3 for you and me

Yesterday B went shopping for his family for Christmas. I was along to advise, but in a bookstore it is difficult to simply observe and comment. We were in Williamsburg so we went to Spoonbill & Sugartown and Book Thug Nation. While S&S carries the nonfiction and eye candy that would fill my shelves if book money grew in shower mildew, BTN is a used bookstore after my own heart.

But, I sure do miss Clovis. It was somehow less serious than BTN and had more comics and zines than Unnameable. I would always forget about it, but then there it would be, holding down that corner spot on Bedford quietly being the one place I really liked to go in the neighborhood. Until the day it wasn't, of course.

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I did buy myself a book last night from the book thugs--Jules Verne's Paris in the Twentieth Century. I heard about it on Amy H. Sturgis's superb column A Look Back at Genre History on Starship Sofa 164.

I love these segments for Sturgis's taste in history lessons and her hypnotic voice. She injects new life into tired genres (vampires for instance) by focusing on examples that I might actually be into. She certainly sold me on the unfortunately-named Varney the Vampire or the Feast of Blood, a penny dreadful available on all the best out-of-copyright sites on the web. Turns out I had an excerpt of it in an old Penguin anthology at my parents house.

Oh, old-timey horror, you're the best for hiding in the bathroom with!

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I just ate several carrots, rinsed and skinned and cool to the tongue. The crunch was a sweet bit of escape from my nasty cold. I doubt I'll be doing any reading today but at least the food will be good.