http://www.firstofthemonth.org/state-of-the-union-or-for-that-matter-the-world/

My latest piece is up at First of the Month. It’s a mini-mini-story, so mini- that I will forego my usual tease of quoting how it begins. You will have to go directly to it. (Looks like you have have to copy/paste it into your browser. Good luck.)

Last 10 Books Read: IX
(More or Less in Order of Completion: Most Recent Last)
1. “The Year I Lost My Mind.” “Story by Casanova Frankenstein, art, in his stye, by Glenn Pierce. I admire all of CF’s work, and, while I don’t remember much about this, that is no reflection on its merit. I finished it, which, in itself, says something.
2. John O’Hara’s “The New York Stories.” Found this among the Free Books in the café – and replaced it with O’Hara’s “Hell Box.” Nobody writes much like O’Hara any more, but when he was good at what he was doing, he was really good.
3. John Berryman’s “77 Dream Songs.” Clearly my failing, but I got about zero out of this, and I’m done with poetry for a while.
4. Tom Farber’s “Acting My Age.” Tom’s a café pal, extremely erudite and a fine, serious writer. This one’s about aging and man’s spoliation of the planet, so up my alley, though his anti-
depressants don’t seem to be working well as mine.
5. “Seattle Laughs,” Shary Flenniken, ed. Shary’s a pal, though we’ve never met, and Seattle’s a city I’ve only spent a weekend in; but it and its residents’ foibles seem universal enough to make different cartoonists’ takes on it a kick.
6. Tove Ditlevsen’s “Youth,” the middle third of her “Copenhagen Trilogy.” Usually don’t read memoirs – or novels that are them – but am glad I picked this up after a couple reviews caught my eye.
7. Marilynne Robinson’s “Jack.” What’s this, the fourth in her “Gilead” series? All fine stuff.. Can be read out of order, I guess, but the best approach, I’d say, is in order.
8. “Just Enough Liebling.” Found in a box on the sidewalk. I’d never read this particular collection, but I’d probably read everything in it, some of it more than once. Liebling? You can never have “enough.”
9. Sterling Lawrence’s “Legacies.” Recommended by a café guy. I could have done without it.
10. Hilary Mantel’s “The Mirror and the Light.” Amazing! Open it up and you’re back in the 16th century. (Or was it the 15th. You’re dealing with a guy who failed to correctlyidentify 1066 on his Soc. Sci. I exam, freshman year.) Anyway, this makes at least seven novels I’ve read by Mantel, everyone of them excellent.

Sold one “Schiz.”
The buyer is a long-time café regular, Sometimes she comes with her husband, a bearded fellow in an A’s cap. A horse player and, she tells me, a poet. Sometimes he comes alone and gets two coffees to go; sometimes she does.
“Tell me about yourself,” I said, preparing to sign her book.
She began with her arrival in Berkeley in 1962, at 19, from Joplin, Missouri, with her fiancee who was going to UC. She immediately fell in love with the city. The variety of the people. The sitting in cafes. The talk about everything. Nothing like that in Joplin. (Nor in Philadelphia, when I got here in ‘68.) Twenty minutes later, she had reached her anxiety over the processed food her daughter-in-law was feeding her grandchildren.
Very nice.

In other news…
1.) A graphic designer/café pal has complained about the repetitiveness of the image that accompanies these accounts. Tough, I say. That’s a personally created logo by, S. Clay Wilson, great American artists and originals. Pay attention to the numbers; see when they change. Everybody got that?
2.) Anyway, there may be a lull for a while. Adele’s concern over my sitting inside has led me to move my business to a sidewalk table. More foot traffic but seemingly less book interest (and my sign keeps blowing over).
It is a new show though – or a new season of an old one. Some new characters, like the smiling woman warning of, if I got her right, lethal waves and rays in the air. Some reappearances of old ones, long absent from the daily episodes. Some previously minor characters assuming major rolls. Some emerging plot lines, like the conflict between the octogenarian Zen priest and the fellow in the coolie’s hat who has taken upon himself the removal of all trash from the sidewalk (good) but refuses to be vaccinated (bad).
And I shouldn’t fail to mention, in last week’s pilot, the assault of the elderly panhandler in an electric wheelchair by a fellow wielding what appeared to be a styrofoam tube. I called 911 in my best, honed-by-years-of-tv-crime-drama fashion. “Caucasian male, about 40, six-feet-tall, close-cropped dark hair, black pants, black t-shirt, headed north, toward Vine.” A half-dozen vehicles responded, police and fire, and the perp was apprehended in the Safeway parking lot.
All things considered, I may be safer inside.
3.) And, finally, word has reached me postal rates may be increasing. So if you want your complimentary forthcoming saga of a South Side VISTA lawyer (1967-68) for $2.89, you’d best send your SASE with the aforementioned postage now.
ALL BOB’S BOOKS are available from www.theboblevin.com.

