February 2008 Archives

 

The house was quiet, just as you'd expect it to be at 5AM, when my husband and I were awakened by a popping noise.  Not the loud crack of a gun, but a medium intensity sound followed by a sort of tinkling of glass or something.  My first thought was that a light bulb had blown, and little shards of glass and filament had rained down to the floor.  My husband thought it was more likely that someone had crossed our fifty acres and shot (he allowed for accidentally) through the house.  How men can leap to such conclusions is beyond me, but there you have it.  Or you don't have it, because no bullet hole could be found, despite his searching with enough lights to illuminate an E.R. 

 

A much more profound coincidence to me is that my week had already been full of conversations about aneurisms and popping arteries, a potpourri of early demise tales that invariably ended with "at least they didn't suffer."  A dear friend who had just turned 50 lay down on the sofa and never got up again.  A 38 year-old died in the night while his wife and four young children slept innocently on.  A prominent doctor passed away just as suddenly, leaving friends and family with more questions than answers.  Yet another friend, much luckier, experienced a tiny stroke that left no long-term effects except a greater zeal for living.  She called it her "wake-up call," a chance to renew an all-too-often-neglected path toward creativity.  The stroke became a blessing to her, the impetus to put the talent, specifically the voice God had given her, to good use.  And she has, with vigor.  For this friend, a miniscule pop in the brain was a beginning rather than an end. 

 

I drifted back to sleep while my husband continued searching for the source of the mysterious popping noise, but woke up for a second time when he exclaimed, "The damn devil battery!"  Three days earlier, he had pocketed a dead battery, one of those rectangular ones we used to call transistor batteries. (Where have all the transistor radios gone, btw?)  Before he had a chance to throw it out, he heard a medium-loud pop that startled him, followed by a second one a few seconds later.  Then his pants pocket heated up rapidly, causing him to fling the not-so-dead-after-all battery to the ground.  It appeared to have suffered some kind of incident of its own, and battery innards were erupting from its two pronged head.  Fascinated, my husband spent the rest of the afternoon rubbing pennies against fresh batteries, trying unsuccessfully to duplicate the event.  But it was this popping sound - three days later - that he recognized in the wee hours of the morning. He was like a proud papa tracking down an infant's cry as he brought "Devil Battery" to my bedside, showing me where it had erupted again, spraying more grey matter to the floor. 

 

Now there are varying opinions about what to do with Devil Battery.  Hubby wants to either throw it to the middle of the pond to protect the family from imminent spontaneous combustion, or else sue the battery manufacturer for psychological trauma.  I'm thinking it may have greater cosmic significance, like my friend's mini-stroke.  I should start writing again, I keep telling myself.  Not because it will change the world, but because it changes my world.  And no, I'm not really so vain as to think God is speaking to me through Devil Battery, but it's as good a prompt as any to resurrect my notes and abandoned projects and make writing a more regular part of my routine.  (Notice I'm not committing to any specific schedule.)

 

Until my husband confiscates it for purposes of national security, I'm keeping Devil Battery on my writing desk as an odd talisman. And as a reminder of what wake-up calls are all about. 

 

J.R. Moeringer's TENDER BAR was the non-fiction read for one of the FoxTale book clubs a couple of months ago.  If you've read it, "Do you mind if I say ____________?"  (insert $3 word of your choice) probably became part of your lexicon for a while too.  I said it so often around my house, my family was answering "Do you mind if I say 'shut your pie hole'?"  Now, as I'm finishing Rick Bragg's latest, PRINCE OF FROGTOWN, I'm living a little bit of his world.  The alcoholic father, dog fights, all-week drunks -- none of which I have experience in, mind you.  But that's what good writing does:  it transforms you, makes you feel that person's life.  It puts you in that moment and reminds you of something familiar, or else takes you someplace you'd never otherwise experience.  Now I realize this is not a profound thought, but it's a meaningful point, I think.  Reading is validation, giving you the comfort of knowing there are plenty of families out there that are weirder than your own.  How can you read RUNNING WITH SCISSORS, for instance, without the relief that comes from knowing your childhood can't hold a dysfunctional candle to Augustine Burroughs'?    And if your dad, drunk on cheap whiskey, entered the family pet in a dog fight against a more formidable contestant (warning:  it doesn't end well for the family pooch), wouldn't you want to know somebody like Rick Bragg lived through the same thing you did?  And turned out well despite it all?  Rick Bragg speaks to me.  I think I could read his grocery lists and be moved to tears.  But writing like PRINCE OF FROGTOWN and ALL OVER BUT THE SHOUTING and AVA'S MAN, and TENDER BAR --  The words get under my skin, and they'll get under yours.  How could they not?  Do you mind if I say "incontrivertibly?"     

