48: Slow News Day

This is one of those extremes on my entertainment road. A nice quiet tale--city girl moves to the country, is underwhelmed but in a shocking twist eventually begins to cherish it. And a guy.

This is one of my favorite authors (and illustrator for it is indeed the example of a graphic novel), but I just can't read him any old time. Most of the time I gotta escape...something, I don't know what and stopping to think or even to end this sentence is just the sort of thing that would allow it catch up to me. Sometimes though, I enjoy the quiet and solid tale attempting to furnish me with real emotional responses. Sometimes. (ahh, that's a hack ending but I got no other)

47: Assignment Angelina

Oh this is one of those exposes, right? All about some wayward wild child without any good upbringing doing that which she shouldn't. Plus, in addition to the lack of parenting, she's got that genetic deformity. Crazy eyes! She looks like Lizzy Caplan (one of the stars of Party Down--please, only hipsters in the know comprehend that) sent back in time to ruin the good intentions of whatever the factual counterparts to the Mad Men cast were.
Some sort of hussy Terminator...which could star Lizzy Caplan! Ooh, now it's all a great big circle and my logic is complete! Sleep? What sleep? I remember Thursday, sure. All my thoughts now equal the direction of thought intended to be most direct in action, you understand? Fine, I'll take a nap.

46: I've got to Talk to Somebody, God

Not entirely sure that Marjorie here didn't intend for her name to be part of the title. Just from this cover, doesn't Marjorie seem like the sort of person crying about their loneliness to a multitude of friends.

Marjorie: I've got to have somebody to talk to...God. You know things have just been really hard for me lately, what with my hip which you probably don't even know about since we haven't talked much lately. Not blaming you dear; you're very busy I'm sure. Still...

God: Now I'm really glad you wanted to catch up, but I've got this thing in like five minutes in Peru where...

Marjorie:...it all started during that recent bout of ice we had the other day. Steven, that's the Williams' boy from down the street, is supposed to clear my lanes for me during every bad bit of weather, but he just didn't get around to it that day. Hurrumph, he won't be seeing nickel one for that chore til my hip stops aching, I'll tell you that. Though you have to admire him accomplishing even that little that he has, what with all the drama under that roof...

God: Look! It's my only begotten son, Jesus. He'll want to hear all about that, bye Marjorie.

Jesus: Why hello...

Marjorie: Now why didn't I see you the other day at church. Weren't moping about the beach again were you?

Jesus: No, no, I was carrying this guy during a crisis of...

Marjorie: Anyway, I'd expect you'll be wanting to hear all about the Williams indelicate goings on as well, but first Miss Simpkins would just keel right on over if I didn't...

This really could go on forever, butI...I shall be the salvation this time and end it. Oh yeah.

45: The Ninth National Congress of the Communist Party of China (Documents)

Nothing about the book, but more so about people today. Within the bounds of one of my classes today, quite engrossed in not paying attention I was pulled away from inactivity by an emphatic "I don't like rednecks." Scenario: this is said in a rural town a couple hundred miles or so from a metropolitan complex. Again, this is farm country; the town in question is aggressively surrounded by corn. The speaker, a younger female, is thick (probably the corn) in ragged clothing in a way which, combined with the college class, suggests choice if not motivation. The teacher herself is by her own casual conversational testimony a farmer. The atmosphere apart form comment is country friendly, alright.

Next, another student not two minutes later describes that his (walking) path to Walmart at one time included crossing a pig farm. A pig farm. In town. On his way to Walmart. No comment escapes anyone else.

Fine...we're not a talkative bunch at the moment. Yet, not five minutes more multiple people in the class admit--without any admitted connection to the prior comments--that they've participated in the redneck fishing event "round these parts."

Suddenly I'm all proud of my relatively urban background. I've heard of irony and they haven't. I like feeling superior.

An update...

Well, it's been week since I experimented with abandoning three books in various locations about town all with a note directing comments via email to me. No luck. They were all picked up quickly, but not a word. Oh well. In two of the cases I suspected older people in on a grab, but one of them was at a college. That one, at least, I anticipated a greater probability for. Not giving up...just going to think about it some more. I want a response so I'll probably try dropping them in the tech friendliest places I can find...in a farming/rural town...so college again.