Sold one “Goshkin.” The buyer was a Mended Hearts colleague. In fact, it was my visit to him when he was in the hospital that led him to join.
And received an order for two “Lollipop”s from an ex-client, now friend, one for him, one for a buddy. (He couldn’t hack the SASE business, so he sent a more-than-covered-it check.)
“Cheesesteak” drew a couple ex-Philadelphians to my table, but the connection moved no one enough to buy. One was a thirty-ish fellow, in t-shirt supporting “Sustainable Growth,” had gone to Lower Merion. (“My father went to Harriton, and my grandmother wrote for ‘The Main Line Times.’”)
The other was a slightly older woman, accompanied by a friend, both in black sweats, both with hair in pony tails, probably stopping by the café after a walk or jog or yoga class. “She’s from New York,” the Philadelphian said of her friend.
“Close enough,” I said. “You had an adolescence?”
“I had an adolescence.”
“Perfect. You’ll love it.”
I gave everybody my card. I told them I was here three mornings a week.
Still waiting.

In other news…
A cartoonist semi-pal let me know that Malcolm Gladwell had “quoted extensively” from “The Pirates and the Mouse” in a podcast.
“How ‘extensively’?” I said. “Beyond fair use? Can I sue?”
He e-mailed me a Voice Recognitionized partial transcript. The most salient read, “(L)et me just quote you from the completely nuts account of the saga and the writer Bob Leven…”
I know you’re not supposed to care as long as they spell your name right, but he didn’t spell my name right and it sounds like my account was ‘completely nuts’ and not the saga.

On a more positive notes, my editor’s feedback on the first eight chapters of “Lollipop” are in, so we are moving along there.
Speaking of which, for a free copy of this thrilling account of my stint as a VISTA lawyer on the South Side of Chicago (Sept. 1967 – Sept. 1968) send one of those aforementioned SASEs to POB 9492, Berkeley 94709.
[All my books, some “Pirates,” “pre-owned,” are available at www.theboblevin.com.]

Sold two books.

A fellow from “First of the Month” world bought a “Cheesesteak” and a “Schiz.”

In other news…

1.) “IWKYA” received a heavy recommendation at the on-line Mended Hearts Forum. (MH, for those who don’t recall, is an organization for people — or family of people — who’ve had heart surgery.) The thread in which the recommendation appeared was about the importance of care-givers, in which IWKYA does not stint.

2.) Two previous customers stopped by my cafe table to chat.

a.) J, an engineer, (See Adv. 275. “Cheesesteak”) told me he was enjoying it, said he was thinking about a career change, and asked about being a lawyer.

b.) L., unemployed, (See Adv. 277. “Schiz”) told me was enjoying it. “You’ve got some good ideas,” he said, leaving them undisclosed. “Did youy know Carol Doda?”

I’d forgotten I’d mentioned her.

3.) “Lollipop” remains in limbo. Artistic differences with cover-designer seemingly resolved, but editor seems to be prioritizing elsewhere.

ALL BOB’S BOOKS remain available at www.theboblevin.com. An SASE ($2.89, domestic) to POB 9492, will bring you a “Lollipop,” if and when.

Sold one SCHIZ.
The buyer was L, one of the café’s semi-regulars, previously characterized here by denture gaps and chin foliage density. We’d had a couple of non-tease generating conversations in the past, but since I had been between creative projects for over 16-hours, I was open to the diversion. Taking note of the cover, he asked if I had been in San Francisco in the ‘80s. I said, “The ‘70s,” and we settled into a discussion of Melvin Belli, and I gave him a break on the price.

In other news…
1.) Received two SASEs at my POB for copies of the forthcoming LOLLIPOP. One was from a college friend (I think the first from that stage of my life) and one from a lawyer-pal (Ditto.) The latter came with a nice check. “In support of the arts,” he said.
Another friend says he “can’t handle” the SASE business and wants his copy when we see each other next and a former client/friend asked (again) for the price and my address.
2.) For purposes of these “Adventures,” I write as if I sell my books at only one café, but, in truth, there are two. When the first changed hands a few years ago, the new owner, a Francophile from Indonesia, decided to re-do it – to the displeasure of the regular customers – in his idea of a Parisian Belle Epoque boite. One idea was to foster its artistic image by devoting two shelves to books by patrons. Two fellows I know put up two; one fellow I know by sight put up three; so did a fellow I had never heard of. I contributed BEST RIDE. The other morning, I happened to glance at the shelves, and it was GONE. Had one of my fellow scribblers bumped me for shelf space? Had I alone had a secret (cheapskate) reader?
The other café has a Free Bookcase. (Take one; leave one.) During Covid selections have grown scanty. Two Pritikin cookbooks. A 1994 Writers Market. A 20-year=old Best Inns of Northern California. Some crime novels. I donated a coffee-stained copy of EEG and a work by one of my professors at SF State that were there for months and months, despite the paucity of competition.) Tuesday, having learned it had audience appeal, I deposited a BEST RIDE with my web-site identifying card, hoping it would be a loss-leader. It remained Wednesday but by Saturday – my next business day there – it was gone.
I think I will replace it. I am undecided about the filched first one.