My twin DOES love to be in control, so I'll let her have little fun until D WIGHT steps in.  But, Dwight often carries his desk around in the back of a pickup and it may be a bit chilly for him to work on this problem today.  Yesterday and today I've done nothing but snuggle in these dreary February days with a plethora of books since this is my off weekend.  I read a memoir that I picked up at the ABA conference that disappointed me (mental note to toss), began The Expected One, The Big Box Swindle, and Undiscovered Country.  I perked up when reading Diane Ackerman's Cultivating Delight.  If you haven't read Diane Ackerman rush to FoxTale's online store and buy one.  Anything.  Her writing is as juicy as the first Georgia peach in June.  Savor every morsel.  Here's an example:

"Wonder is a bulky emotion; when it fills the heart and mind there's little room for anything else." 

Ponder on that for awhile.

Her descriptions of nature are vivid and velvety.

dazzling yellow forsythia startle in spring by bringing clouds of gold to an overcast world.

pandemonium of green

moments sealed in a glass paperweight

evening drops a grey screen over the air

thick green veil

countless birds audition for the jobs

the lavender garden is a den of thieves

a curvaceous moon

I could go on and on breathing sighs of delight... gourmet food for the soul.

Instead, I'll amuse myself with naming the titles of the books strewn around like promises.

Storycatcher by Christina Baldwin

Simple Days:  A Journal of What Really Matters by Marlene Schiwy

Trail of Crumbs by Kim Sunee

All Over but the Shoutin' by Rick Bragg because I always keep it close at hand

Girls In Trucks by Katie Crouch

The Year the Lights Came On by Terry Kay

The Girl with No Shadow by Joanne Harris (sequel to Chocolat)

If You Want to Write by Brenda Ueland (THE classic writing book)

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (enthusiastically recommended by two of our customers)

Ten Discoveries that Rewrote History by Patrick Hunt

Women Who Run With Wolves by Clarissa Pinola Estes (another if you're female and don't have that, don't even wait!)

Belong to Me by Marisa de los Santos (she wrote the wonderful novel Love Walked In)

The Feminine Face of God by Sherry Anderson

Balzac and Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie (the cover is one of my all time favorites) 

Notes from Myself by Anne Hazard

Roseflower Creek by JL Miles (she'll be in the shoppe next Saturday!)

Novel Destinations:  Literary Landmarks from Jane Austen's Bath to Ernest Hemingways' Key West by Shannon Schmidt and Joni Rendon.  (coming out in May, I love this one.  The Jane Austen info is worth the price of the book. period.)

I could go on but you get the general idea now of what my little reading kingdom looks like along with a variety of journals, Lamy fountain pens with purple ink, cups of tea, chocolates, and a calico cat.  A gorgeous fat calico cat, my faithful companion and friend named Lexi.

Just listing all these books makes me hungry again.  So off to peruse, learn, lose myself and swoon.

karen

I secretly like it that (for right now) everything posted on this site has my name on it.  hee hee.  Karen has to put all this "NOT Ellen's Blog" on her entries and dress them with a designer background just to show her unique distinction from the practical twin.  Let's keep it this way a while, Dwight, just to "stir the puddin'."  My off day wasn't all daffodills blooming in the sunlight like Karen's.  Just sludgy and dreary, and when I stepped out of the car my three dogs came running up, shaking their smelly skunkedness in my general direction.  BUT, Karen and I did get out for a belated birthday lunch.  We've found a new place in Woodstock that is Delicioso.  That's cajun for OMG.  GG's Creole Cafe is on Hwy. 92 just before you get to Trickum Rd. (when you're headed toward Roswell).  The owner, Gigi, moved here after Katrina.  She is the most loveable little woman EVER, and you'll just want to squeeze her when you meet her.  But, even more importantly, her food is to die for.  Currently, I've sampled:  catfish (lightly breaded, not battered), gumbo, beans & rice, pecan pie and sweet potato pie.  The best I've eaten.  On Fridays, she makes crawfish pies that you "sop up with french bread."  Can't wait.  Gigi has written a cookbook, too, and when it comes out (hopefully April) she'll be in the store signing copies and handing out some of her specialties.  But don't wait until then to try it out. 

As for books, I just finished The Soul Thief, by Charles Baxter.  He's the author of Feast of Love.  Some of you may have seen the movie with Greg Kinnear and Morgan Freeman?  Karen and Jackie and I went to see that one during a particularly trying time, and the movie added to our angst, to put it mildly. But I digress.  Baxter is, quite simply, one of the most creative writers I've ever read.  Sometimes you shake your head and go, "huh?" but his use of the language is magnificent.  He makes up words as he goes along, like the police officer who "copsauntered to the car."   I love his descriptions:  "Michael is a trickster, a wily pipsqueak shape-shifter."  "Sometimes the telephone can look like an instrument of studied malevolence." A screaming child on an airplane is "in the full flower of his own hysteria, red as a turnip and loud as a megaphone . . . an infant Pavarotte bellowing up to the third balcony."  And his characters do and say the most inexplicable things.  For instance, the main character encounters a burglar in his apartment -- a burglar who complains loudly about the lack of bounty worth stealing there -- so he, Nathaniel, fixes the burglar dinner and lets him spend the night.  He continues to have a relationship with the burglar and various other people who abuse him in hilarious ways. The book reminded me a little of the script of the "Orchid Thief" movie (with Nicholaus Cage) with its circuitous twisted logic.  If any of you read "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues" back in the 70s, you'll appreciate this one.  And if you haven't read Feast of Love, start there. 

