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.
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.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEKg1mF6Nk6PN-YlOLUq10S32fR6yUd_n7xa9pYh7IJnyx7oM485Ryy5lQ7KlvJ-2P09H2l8Jfa4RJBYWMfu0wSbsmgfkVYhKkNy1ixPRXiUCexfWYW1PXKZEcRBawKz4DIUOO/s320/378px-Varney_the_Vampire.gif)
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.