I had gone to the book bin (which the readership recalls is at the town dump) hoping to score some interesting source material to make my Christmas cards out of, and wondered into a Xanadu-like store of TV Guides.
Again, I had no plan. But I know these things about the book bin:
1 - things don't "keep"
2 - the dump is open only 7 hours one day a week, and I can't always make it there
So I didn't know what I would do with such a catch, but I expected I would think of it later and regret not having gotten them. I chose one box I could lift and carry, inspired by Valerie resting on top of it, and got out of there before anyone noticed.
I would prefer to sell them as a lot, because I don't have a lot of time (and too much obsessive tendency) to try listing each issue on its own. But I do want to get a sense of what the combined value is of what is in there. I haven't even counted them. If my 5th grade math is correct (and there is little evidence of that on most days) there are nine stacks of about 10 issues in that box, though there may be more. Call it 100 for now -- 150 if the stacks are deeper than I am imagining them.
The leading dealer in Guides offers no info on buying my stash. They offer instead, "....send a S.A.S.E., email, or call on the telephone. If there is no answer, leave a message on the answering machine and your call will be returned." Quaint. Bet there are Geos in that house too.
I have made no move yet. File it under my inability to follow-through on things. I once spent a summer pricing and cataloging my comic collection, then couldn't bear to part with them. I know I won't go that far, but if I can find a single buyer (preferably one I don't have mail this giant box to) I will gladly unload it for full profit.
By the way, I didn't find anything for the Christmas cards. I went another way, and was pleased with the outcome. I was tempted to transform the Guides, but I have seen enough Antiques Roadshow to know better.
True Story:
Is there a man who wants pleasure, can't get it, and would like it to come from an image of La Virgen? Oh, probably, best not to know.
Miss Bender knows how you young marrieds operate: with your theme dinners, and chore charts, and your coveted taco nights. She wants you to know, before you get thinking Cozier Than Thou, that single girls have taco night too.
But there I go again, trying to turn my workplace into a John Hughes movie. I've got my 12 taco shells, my full pound of meat, my painstakingly diced toppings... how many tacos can a person eat, anyway? In my prime (and by that, I mean 6th grade, when there were 3 other people to split the taco box) I could take 6. Or maybe that was just a personal best one night. Or maybe it was just a fantasy... I don't really remember anymore. Nowadays, it's really 2. I want 3, but that's a mistake. Like onion rings.
And isn't that too much trouble for 2 tacos? I would have to eat tacos 6 days in a row. Please do not suggest going out for tacos. I live in New England. If I find a decent Mexican (or even generic Latino Norte) restaurant, I am ordering the mole. Here's a recipe requiring 25 ingredients and 8 hours of work.
Fish tacos? Please. I like fish, and I like tacos. I am not going to mix them. This goes double for
Thai Chicken pizza
Tomato Smoothie
Cucumber Soup "Nothing says summer like cold cucumber soup." Yuh-hunh... "Mango-rita" does pretty well.
The video is for Jen. It never fails to make her laugh.
Life lessons learned from homelessness.
More updates later. Thanks to everyone who has checked in. All is well here, and the weather is working in favor of our pipes.
I spend more time in Michael's art supply than you might expect. When I lived in the city, I could go to the art school neighborhood stores, like Pearl, Mass Art, Charette and affect that air of disaffected artist, sizing up the Exacto knives as if I knew what I was looking for.
But 2 aisles over, where the doll parts are {{shuddderrr}}, the shoppers are apple-shaped, wear their glasses on a chain, beige sneakers, and Alfred Dunner pants.
The men in Michael's are very interesting. They cluster in woodworking/dollhouse furniture, sometimes in paints and canvas. There are always a few with a wife in the "current holiday" area or in artificial plant material, and they never seem cranky about it. I imagine they built the shadow boxes for the family angel collection. The men together are in wedding favors and ribbons. That's not a slur. You go to a Michael's and tell me I am wrong.
This story requires some deep background, which may not enhance the telling of it, but without it, I don't know that you'll follow where I was going.In 1959, a real-life Sharks and Jets rivalry went wrong, and at 16, Salvador Argon became the youngest New Yorker sentenced to execution. He was known as The Capeman. The facts of his case are not the background you need, but if you want it, go here.