Next on the list: Prince of Frogtown by Rick Bragg.  Get ready for this one (to be published in May) by reading All Over But the Shoutin' and Ava's Man.  You will not be sorry!  If you want to hear someone GUSH, just ask Karen what she thinks of Bragg.  We will absolutely have to tie her up if we manage to get him in the store for a book signing.   

 

 

 

Finally I had time to figure out how to do this blog.  It's ridiculously simple but I can manage to make even the easiest things to do with computers a big deal.  I'm off today and it just happens to be my birthday.  This is the twins birthday week.  My twin, of course, is Ellen.  We are twins born to different mothers.  Two days apart, same year.  One year we drove our friend Lynn crazy because we celebrated our birthdays the entire year, everywhere we went. That was the Tybee Island year, ah those memories are wonderbar. 

I had a long list of things I might want to do today since it is novel to have a day to do whatever I want, but now that the time is here I find I enjoy sitting at home with my books around me, my journal and favorite fountain pen, looking out the window at the birds and squirrels frolicking around my newly blooming daffodils, or buttercups as we used to call them.  I have been anxiously watching the daffodils, afraid this would be the year they wouldn't bloom but they did just in time, as always.  When we lived in Utah, I sorely missed the early Georgia springs, no daffodils there until - horrors - MAY!  But I would call home, and the graceful yellow ladies were faithfully fulfilling my birthday wishes in spite of my absence.  Have I told you yet that I'm never moving out of the South again NO MATTER WHAT?!

I have quite a long list of books that I am anxious to read.  One of the perils (?) of being a bookseller is that there are a plethora of tomes right at my fingertips, but less time to read than ever before.  By the time I get to my beloved book that has waited all day for me to pluck it up and devour the words, my eyes get h e a v y.  The other peril is that it's like being at a  banquet, so many books, so I nibble here, there, everywhere without ever completing one...Yet, I AM hooked on Andre Dubus forthcoming novel, he is a master of taking a seemingly innocent act and making a kaliedoscope of inescapable consequences, and pulling that scarlet thread of tension that keeps you turning pages as fast as you can.  And that's what I'm off to do right now, hook up with Andre.

Let me know what ya'll are reading out there, and next time I'll give you my list of favorites and wanna reads.

Cheers!

karen aka pchy

 

 

 

OMG!  Our long-awaited blog is here!  Here's hoping I have something worthwhile to say on it, and that the pages don't remain as empty as my journal has since opening the bookstore.  But no pressure, right?  Just write what's on my mind. . . . Hmmmmm.  On my mind today is Andre Dubus, the third, who Karen and I had the pleasure to meet In Louisville last month at a book convention.  We devoured his first book, House of Sand and Fog, and that was reason enough to love him.  But you just have to meet him in person to get the full effect.  Andre has the coolest head of hair ever, and he's just so personable and sweet and approachable.  And he kissed Karen and me, even though he was admittedly kissing all the women, but still I think we had a moment there. And he was all "I'd love to come to your bookstore," even though he's not even scheduled to come to Atlanta ever.  But what's the harm in encouraging a couple of old (Karen, not me!) broads anyway?  Now I'm reading his not-yet-published The Garden of Last Days, and feeling a little guilty because I should be reading stuff that's out now, and this one doesn't hit the stores until June, but I Just. Could. Not. Wait.  It's good, too.  Longer that House of S&F, edgier too, if you can imagine that.  Andre (I think I can call him by his first name since our moment) has this style that is all about the convergence of random events, and he just has you holding your breath and flipping ahead in the book to make sure things turn out alright.  But you're afraid that they won't, like in H of S&F.  And that doesn't give anything away, for those of you who haven't read Sand & Fog.  (You need to come get it right away if you haven't yet read it.  BEFORE you see the movie.) 

BTW, I also read Susan Gregg Gilmore's Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen which was feel-good marvelous.  This author will be at the store this Sunday, Feb. 17th.  (Please excuse the shameless promotion, but it's true.)   Lee Smith blurbed this one, and Gilmore's been compared to Fannie Flagg, but she reminded me more of Olive Burns (Cold Sassy Tree), an oldie, but one of my favorite southern novels.  Karen and I are trying to see if we can coordinate getting some Dairy Queen dilly bars for the signing, because that's what the main character's always eating.  Potentially melting ice cream around all those books is giving us pause, but you know we like a creative challenge.  It'll be a fun event at any rate (more shameless promotion) so come on by at 1:00 Sunday!

Thanks, Dwight, for our wonderful blog and updated webpage!  If anybody wants a terrific webguy, I'll hook you up.   

 

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