Listen to Jim: http://jimreedbooks.com/mp3/xminusoneequals.mp3

or read on…

It’s time for a half-hour trip into space and Other Times, and I’m ready for takeoff!

Right now, I’m back in the 1950′s—a teenager who longs to be Elsewhere and Elsewhen. But I am a prisoner of Now, a captive of Reality—which means I don’t have a bicycle, can’t yet drive, am unemployed, thus dependent upon the means and whims of parents.

This is long before television enters my life. There is only radio, audio recordings, downtown movies, the written word.

My sole escape this special Sunday afternoon is to leap into the Toynbee Convector, batten the hatches, strap myself in, and engage the Master Controls for a thirty-minute escape into Anywhere Else But Here.

What this means is, I sneak into the only room of the house where sits an AM table radio that isn’t being used or censored by someone else. I stretch out alone on my parents’ twin bed, tune the set to the local NBC outlet and wait for the most daring of all shows, this week’s episode of X MINUS ONE.

Back here in the ’50′s science fiction is not mainstream, nor does it enjoy the approval of grown-ups and the literati. It is actually considered mind-rotting, or at least a waste of time, what with all that speculative ranting about alternate universes and what Might Be instead of What Is. 

This is exactly what makes Sci-Fi exciting and daring in the ’50′s—you aren’t supposed to be indulging it!

Anyhow, X MINUS ONE hits the airwaves and I am ready for launch.

Through the tiny speaker, dulcet announcer Fred Collins delivers the show’s opening words, which go something like this: “Countdown for blastoff… X minus five, four, three, two, X minus one… Fire!” (Big noise of rocket engines and a long whistling sound.). “From the far horizons of the unknown come transcribed tales of new dimensions in time and space. These are stories of the future; adventures in which you’ll live in a million could-be years on a thousand may-be worlds.”

Wow! It doesn’t get any better than this! The announcer continues:

“The National Broadcasting Company, in cooperation with Street and Smith Publications, presents… X Minus One.” (each word echoes down an imagined Space Chamber).

For the next two dozen minutes, I’m Elsewhere, listening to dramatized stories by Philip K. Dick, Ray Bradbury, Robert Heinlein, Robert Sheckley, Isaac Asimov, L. Sprague de Camp and a hundred other authors whose works I follow in paperback novels and pulp magazines.

And right now, I’m the only person in the universe, and these tales are being told just for me.

Through ensuing decades, as life continues beyond X MINUS ONE, I continue to be attracted to this special style of eyes-closed storytelling, and, as you may imagine, I eventually become a follower of THE TWILIGHT ZONE, STAR TREK, THE OUTER LIMITS, NIGHT GALLERY and the like.

These shows give me permission to imagine better things when times are harsh, they  provide a protected place for me to go when I need re-charging and de-brainwashing. And, as time goes on, the only thing better than listening or reading or watching is writing…writing my little tales to entertain myself and anyone else who might be inclined to pay attention.

The only twist I use when relating my own personally-conceived stories is the Anti-Sci-Fi Turnabout: I never write anything that isn’t true, that hasn’t really happened. Because, you see, it occurs to me Elsewhen that life itself is more fantastical than any sci-fi or fantasy story. My life and yours—they are the true sci-fi adventures. The act of not ever making anything up, the process of just looking around and observing,  will reveal beauties and horrors more profound than anything I’ll ever find in the works of these majestic tale-tellers of yore.

I become my own science fiction stories.

And even though X MINUS ONE is nearly past remembrance, I can still entertain myself with my own writings.

My real stories, my real life, are more mind-bending than anything I can manufacture

(c) 2012 A.D. by Jim Reed

jim@jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com

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Listen to Jim: http://jimreedbooks.com/mp3/mybeautifulsantas.mp3   

or read on!

 I was born in 1941, into more beautiful and simple times.

Just three months before the U.S.’s entry into World War Two.

My early childhood was magnificent. Despite all the horrors that were taking place in the world, my parents and family managed to shield me. Despite all the suffering and sacrifice, I was allowed, with my brother Ronny and sister Barbara, to simply be a child.

I’ve never thanked my parents enough for this gift, nor can I ever.

