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Saturday, January 18, 2014

Selling My Books on the Streets of Brooklyn 1/18 - Sour & Sweet

R.L. Stone has hundreds of books in print in the children’s and young adult categories. He is the creative force behind the Goosebumps TV series, based on his own works. He has written humor under the moniker Jovial Bob Stine. He has nine other film titles listed at IMDb, two of which are currently in production. His labor has earned him more than $400 million. He has been dubbed the Stephen King of children’s literature. Given this impressive pedigree, I was eager to read The Snowman, which was among a recent batch of donations to the floating book shop. I doubt it is considered one of his best efforts. I was surprised at the darkness of this novel listed as young adult, published by Scholastic Inc., although it is by no means graphic. And the sex never goes beyond necking. Of course, there have been many works of dark content geared to the young that have become classics, such as Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. But those have themes educators love. I doubt The Snowman, strictly a thriller, is taught in any high school. I was also surprised by the unfinished prose. Perhaps Stine rushed through this book. There are many sentences where nouns or adjectives are used twice, for example: “…Ben’s house was five houses away…” I would have written it as “five doors down.“ I suppose it may have been intentional, a bid at being unpretentious. It bothered me, but non-writers, especially the target audience of teenagers, might not notice and likely would not care. The thing that held my interest most was wondering if there would be a supernatural element involved. The story is only okay. There were no real surprises and the outcome is never really in doubt. In length it is a bit more than a novella. On a scale of five, two.

I woke at three AM to another of my vivid dreams. I was back on the trading floor, and Crude Oil and Palladium, which doesn’t do much volume, were both limit up. A scantily clad dark-haired beauty said: “Glad I don’t work here any more.” Oddly, she wasn’t former staff but a classmate of mine, Jean, in a Spanish course at WMU. The dream is not hard to analyze -- although I greatly appreciate my near 25-year tenure at the Exchange, I'm glad I don't work there anymore. And, I suppose, even decades later I regret having never summoned the nerve to ask Jean out. I wonder how her life turned out. During one session, Mr. Semelroth, our instructor, called on her and they shared a brief, simple conversation. When he asked why she phrased something the way she had, she said: “Porque soy estupido.” Mr. Semelroth shook his head forgivingly and said: “No, senorita -- se estupida!” Everyone laughed, including the lovely Jean. If you’ve never studied the language, the error involves the adoption of the masculine rather than the feminine form required from a female. Having grown up speaking Italian, I saw right where Mr. Semelroth, a great guy, was going, and couldn’t wait for the bombshell. I bet it's been done thousands of times through the ages.

I thought I was lucky when the rain ceased and I had an opportunity to set up shop, but I just missed out on a parking spot and waited, in vain, 40 minutes for another to open. Muttering profanities, I headed home. As I approached 23rd Avenue, I noticed the lead spot was vacant. I set up shop in front of HSBC, near 86th Street. I hadn't tried doing business there in more than a year. Even though I sold only one book, I consider it a victory, as it was an Adobe Photo Shop manual in Russian, which I'd been carrying for months and thought I'd never unload. My thanks to the woman who bought it, even though she tortured me by looking through it for five minutes.
Vic's 4th Novel: http://tinyurl.com/bszwlxh
Vic's 3rd Novel: http://tinyurl.com/7e9jty3
Vic's Website: http://members.tripod.com/vic_fortezza/Literature/
Vic's Short Story Collection (Print or Kindle): http://www.tiny.cc/Oycgb
Vic's 2nd Novel: http://tinyurl.com/6b86st6
Vic's 1st Novel: http://tiny.cc/94t5h
Vic's Horror Screenplay on Kindle: http://tinyurl.com/cyckn3
Vic's Rom-Com Screenplay on Kindle: http://tinyurl.com/kny5llp
Vic’s Short Story on Kindle: http://tinyurl.com/k95k3nx

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