BOB’s BOOKS are available at www,theboblevin.com. A copy of LOLLIPOP: a VISTA lawyer in Chicago: Sept. 1967 – Sept, 1968, can be ordered by sending an SASE ($2.89) to POB 9492 Berkeley 94709.

No sales.
No notable conversations.

Gave away two IWKYAs.
One was to the coordinator of the hospital volunteer program, where I Mended Hearts at, because she was so helpful in helping me re-register when I was inept at doing it electronically.
The other went to my new internist, who turned out to be a fan of “Dr. Fleur” too. “You love her?” he said. “I love her too.”
“I’ve learned there are people who don’t like her,” I said.
“There are people who hate her,” he said. “She’s a pistol.”

As for LOLLIPOP…
One envelope has arrived from a basketball buddy, unstamped, but with a check that includes pure profit for the author. One writer pal has offered to buy lunch in exchange for a copy. (A coffee will more than cover it.) One college friend sent an SASE to my POB over a week ago. (I will take his word for it.) A cartoonist says he wants one but somehow he got the idea it is connected to THE PIRATES AND THE MOUSE, so I don’t know.
As for progress, my editor/formatter has shifted his verb from “rolling” to “chugging along,” which sounds like a slowing of speed, but since he’s working primarily for love, I dare not call for peddle-to-metal.

ALL BOB’S BOOKS available from www.theboblevin.com. Forthcoming LOLLIPOPs still available for an SASE ($2.89) to POB 9492, Berkeley 94709.

Sold a Cheesesteak and a Schiz – and a check for Lollipop arrived. (Postage, plus something extra.)
The first sale went to a 30-ish fellow in a “BRASIL” soccer jersey. He was from Eritria, perhaps my opening to that entire continent’s market.
The second went to one of the café’s two surviving (out of four) Greek fisherman-cap- wearing, octogenarian “Irving”s. An MFCC and former jazz trombonist, his standard greeting to me for years has been “Bob! I read your book about Philadelphia,” and my standard reply (depending on the year) has been “Irv! There’s been one (or “two”) (or “three”) since.”
This time he bought. I think Shary Flenniken’s illo sold him.
“Ah! Tension reduction,” he said.

Then there was the conversation with the fellow wearing a bright red sweatshirt with a Christmas tree on it, Nehemia.
“The Shizz,” he said.
“Skizz,” I said. “Hard ‘C.’ Like ‘schizophrenic.’”
“But like a double-entendre,” he said. “Like the kids say. ‘The Shits.’”
“Okay,” I said.
Then he said, “You must know Malcolm Margolis.”
I said I didn’t. But I knew who he was.
Nehemia said he had read The Ohlone Way when he was at Berkeley High and it had changed his life. From there the conversation progressed to living in harmony with nature and a field trip to a fish emulsion factory – No, wait, that was another guy. Nehemia was the one with who the first true native Americans were, red, black, yellow, Viking. “They discovered, buried in the sand, that the ancient Egyptians had ocean-crossing vessels,” he said. “What did they have them for, if they weren’t going to cross oceans?”
I couldn’t answer.

REMEMBER: all books available from www.theboblevin.com and copies of LOLLIPOP still available if you send an SASE ($2.89) to POB 9492 Berkeley 94709. (My cover designer is having pen trouble, but my editor/formatter says — non-specifically but reassuringly — things are “rolling along.”

Sold one Goshkin.
The buyer, a repeat customer for my works, is a mathematician who works most mornings at the café. He congratulated me for having used my pandemic down-time productively, then put things in perspective by pointing out that, during an imposed closure of universities in the 17th century, Newton used his free time to invent calculus. (Fans of Liebnitz may disagree.)

Also received three SASEs for my forthcoming Lollipop – one from a Mended Hearts colleague, one from a regular attendee at the Vanne Bistro readings I host, one from a basketball-centric writer-pal in SF. And a cousin in Arkansas sent me a check for postage, leaving it to me to pony up the envelope.
Additionally, missing the part about it not yet existing, another friend asked me to bring a copy with me to lunch, and the woman who’d asked me – See last “Adventure” – to weigh the book and envelopes, now asked if I had it in a pdf. I did – which raised the question for me, if I was giving the thing away, why I didn’t I just send people that instead of asking for the SASE. What I told myself was (1) I guess I want to honor my “book” by making it a tangible object (or a non-non fungible token to speak in language of the moment) and (2) I wanted the commitment to it from readers of at least two envelopes and postage.

For your personal copy of Lollipop send and SASE ($2.89, domestic) to POB 9492, Berkeley 94709. My other books are available at www.theboblevin.com.