44: The Bunnies

This one's a treasure. There's the gorgeously pulpy pilot drawing washed with single tone. There's the full color shot of a lady, bra only in defense of nudity, through a salacious keyhole. She's even black as a surprise; book is from 65; you just don't find black women as objects of white lust without the book turning on a racial premise. This one is just a straightforward adventure where the lady per book just happens to be black. Neat. The hero calls her his chocolate bunny, thus the title.

Then, oh my god there's a wet fountain of homoerotic going on all over the back blurb. My man Peter Trees has got those itchy fingers, you know. Not only is he a pilot, he's also a shiny missile whose eruptions affect women and nations alike. Oh shiny missile man...you're going to melt your chocolate bunny you know.

43: Another old magazine #3

Just the last of these before getting back to books. This from a 1981 car magazine--corvettes are cool! I feel like no more than dust in the wind. Ugh, I should be able to do better than that, but cars just ain't my forte.

This was also won for the sum total of a penny delivered from a different seller from the last.

42: Another old magazine #2

From 2006, a magazine dedicated to the fine and ancient art of hunting with sticks that are thrown ever so quickly. Here's a better view as to the value of magazines. Only 5 years out of date with whatever technological advances that may have occurred in bow hunting and this old issue was bought for the sum total (including delivery) of one cent on Ebay. That's a game I like to play with the world. Just how much can I get for a mere penny delivered. Turns out...a lot, like over 170 discrete items won a lot. People are kinda not good at figuring out the value of things.

Sure, you know what the guy was thinking. At subscription rate, this issue cost him something around $1.66 (according to card inside). Now five years later the information is still valid; caribou and deer have failed to adapt to our bowhunting strategies in the meanwhile. This lack of understanding cost him $2.41 in postage for a penny earned and not really even that minus the fees inherent. Magazines are just worthless in a connected world.

41: An old magazine #1

There's nothing better to make you feel like an intellectual giant than to read old magazines. Take this 1969 sports mag...Tony Conigliaro's comeback? Yeah, like that's going to work, what were you thinking 1969? Foolish past, don't you know that I know you already?

Why do you even still exist magazine...though at least you give me nostalgia that has some weight to it. What little does a similar sports magazine of the this very week give me? The happenings of a few days past--not even long enough to cause that fun spark of "oh yeah, that existed" but only "yeah, I remember that when it mattered." In this case, I spent $4 for that spark

40: Killing Yourself to Live

Now I've had the opportunity to meet all sorts of authors. The kind I tend to read especially. But I made no greater fool of myself than the time I forced my company on Chuck Klosterman. At a sales convention (for books), I was headed towards my room when I see no other than Klosterman attempting entry into his own room. As would be expected, I essentially rape his personal space forcing myself into an impromptu discussion of his oldest book at the time he was promoting his first entry into fiction--about which I admitted to him that I had not read nor purchased.

This trainwreck continued as he continued to try and unlock the door only to admit defeat and suggest that he had the wrong room. At the very least he escaped despite my dreams...he was supposed to recognize that I wasn't like the other fans. I'm a little unique sunflower that would totally buy him a drink just to espouse like on ideas for hours. Nope he rejected and escaped.

It didn't matter. The next day, during the conference proper, I still forced a book into his hands at a chance encounter demanding/asking for the signature bit. He obliged and walked away. Now, a few years later what I have left is a reminder of how awkward I was to him and a dream deferred in misery/eliminated.

39: Spiced (a third attempt at giving away books in what I call subtle, but that others would only call awkward)

Okay, this is the last one for a while. I want to see if anyone will actually respond to my requests for comments before I try some other tact to force people to react to books. Anyway, this one I left in the town square on a bench. There were what are the typical assortment of society in a small town's square in the middle of the day...you know--the elderly, the infirm (mentally?), the got too much sociology on the brain college student. I think it was one of the elderly who took it.

I think I may have actually tried to read this one only to become bored at another's attempt at cooking.

