z was included but not July X. So I emailed June Z and asked if she had a pen name.
She replied that June Z was her pen name. Her actual name was June Y.
So I emailed Sven and asked if June Z was AKA July X or vice-versa. He said, Ooops. He had left July X off his emails – and sent me her address. I then told her of my changed business hours, and she told me she had visited my web site and wanted both “Cheesesteak” and “Fully Armed.” (I offered her an Author’s Discount – and threw in a “Best Ride.”) Then I visited her web site, saw her books, and proposed a swap.
She will bring some next week, so I don’t know what I’m getting.

In other news…
1.) My Checkered Demon “Buy Bob’s Books” sign drew to my table the first café patron under 50 years of age to recognize S. Clay Wilson’s work. This fellow, in his mid-to-late 30s, was tall, overweight, with shoulder-length dark hair, Grateful Dead-related tattoos on both arms, and self-identified as an artist-writer-musician. I was in the midst of discussing the Anonymous Artists of America with my tablemate, Rex, and this fellow said they sounded like they’d be right up his alley. Then he introduced me to his girlfriend, thin as a needle, all in black, black hair dyed blacker, her own tattoos. He said they’d check out my books the next time they had money, the artist-writer-musician business not being lucrative, I suspect.
I gave them my card and have not been seen or heard from them since.
2.) “Kit” and “Jill” were two cute-as-button kids, both in baggy, comfy grays, he with a discrete nose ring and she with brown hair in a tidy bun. Jill noticed “Cheesesteak.” “I’m from Bucks County. Are you from Philadelphia.”
“I probably left Philly before you…” I looked at her. “Before your parents were born.” (I am always surprised to find myself saying things like that.)
“Where else can we get your books?” Kit said.
“No where,” I said – and gave them my card.
They have not been seen or heard from since.

Sold one book; swapped another.
The sale, a “Cheesesteak,” was to “Natasha,” a 20-something African-American, with rhinestone-studded eyeglasses and shoulder-length hair under a multi-colored knit cap. She has been working at home since Covid, which does not suit her. “I need interaction. I’m a social person.” She wants to read more. She wants to learn. We agree, despite our differences in background, as far as my books go “Cheesesteak” is a good beginning.
The swap was of “Most Outrageous” to my café pal Gene for his latest. Faithful readers will recall him, perhaps under a pseudonym, as a retired architect and author of humorous seniors erotica. This time, “Train Six, Party Mix,” he has widened his range to a ninesome (of which I have, so far, met five), the youngest of whom are in college. The action occurs in transit from Berkeley to Chicago and seems well-researched. I have learned a lot, for instance, about some not-on-the-menu possibilities within dining cars.

In other news…
1.) I shared my hard-earned self-publishing wisdom with “Judith,” a retired professor of pedagogy, who has turned from academic prose to poetry and essays. A mutual friend asked if I would counsel her, and I said I would be happy to, especially if she bought one of my books. Unfortunately, the friend had spoken highly only of IWKYA, which I happened to be non-holding the morning Judith showed, so my advice turned out to be gratis.
2.) And the café has seen the return of “Sam.”
He used to be there every morning, sitting in a corner, wrapped, regardless of the weather, in a wool Raiders jacket, eating a yogurt acquired at the supermarket. Sam had a ferociously untrimmed beard and ghastly pallor, but he was nice enough that no one begrudged him the loans he promised to repay the first of the month – and never did.
Then Sam disappeared. He was gone over a year. “How you doing, Sam?” I said.
“I’m doing good,” he said. “I’m going to repay you what I owe you.”
“No rush,” I said.
“And could you buy me a coffee? I’m kinda desperate.”
I handed him a five.
Later “Michaelangelo,” the café’s well-known multi-media artist and I were discussing this visitation. “You never know who’s going to walk in,” he said.
“But ‘Rick’s’ gets Ingrid Bergman,” I said, “and we get Sam.”

All my books are available at www.theboblevin.com
Gene’s is available thru Amazon.

