only one thing at a time

I am at work today, awaiting the onslaught of my last friday in New Zealand for a while. We keep having incredibly strange people come into the shop. People like....

Jerk Number 1: "What do you mean you don't have a technical manual for stage management?"

Jerk Number 2: "This book was written by my son. I was wondering why you don't have a big pile on your table? It's had reviews in the Guardian, the Listener, the Observer... ou should be making an effort to sell it." (It's a paperback on French rugby. Have you thought there might be some relation between your son writing one of the world's most perishable books and your very long distance relationship with reality as it exists for most?)

I felt REALLY sorry for Jony when an old man insisted on asking him how book distribution and publishing works in New Zealand. We love our job, but it brings us in contact with some bizarre thoughts pouring out of assured but deluded people.

Jesus, I leave after the weekend.

Book picks of the day:
1. The Penguin Deluxe version of 'The Portable Dorothy Parker'. Dorothy Parker, with illustrations be SETH ("It's a Good Life If You don't Weaken", look it up).
2. 'The Bad Girl' by Mario Vargas Llosa. His new novel. Read his old ones. The new one has this great bit about how the narrator is in love with a girl who is beautiful and a great dancer, but she's Chilean and "everyone knows about the morality of Chilean girls." Ha.
3. 'Design Like You Give a Damn'. Sustainable architecture for the masses! Yes.
4. 'Best American Comics 2007' edited by Chris Ware. Definatley good reading. Includes not only a part of Art Spiegelman's on-going autobiography but a Gilbert Hernandez comic about a giant-mammoried heart-breaker with a lisp named Fritz.


see you tonight?