New & Notable
← Older posts Newer posts →Suzanne, Martin, David
As I am using the free computers at Cleveland State University, I can’t really complain about micro problems, but the pictures didn’t go up last time so here we go again …
Craig’s List
I have been using Craig’s List (www.craigslist.org) as resource to find good bookstores, offer ride shares, and, when all other possibilities fall through, find a place to stay for the night.
The Cleveland Craig’s List community was especially open to hosting a wayward writer and several people offered up a spare room. I ended up staying with a woman name Julie and her roommates and friends in a suburb of Cleveland called Euclid. She really did the spare room up, even leaving me a fresh bar of soap and little package of tissues beside the bed. The next morning, we drove into Cleveland State University (which you see out the rainy window) where she both works (in the marketing department) and studies (music). She even lent me her password so I could do free Internet in the university computer lab. Though we may differ on certain religious issues (she is a committed Catholic, while I continue my pagan ways and worship many gods from many religions), she is very kind indeed.
Posted in New & Notable, Waystations | Leave a commentSerendipity in Cleveland …
When I was sitting in Marseille calling independent bookstores to try to organize this book tour, the reaction from Cleveland was especially uplifting. Suzanne of Mac’s Backs was enthusiastic and thanked me for calling and made sure we booked a good date together. (As a general rule, all the independent bookstores have been kind on the phone, save for several in Alberta, Canada who made me feel really vulgar for calling and clearly didn’t want anything to do with me.)
With Suzanne’s phone welcome, I imagined Mac’s Backs would be a great time but never guessed it would have been so fateful. Beyond the wonderful store and people at the reading, there were two visitors who knew George and Shakespeare and Company extremely well.
The first fellow of note was a man named Martin, who owns the Barking Spider tavern in Cleveland (where we retired to after the reading for two bottles of Chilean red.) Martin eloped Paris in the 1960s and he and his new wife Nancy had walked into Shakespeare and Company. George, in his typical fashion, offered them a meal, a job and a place to stay. Martin remembers being asked to clean out the basement – a mission most impossible – and cooking soups with George on the third floor.
The second guest was David Burke, a neighbour of George’s in Paris. It should be said that George and his neighbours often don’t get along. After all, George runs a chaotic Bohemian bookstore with people and animals scurrying about at all hours of the day and night, thus disqualifying him from any Serene Neighbour award. David says George was always somewhat gruff and distant with him, which is a side of George’s personality that only people who know him for a while are privileged to see. I’m not sure if David took it as a compliment or not …
Photos: Suzanne at Mac’s Backs, Martin at the Barking Spider, David at the Barking Spider.
Posted in New & Notable, Waystations | Leave a commentThis Ain’t The Rosedale Library
I am discovering there is a correlation between how many friends I have coming to a reading and how anxious I am before that reading. With friends in the audience, I feel slightly more pressure to put on a good show because they have taken time out from their inevitably busy lives to see me. Thus, for the Toronto gig with Sarah and Mike and Harmon and Lisa and Kelly and all the As It Happens people and Kari from HB Fenn and … well, I was absolutely stricken with panic. Thankfully, Charlie, one of the pillars of This Ain’t The Rosedale Library (perhaps the best bookstore in Canada), was kind and welcoming and my friends were, were, my friends, meaning incredibly good and supportive people. So all went well.
After the show, we retired at Ted’s Collision on College for a refreshing beverage and I quickly rediscovered the Canadian drinking pace. (In France, people generally order a ‘demi’ of beer, about 250 ml. My friends in Toronto are more comfortable ordering by the pitcher. Messy messy messy but any evening that involves mad table dancing with my cousin Amanda and Dara from Thunder Bay is an unqualified success. As for those memory holes, blame Harmon.
Pictures: me and the wonderful Sarah Martin; the general chaos of This Ain’t The Rosedale Library; my cousin Amanda and Mike Miner
Posted in New & Notable, Waystations | Leave a commentCharlie
Can you believe this kid? Not only is he dead handsome but he carries himself like a young viscount. In what is a surprise to nobody, Sarah and Xavier are superb parents. This just drives home what I believe: All of my friends should start having many many babies because my friends are good people and their babies will become good people and it is our job to keep the forces of good replenished.
Talking Leaves
Talking Leaves is Buffalo’s oldest independent bookstore and famed in American bookselling circles. It was honour enough to be invited to sign books there, but what turned out to be even more rewarding was getting to know the store manager, Lucy. As a rule, bookstores attract good people and Lucy proves this rule 7 times over. Kind, intelligent, socially active, book loving. And listen to this: we both have red hair and blue eyes, I’m left-handed and she’s ambidextrous, and both of our fathers are guidance counsellors. How wonderfully eerie is that?