40 years later, and 10 years ago, Paul Simon -- master of the high concept album -- wrote a Broadway musical called The Capeman, using the street-singing doo-wop style of the 50's barrio (see also Richie Valens). The production did not succeed. Most criticism had to do with painting Argon as the hero of the story and a martyr ... for what cause, no one could really figure.
The New York Times said, "In the segment in which Argon, shortly after his arrest for the murders, notoriously proclaimed that his mother could watch him burn, he registers as a terrifying amalgam of confusion and contempt, an inchoate force of raw energy groping for defiant style. " [bonus points for using amalgam and inchoate in the same sentence] But critic Ben Brantley also says, "....these songs have a contemplative, sensuous elegance all their own and remain a pleasure to listen to. "
As an album, Songs From the Capeman is infectious. It clearly follows a narrative, plays like a "rock opera," and is musically interesting in places where musicals rarely are anymore. As sung by Ruben Blades and Marc Anthony, what's not to like? Rolling Stone said, "The sociopolitical aspects of the case occasionally lead Simon and Walcott to overreach in their lyrics, especially given the musical setting – The politics of prison are a mirror of the street/The poor endure oppression, the police control the State is a far cry from I just met a girl named Maria." Word.
In that way we loved Graceland, even when we are not always sure what we are talking about (If you'll be my bodyguard, I will be your long lost pal...) because we hadn't heard anything like it before, and because the lyrics made you want to listen and the beats wouldn't let you stop anyway.
But The Capeman is still about gangs, and racism, and murder, and juvenile delinquents with no hope of rehabilitation, told in the sweet campfire folk-voice of the little man in the turtleneck goin' to Scarborough Fair.
And that's what you've got to understand about this story I am telling.
So I am in Barnes & Noble. And I recognize that what is playing overhead is "Adios Hermanos," a musically beautiful song that just happens to be about Argon's arrest and ride to the big house. It is not a family sing-along, and you probably shouldn't use it to encourage holiday shopping. We sale through the line about "the blancos and the n---r gangs," and no one in the store throws a brick. Paul Simon sings, so sweetly, "time for some f---n law and order. The electric chair, for the greasy pair..." And the shoppers continue to peruse the coffee table books.
Adios Hermanos feeds right into "I was Born in Puerto Rico," which is the 2nd song on this album. I know because I own it. And because I own it, I know that by Track 5, when we meet The Vampire gang, there is the chorus "Fuckin Puerto Rican mongrel punks..."
I think there must be an intervention.
And this is how you wake up to the fact that you are middle-aged and loose on the world -- about one bifocal-chain short of a church-lady, because you decide someone should really change the music. That you will see about getting that done. That none of that horrifies you.
I take my chances that the B&N music section is responsible for this, and I was right. File that for your future reference. You have to walk through metal detectors to get back there (keeps out the walkers and the artificial hips) and this smooth-faced young seasonal-crew says "what can I help you with?"
And I say (very friendly because I am here to help YOU, good citizen worker/valueless kids of today with no sense of time and place), "You know this album that's playing" (point at the ceiling. really wish I hadn't done that.) and I name it, because I am so hip I can sing along, "The Capeman?"
He says, presenting the product close at hand next to the register, "Actually, it's this new album," (which I now discover writing this, is not so new, but would make a lovely gift for a Paul Simon fan).
"So it's not the whole album? Because I was going to recommend that it isn't exactly appropriate to play in a store." I said that. I really truly did. But not bitchy -- notice my use of modifiers and the word 'recommendation.'
[I picture here Fox-25's Mike Beaudet in a stand-up: "What caused this riot at a local booksellers?"]
Salesman says, with a sort of a laugh...I guess... "Oh no, it's just this." (yes, only the words I won't spell out on my blog because I don't want to match the kind of people who search for them...)
He's right - Adios Hermanos is the last track of the 2nd CD, but the album gets no "explicit lyrics" sticker. You'll want to keep this in mind when you have your stereo on shuffle during dinner with the in-laws, or the neighborhood watch meeting.
I have done my duty. I can now turn my attention to dog curbing, spitting, and litter, to keep this world a safer place.
Welcome to December. 
