Ugh, I just read some kid's sophomore novel, and it's not very good, and I have to find a way to tell the kid, or the kid's editor. You know how writers use cop language when they're trying to sound grown up and authoritative? E.g., "Two months prior, I had relocated to San Diego." That's this book all over. Dull language propelling a dull plot. What a waste of everyone's time, and too late to rewrite.



I know that if I ever wrote a book, and it was as fun as this kid's first book was, I would slack my ass off on my second book, and maybe even use it as a platform for some of my sourest notions of how the world works, hoping that my Big Idea would drive the book so I wouldn't have to be super-careful on the language, especially since this would be the first book I ever wrote on deadline. I'd bang it out, get it in, and maybe get a bunch of help on it later like I did with my first book, though I won't. For this reason I am glad that I had an extremely fascinating social life when I was as young as this kid, and had really no notion of making myself into an artist or making statements to the world through anything but my clothing and music choices. Of course, I thought of myself as daring and political. The things I said and thought then, I believed. Now I know a lot of what I believed were transitional beliefs, things you have to think at some point in your life in order to be a well-rounded and tolerant person later on.

I read a couple things from my old life yesterday that are pissing me off. One is a short review of a book I helped someone work on that dings the book for exactly the reasons I dinged it over and over and it never would change. The writer just wasn't made that way. It's still a very interesting book. Oh well. The other is a story on urban "tribes" that I think is a little bit specious. It's in the latest issue of Readymade, and I probably should buy it anyway because the article is about weddings and I have to keep up on that now. Basically the story is about a couple who plan a hip wedding and their friends pitch in and help. This group is defined as a kind of "tribe." But I don't buy the argument that hip people who hang out with other hip people while it's fun to do so constitute a "tribe" as distinct from a "group of friends." I think tribalhood is only tested when there's an economic or duty component -- when group members are doing more than mutually amusing themselves. I dunno. I would see a group of moms who share babysitting as more of a tribe, because they're doing something of mutual benefit that involves a little hardship and tedium and not much payoff in amusement, except as each others' kids are amusing. They manage politics and call on one another to work for the good of the group. What else does a tribe involve that differentiates it from a clique or gang? A mix of ages and interests, maybe. Members who have important relationships outside the group. Like, I don't think "Friends" showed a tribe. It showed a group of close friends at a time in their lives when their social bonds naturally formed with others like them -- not with their parents anymore, not yet with a wife or husband or kids.



I am not putting down the idea of groups of friends. They're awesome.

One of my last freelance projects is proofing a catalog for an upscale retailer, cross-checking SKUs and dimensions. My shallowest first thought is that it blows my mind people can spend multiple thousands of dollars on a dining room set. But of course the people who do so usually have much better-looking dining rooms than I do and have people over more often. We have only ever hosted one person in our place who wasn't blood-related to us, aside from workmen and representatives of the management company. A couple guys came in to fix the windows one time (we hadn't complained, I don't care if I have to prop a window open with a board) and I was shambling behind them in my robe apologizing for the mound of crap in front of one window. "Don't worry," one of the men said, "we live like this."



But the deeper thought, the thought that makes this proofing work compelling in the least, and it's not that deep, is how important and wonderful catalogs are. I can picture two or three clothing catalogs, like the very first Tweeds catalog, or the Esprit catalogs from the early 1980s, that I wore out from reading and re-reading. They'd end up in the bathroom all curled up and I'd still read them when I was in there. Before that I remember the Lillian Vernon catalogs at Grandma's, the Horchow Collection and L.L. Bean, worlds of stuff described. That's the key, that there's an image and a description and you assemble the two. Not to quote Roland Barthes but his book "The Fashion System" talks about this, the idea that there is the "thing-pictured" and the "thing-described" and together they make this image that's more or less artificial when compared with actual things. As we found out when we got our first box from Tweeds and it was just...clothes. But these clothes maintained a totemic importance that caused me to keep one platter-collared blouse, barely worn, for five years. I always pictured the seaside scene with blowing skirt and straw hat that made me buy the platter-collared blouse.



Once I went to the museum with a friend and realized he did the same thing as me: reading the wall labels for longer than you look at the art.

Another eight-hour day. I had to "do the board" this morning. It's a whiteboard we set out in front that has quotes and info from this day in literary history. If I'd thought ahead one second I'd have done some real research the night before. As it was, I cribbed from a Literary Book of Days that listed:



Bertrand Russell's birth (1872?)

Mikhail Bakunin's birth (??)

Patrick Dennis' birth (1920?)

and the fact that on the day in 1593, an arrest was sworn out for Christopher Marlowe on a false charge of heresy.



The usual board guy makes this fantastically detailed board with illustrations. I was not up to that, but I think I used the space well, working with the graphic elements at my command. For instance, the fact about Christopher Marlowe was written on the shape of a scroll. I got all paranoid about my handwriting because I've always been impressed by the handwriting of people in record stores. Mine is a little lumpier but it does slant forward cheerfully.

Yesterday I worked an eight-hour day at the bookstore. I haven't worked an eight-hour day in at least a year -- it's always been, like, either 2 or 12 hours. I had to leave the building to make calls, which was also weird. The strangest thing was, at one point, I saw that I probably wasn't needed for a while, I thought, naturally, why not just leave? Which reminded me of how hard it was, a long time ago, to even conceive of doing that. My first job was hourly, and it was important to be there, lumbering around the stockroom or whatever, looking busy. You get in the habit of killing time. So when you're actually able to get out of the office, when you're being "measured by results" or whatever, you haven't got the will to take advantage of that and say, I'm done, I'm leaving. Obviously, you can't just walk out of a retail establishment, so I didn't. That was weird too. I took a break in the back room and I felt like I was taking off a Mickey Mouse head.



Some great customers came in late in the afternoon, a small family from Princeton. Out-of-towners find this bookstore and go hog-wild. They wanted suggestions and gave me some books they liked. At first they were doing a bunch of mystery writers I didn't know. Then the guy said, "And I liked 'Geek Love.'" Oh yeah! And then he liked "Confederacy of Dunces," and Redmond O'Hanlon. I hope I set him up with some books he'll like as much, though I can't remember now what they were besides Carl Hiassen. Everything was under $6 anyway. The gal wanted books by Latin American writers (Jorge Amado) and Indian writers. Neat people. The tough thing was finding books they'd like that we have on the shelves. Like, I really wanted to suggest:



"Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter," Mario Vargas Llosa

"The Contortionist's Handbook," Craig Clevenger

"I Capture the Castle," Dodie Smith

"Rogue Male," Geoffrey Household

"His Master's Voice," Stanislaw Lem



My usual suspects, but it seemed like they would work. I should read more new books, honestly. For all I'm around them lately, anyway. Maybe when I start my real new job I will read even less!