38: The Little Book (the second in an attempt to awkwardly donate books to the public)

This was my second attempt at leaving a book in a public place and seeing if people would take the book and whether they would be willing to contact me about the experience. This time I left the book in a well traveled stairwell at the local college I attend before my morning class. As I did yesterday, I included a note that whoever found the book should feel free to take it and, if they were willing, to email me with their thoughts. Directly after the class period, I checked and the book was gone. We'll see...

This is another book that I had received for free from a former job in what was a former life that I have never read. Sure I'm a sucker for a little genre-rific take on time travel (as cover blurb suggests)...but the cover itself just wants so hard to be taken seriously. Like an oily salesman with an honest to goodness deal for once in his miserable life, perhaps the cover is relevant to a literary masterpiece of science fiction worthy of escape and high intellect simultaneously...I doubt you both, cover and salesman, and defy you by name before the pulpit. Anyway, I would never actually read it so I can only gain from this.

37: The Film Club

Here's an advance copy of a book apparently planning to be released in 2008...and from the future I tell you things! Okay...no more of that. So, I like the idea of messing with people's heads--those little expectations of how life and our surroundings are supposed to be. If I were to toss little variables into someone's way, how will they react?

So I took this unwanted, unread book that I was never going to read or allow anyone else to read (under normal circumstances)and tossed it on the sidewalk in front of my house with a little note saying that it was free, please take...and if the taker was so inclined that they should feel free to email me with their observations on the book itself or just the odd manner by which they found it. Within 10 minutes (while typing this very sentence I stopped to check) the book was gone.

36: The Road

Here's a quick review of the book only based on the cover and random unsourced and unverified information.

35: Baron Sinister

Hot pink lipstick woman clinging to a secret agent in the very moment of converting his gun to silent death mode...of course the best way to catch tail is to work directly for the President. Nowhere in any advice rag will any woman find the helpful hint to avoid men who have "foes," but they should. Just simple English, if this guy is his deadliest foe then somewhere else are less skilled foes all looking for ways to harm the obviously simpering womenfolk hugging the great spy's heels. Hmm, something about this cover makes me want to tell a woman what she wants for dinner.

34: The Pork-choppers (and that's exactly how it's printed on the cover)

The best part, and by best I mean outrageous since books are silly weird relics of the past lingering on in an increasingly tech world anyway, is the blurb above the cover.

"He was the president of a powerful labor union--but he could lose it all with one blast of an assassin's rifle!"

The kinda sorta supposition here is that only someone like a powerful labor boss *snort of laughter* faces real loss from bullets entering them. Can poor people lose what they do not have...with one blast of an assassin's rifle? Can the somewhat powerful vice-president of a labor organization lose from an assassin's rifle?

33: 1001 Home Hints

Why of course I expect some assortment of 1001 tips for around the home from this books, whoever would I not? Inside though, no numbering of tips...just chapters. There's not 1001 of those either. And there are only 494 pages of actual text inside so you're supposed to assume a a smidge over 2 tips per page? On the title page there IS a mention of over 1750 pictures. Leaving alone the fact that that this publisher decided to put that fact on the title page rather than on the back or any other normal advertising area, this leaves each picture as showing LESS than a tip each. That's just confusing.

Basically, Southwater Books here knew I needed a dollar. Instead of giving me a nice logical form of a dollar--like a bill--they threw a fistful of pennies at my face and promised me that there were 100 of them. "Oh feel free to count them when you get home," they said laughing. Why you laughing Southwater Books, either I'm amusing or you just ripped me off. Instead I laugh at you foolish print publisher in this millennium--I didn't pay for your book! It was given to me and I won't even appreciate or let anyone else do so either. Never gonna give it away or open it up again. Ha! Victory to me, Southwater Books!

32: Glister, Vol 1.

Now a haiku about this book.

This should be funny
but it's only a haiku
no room for details.

Damn, ran out of time...but I came off clever, right? That's all I need in my life right now--to not be perceived as clever.

31: Where She Went

Apparently Where She Went is the sequel to If I Stay which obviously she did not. I'm no more clever than that today.