Sold three books.
Two were “Outlaws, Rebels…,” which is a book I rarely bring to the café because not too much of my public are fans of underground/alternative comix, but “Rex,” the former animator had wanted one, so I had laid a copy out for him last week when, as previously reported, it was snapped up by that biologist. This week I had brought another, but, just as Rex was about to walk through the door, it was snapped up by “Y,” a prior customer. Finally, the next day, I put it in Rex’s hands directly, forcing me on-line to replenish my stock since it is out-of-print and I can only market the “pre-owned.”
My other sale was an IWKYA to a visitor from Colorado. She had a long brown braid under a flowered Giants cap and had two small boys with her. She and her husband, if I understood correctly, co-own a business which takes echo-cardiograms for doctors and hospitals, and their youngest son, who is 11, has already announced his wish to become a cardiac surgeon. So I may have tapped into a market there.

In other news…
1.) My most notable non-sale was to a fellow wearing a soiled flat-brimmed straw hat, tinted glasses, green billowing sport jacket, and purple low cut sneakers. (He said he would buy a book the next time he had money.) He was unfamiliar with even the most well-known UG/alt cartoonists, but he recommended to me a Belgian creator of woodcut novels and a local politically inclined poster artist, both of whom I didn’t know. We were getting along fine until the conversation reached a point where he was telling me about neighbors who were attempting to link him to a Nazi Manson family (or maybe he was linking them to it). Either way, I regretted having already given him my card.
2.) And in a p.s. to last week’s “Adventure,” it came to my attention that it was illegal in California to possess a switchblade with more than a 2″ blade. However, on the advice of my counsel, Sydney Powell and John Eastman, I believe I have a good Second Amendment defense should it come to that.

Gave a café journal to a retired pediatrician in Carmel, who regularly reads my blog and is intrigued by the characters my “Adventures” bring to my table. And I sold two books.
An “Outlaws, Rebels…” went to a young, pony-tailed, Hispanic physics professor, who knew nothing about underground/alternative cartoonists and wanted to learn. And a “Cheesesteak,” was purchased by a middle-aged, grey-bearded physicist, who had lived in Philadelphia for nine years, some of them near Clark Park, which exists in my memory because (a) the steepness of its hill loomed like Annapurna to seven-year-old boys with sleds and (b) its playing fields were the neutral site for the titanic struggle between my mid-elementary school, post-dinner softball gang, the Osage Indians (I guess we would be the Osage Guardians now) and our arch-rivals from one block west. (We won. I had a lead-off walk, advanced to third on two ground-outs, and was stranded.)

In other news…
Two notable encounters occurred.
One was with a man of about 60, who was on his way to Bandimere Speedway in Colorado for the Mile High Nationals, the largest drag-racing event west of the Mississippi. I was digesting the improbabilty of a life-long drag racing fan following a physicist and molecular (or cellular) biologist to within three-feet of my double espresso, when the fellow to his left shanghaied the conversation through references to fuel mixes, cam shafts, and carburators, and I retreated into memories of James Dean hurtling toward the cliff’s edge in “Rebel Without a Cause.”
The other involved Berne, the photographer-turned-tree-trimmer (See “Adventure 368″), who, in the intervening weeks, had seemed in the process of de-acquisitioning some holdings. He had asked me if I knew any yachtsman who might wish to purchase a pair of waterproof binoculars. I, in fact, knew a sailor on the Bay, and, though no sale resulted, Berne gave me a horseshoe for my trouble. (It now hangs on my study wall next to my Bill Sienkiewicz pen-and-ink.)
This time he wondered if I knew any knife collectors. When I said I might, he laid four on my table and had me take a photo and email them. My friend replied he liked the looks of one, “If it’s not a knock off.” Berne took offense at the suggestion. He wanted $25, and when my friend declined, I bought it. What the hell, I figured. I’d’ve loaned Berne $25 if he’d asked. This way I had a five-ounce steel Kershaw, with four-inch blade.
I could have used an instruction booklet. It took two days and three more conversations to clue me that if I pushed this button… WOW! And then to show me how to close the sucker without jeopardizing my thumb.
Let brigands beware. I am walking with new swagger in my pocket. Of course, my opening inquiry will be, “Do you have a gun?”

All of Bob’s books are available at www.theboblevin.com.

