The new sign "we are no longer accepting book donations" is
now hanging on the front door and at the desk of Logos. The first step in
the lame duck days of Logos.
Sandy and I discussed how many more work days we have to go
before it's over. Very sad.
She had a slow morning and ultimately I had a slow
afternoon, though not as slow as her morning had been. I went to get
the book I had confidently put on the shelf with a bookmark in it last week,
certain that nobody was going to buy a slim volume about Congo, but it was
gone so, anticipating a slow afternoon, I broke my self-imposed rule about
not reading Kindle books at Logos, I pulled out my Kindle and by the end of
the afternoon had finished Alan Cumming's "You Gotta Get Bigger Dreams."
It was nearly 3 before my first customer bought anything.
It was a young woman resplendent in denim with long black hair. She
hunkered down and was looking at books on alternative medicine and
ultimately bought a book on holistic health.
I noticed that we have a new artist on display. Since
the display is scheduled for October-January, I assume this our last
display. This artist is Jeffrey Granett, whose wife Sandy sells
greetings cards through Logos. Granett's show is called "A Day in the
Life of r Death and Ms Sis" and is about two creature who "make their living
collecting bi-peds (yum)...and then play with the tools and toys the
departed bi-peds left behind" You an see the monster gathering bipeds
into a bucket to be eaten later. Despite the rather grisly topic, the
paintings are whimsical and they cover all the walls of the store.
A woman came in looking for a book by Jack London but did
not find one.
A woman looking through the foreign language section asked
if she could put some books on hold. I told her no. She told me
a lot, I think about wanting to get these books for her husband, but the
combination of her accent and soft voice and my hearing problems, I didn't
get most of it.
An older gentleman wanted to know if we had any ancient maps
We didn't, of course, but he browsed anyway and bought two bargain books and
a book about Hemmingway. He was shocked to learn about the store's closing.
Bruce came in and bought "The Painted Bird" by Jerzy
Kosinski. We had a nice chat -- our first, I think -- about Kosinski
and his books and I checked Wikipedia for him to confirm that the author had
committed suicide. "He committed suicide on May 3, 1991, by ingesting a
lethal amount of alcohol and drugs and wrapping a plastic bag around his
head, suffocating to death. His suicide note read: "I am going to put myself
to sleep now for a bit longer than usual. Call it Eternity."
A woman in cream colored slacks and a dark brown and maroon
top which somehow seemed too heavy for the slacks bought a book on Bonsai.
Two Latinas spent a long time wandering around the store.
Ultimately one of them bought "Gilgamesh, a book of scary stories and a book
on mythology. Her friend bought four contemporary fiction books totaling
$36.35, the largest sale of the day.
A man with shoulder length snow white hair under a baseball
cap, looking like an old hippie, looked around for a long time and didn't
buy anything, but waved a cheery "thank you" to me when he left."
Another older man bought a history book and was also shocked
to hear of the impending closing of Logos.
My friend arrived at 4:15 and bought a book of Japanese art.
He hadn't heard about the store closing either and was sad but said it would
be "one less stop" he would make on his Thursdays in town.
Two girls looked at the literature section for awhile and
then one approached me with four books in her hands. "Have you read anything
by John Steinbeck?" she asked, wanting my opinion about which of the books
she should buy. Since Steinbeck is one of my favorites and I have read
most of his books, some more than once, and visited the Steinbeck museum, I
had lots to share with her. She ultimately bought "The Portable
Steinbeck" an anthology, and a copy of "The Pearl." She was happy to
hear that there is a Steinbeck museum. She is in the area often and
will look for it. She has already visited Cannery Row, disappointed to find
that all of the buildings have turned into tourist shops.
The Antiquarian came back and bought two old history books.
He paid by credit card and I found that his name is Joseph, and his last
name seems to be six letters with no vowels! Around his neck this time
he had a collectible dime set in gold. It was not as petty as the pendant he
wore last week.
A
guy with a broken finger came in looking for Doonesbury books. The
broken finger was the middle one and so he is spending his recovery time
giving the bird to everyone! But in looking for some information on
Doonesbury on Amazon, I discovered a couple of books I wish we had to look
through. This is one of them. Gary Trudeau's 30 years of Trump
cartoons.
A guy who sounded Nigerian (I have spent a lot of time with
a guy with a Nigerian accent), wearing a pink aloha shirt and a straw had
came in looking for Koko Coffee House, which he days is in the university
campus. I pointed him in the direction of the University.
Both Walt and Peter were a little bit late, but not much.
We had an evening of heavy TV watching ahead of us because
there are so many "to be watched" things recorded. Mostly we needed to
watch last week's Blacklist before last night's episode aired.
Whew. We made it
No comments:
Post a Comment