It was another gorgeous day in Brooklyn. I put out Stephen King's The Dead Zone for the first time today and a gentleman scooped it right up. I was surprised, given how long it's been around and the fact that there has been a movie and TV show based on it. And the knitting books continue to be popular. I sold another to a Russian lady who looked at me as if I were crazy when I said it was a dollar. And my buddy Alex, a local beat poet, bought Philosophy on the Go, which is more humor than deep thought. Its cover features a philosopher, fully clothed, sitting on the potty. I suspect that Alex wasn't really interested in the book, that he was simply being kind.
A middle aged Russian gentleman stopped by on his bike and handed me two books in his native tongue, which I sold minutes later to an elderly woman. One thing I love about the look of the Russian books is that they forgo a book jacket in favor of a colorful emblazoning on the cover. I imagine it is more cost efficient, but I don't know for sure. Although most book jackets are beautiful, I'm not a fan of them. They are irksome to deal with while reading, and they sometimes get lost, which leaves only the drab cover beneath it. Then again, what really counts is what's between the covers.
Recently, another middle aged gentleman, who lives in my building, asked if I sold Russian books, and offered to give me some. I have a feeling he feels sorry for me. Apparently, he doesn't know I'm independently wealthy. Anyway, he is an ordinary looking, well-mannered man who has a beautiful family, a wife who has an aristocratic, though down-to-earth, look about her, and a daughter who my friend Arlynn described perfectly: "Such grace." She is a mom to teenagers herself now and continues to live on the premises, in another apartment. Whenever I see her I picture the balls in Tolstoy's great novels, War and Peace and Anna Karenina. I imagine her wearing those white gloves that go all the way to the elbow, a glittering necklace around her delicate throat. I hope her husband appreciates what he has. I can't conjure his appearance at all.
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