Sold no books, extending my record-breaking streak of goose egg-innings. The old business model may need tuning. In this regard, I note that my own FB link to a piece I wrote recently about a Serbian cartoonist drew one-third the “Like”s as her “sharing” of it, causing me to reflect that I may have more readers in parts of the former Yugoslavia than in 45 of the 50 states and maybe ought to open franchises in cafes in Zagreb or Sarajevo.

On a more positive note, the last café journal contributor to order copies (2) has paid for them. His check had first been promised six months ago; then a more reliable neighbor would post it; then his former martial arts trainer would deliver it. None of this was surprising, given the contributor in question; nor was the trainer’s neither delivering the check during the week or at the place promised. That it arrived was good enough.
And I gave three books away: a “Cheesecake” to Rex, with whom I have had fun comparing growing-up, him in Honolulu, me in Philly. (In Hawaii, I learned, there are no Jews, Irish, Italians. We are all “haoles”); another “Cheesesteak” to James, because the first one I’d given him had been lost when his truck, with all his belongings inside, had been stolen. (The truck and everything but his iPhone and debit card were recovered. He promised to return one “Cheesesteak,” so if any reader wishes to acquire a “pre-owned” copy…); and a “Lollipop” to the author of an on-line article about Chicago basketball sent me by her uncle. She lives across 47th Street from my old turf and I thought she (a) might like it and (b) throw some sales my way.

In other news…
1.) Had a long IWKYA-centered chat with a fellow from Cornell, in town for a “hack-a-thon.” He’s into computers and health care, and is concerned about cardio risk factors. (He might have earned more space, but he didn’t buy and was blown away by later encounters.)
2.) The first was with a young woman whose name’s uniqueness – Ginzy Gore – must have launched a thousand opening lines and whose bright orange hair would have made fire engines pull aside. She had been told to look me up by a fellow I hear from a couple times a year. He asks if I can put him in touch with an old girl friend, and when I say I don’t see her but Adele does, he says “I don’t think Adele is talking to me,” and I say I will ask her about the ex-, and Adele says “Enough’s enough. He can find Rhonda at Facebook.” Anyway, I was expecting, like, a waifish, ethereal aspiring poet or novelist, but instead in walked a woman who writes for scholarly journals about national security and the intelligence community – and with a self-possession that should have her showing up on CNN tomorrow. When I sheepishly revised my misjudgment and confessed my own area of expertise to be underground cartoonists, she revealed her work for a non-profit devoted to early recorded American music and her frequent communications with Robert Crumb.
3.) The next day, Elizabeth, a sweet-tempered octogenarian church harpist, who is receiving chemo for terminal cancer, got into an adversarial exchange with Emilio, a sometimes testy barista when she asked for a mask to replace her broken one. Behind her in line was Leon, a documentary film maker, who usually spends his café time dominating a table of admirers with loud-mouthed opinions sprinkled with celebrities’ names like flies on a shit sandwich.
“I’m sick of people playing the sympathy card!” he screamed. “We’re all dying! You’re just dying sooner than most.”
I recognized this as a philosophical position previously trotted out by Stoics, Buddhists, and Montesquieu, though generally more subtly moderated, and in a more empathetic manner. Besides, I’d never liked the guy. So I walked over to offer my opinion: “Mind your own fucking business!” I don’t have the fine points of the ensuing argument down, but, essentially, he asserted he can not stand by when workers are being abused, a sentiment not totally on point since the barista in question is management, and to which my rebuttal – formulated while reminding myself that, if it came to a right cross, to elevate my rear heel – distilled to “Asshole!”

Since Elizabeth didn’t have her hearing aids in and missed most of the debate, I got to repeat my version to a circle of her friends and was rewarded with two fist-bumps and a Namaste bow. She went to the corner flower cart and brought back a white rose for Emilio, who hugged her. They both cried.
When I told Adele, she reminded me Leon had recently lost his partner. “He’s grieving.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t’ve called him an ‘asshole,’” I said. “But he’s not getting a hug.”

All of Bob’s books are available from www.theboblevin.com.

First of the Month is running a mini-story of mine.

https://www.firstofthemonth.org/brief-encounter/

It begins:

Twenty, twenty-five-years ago, a Berkeley City College student started coming to the café where I took morning breaks. She was Mexican-American, with pouty lips, a low-back tattoo, and a glorious torrent of black hair falling across and below her shoulders.