Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Ye Olde Partners Page

*A Collection of Antiquarian Curios & Relics*
"A small and sinister snow seems to be coming down relentlessly at present.  The radio says
it is eventually going to be sleet and rain, but I don't think so; I think it is just going
to go on and on, coming down, until the whole world . . . etc.  It has that look . . ."
                                   --E. Gorey, Floating Worlds (9780764959479) 35.00


ICE STATION GIRAFFE
 
  It is so cold.  Using metaphors and similes, I could go into a long winded description of just how cold it really is, but I just don't have the energy to even try.  Suffice it to say, it is cold.  For over six months, I have been trapped at this U.S. Navy listening post near Whitefish Point in a little igloo-like building.  The food has run out, but I have learned to fish, and for water, I melt snow.  There's certainly plenty of that lying around.  Also, the fuel oil for the furnace is running low, so I've dialed down the furnace to about 40 degrees.  But that's still absolutely balmy.
  Who am I listening for?  Or to?  The Chinese I suppose.  Maybe the Russians.  I'm not sure why either one would covet this arctic wasteland that was once known as America.  After 'The Big Mistake of '15', the Earth's axis tilted and we've been subjected to an ice age to end all ice ages.  I heard it had something to do with the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland.  I could be wrong tho'.
  Since the radio stopped working, my only companions have been a cache of books that I found in the storage room.  Books make good company.  I just finished The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History (9780805092998) 28.00 by Elizabeth Kolbert, in which she posits that Manunkind will be responsible for the greatest extinction of life on our planet.  In the last half billion years, there have been five mass extinctions, but they were child's play compared to the one we've begun.


  Hang on.  I hear somebody banging on the door.  It could be the rescue submarine.  But more likely it's the Chinese saboteurs who tore down my radio antenna.  I grab my rifle.  Of course the banging stops as soon as I get to the airtight door.  Weird.  It's like they can see me somehow.
  Back to the books.  I'm not sure if it's coincidence or maybe irony, but someone left behind a copy of Disney's Frozen Big Golden Book (9780736430654) 9.99.  I think the Snow Queen Elsa would be right at home here.  My favorite book in this icy prison has been Jenny Lawson's Let's Pretend This Never Happened (9780425261019) 16.00.  I've probably re-read it at least ten times now.  She makes me laugh and not much else does these days.  I especially like to linger on the sections about her childhood days in Texas.  Her particulars on the oppressive heat in her rural home was downright delicious.

 

  Wait!  There's that damn pounding on the door again!  That's it, I'm done. I snatch my pistol from the table, run toward the door, and nearly trip over my still unread copy of Herman Melville's Moby Dick (9780553213119) 4.95.  I fling the door open; there's a gust of wind, and every inch of exposed skin stings with cold.  No one's there.  There are no tracks.  They must be hiding.  But they aren't getting away this time.  I run out into the whiteness.  I run and I run until the cold embraces me securely like a soft mother's hug.  Finally, winded, I lay down to rest. 

     

Odds & Sods

Mazel tov!  Robert Kopman and Bil Yanok, the people who brought you the 30 Minute Seder (9780979125607) 6.95 have returned with the 60 Minute Seder (9780979125676) 10.95. The Seder is a traditional Jewish Passover dinner in which the Haggadah is read by the attendees before the meal.  Which reminds me, Jonathan Foer's New American Haggadah (9780316069878) 10.95 will soon be available in a snappy new trade edition . . .

  

Marissa Meyer stopped in yesterday and signed all three of her titles in the Lunar Chronicles, including Cinder (9781250007209) 9.99, Scarlet (9781250007216) 9.99, and the latest one, Cress (9780312642976) 18.99.

First come, first served.   

  

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