My family, plus my uncles, aunts, cousins, neighbors, grandparents and my village in general, kept me pure and innocent as long as they possibly could.

Maybe that’s what all really good villagers do throughout the world. Good villagers know the secret of whistling past the graveyard, the secret of distracting yourself with simple pleasures and wide-eyed fantasies and lesson-laden folklore.

Anyhow, part of my joyful childhood was spent thinking about Santa Claus and all that he and Mrs. Claus represented. Mother and sister Barbara made sure we boys did not insult Santa by thinking of him as merely someone who brought us lots of undeserved loot each year. They carefully instilled in us the idea that Santa represented how good people could be to each other, given the opportunity. If Santa was to be good to us, we would have to learn to be good to Santa, too.

We respected Santa Claus and wrote him letters, making certain that we did more than ask for goodies. We asked how he was feeling, whether he and Mrs. Claus were weathering their perpetual winter ok, how Donder and Blitzen were getting along. We promised him we would leave lots of milk or hot chocolate and cookies for him, and of course a bowl of raisins for the reindeer. Early on, we knew the importance of frequent snacks when you’re working–or playing–hard.

We even knew what Santa Claus really looked like.

The fact that Santa was a black man and a white man at the same time did not confuse us at all, because we had visual proof.

White Santa looked exactly like Edmund Gwenn, a wonderful old character actor who played Kris Kringle in the movie, “Miracle on 34th Street.” Black Santa looked exactly like a beautiful color painting that appeared alongside Roark Bradford’s story, “How Come Christmas,” in Collier’s Magazine.

“Miracle on 34th Street” changed my life forever. It’s the story of how cynicism is useless in the face of fantasy. It’s the story of how fantasy is the only truth in a child-filled world. Santa lives!

“How Come Christmas” changed my life forever. It’s the story of Santa Claus through the eyes of African American children, who turned out to be exactly like White American children.

The only other Santa Claus-like figure in folklore that we believed in passionately was James Baskett, who played Uncle Remus in Walt Disney’s movie, “Song of the South.” Uncle Remus was every bit as heroic and gentle and child-loving as our White Santa and our Black Santa. We even suspected that all three were the same person.

I can’t think of anybody who exerted more influence in my life–to this very day–than Santa Claus. And I still remember what I discovered in childhood: There are Santas everywhere. They are rare, but they can be sought out and found if you look hard enough.

I guess I’ve spent my entire life looking for and secretly appreciating my Santa Claus heroes. These were people who profoundly believed in the child each of us tries to hide from the world, except when it’s safe. I still have them comfortably nearby, in my stories about them, in little keepsakes, in small reminders of their existence.

You could do worse in life than believe in Santa Claus, the kind of Santa Claus who can pop up anywhere in the world and treat you with kindness and respect. If you go looking for Santa, Santa will be available. Doesn’t matter whether you’re religious, unreligious, antireligious. Doesn’t matter whether you are 95 or five. Santa is right there, waiting to give you a reassuring smile and the gift of attention. Don’t blink and miss him!

(c) 2012 A.D. by Jim Reed

jim@jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com

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Listen to Jim: http://jimreedbooks.com/mp3/ohbygoshbygolly.mp3

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A pleasant young Russian scientist with pretty wife and fussy baby girl in tow, shows up at Reed Books/The Museum of Fond Memories, this pre-Christmas Saturday. The three stare wide-eyed at the array of books. He’s looking for Birmingham souvenirs they can afford. Frank Sinatra’s voice bounces against the books as other browsers drift the isles, ”Oh, by gosh, by golly, it’s time for mistletoe and holly…”

A smelly street guy shows up to purchase a HOBBIT DVD for his buddy, who can’t come to the shop “’cause he’s not allowed to leave the shelter.” He was caught with a cellphone and for some ethereal reason that’s forbidden. He’s being punished for not following the Memo. Mel Torme doesn’t notice, he just goes on about “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire…”

A slender shopper reminds me that she served me breakfast at Dimitri’s one morning and is making good on her promise to visit the store. We chat warmly while an enormous man cruises the isles in a cold sweat, searching for esoterica. Several customers appear escorting visiting family and friends who’ve never before been Downtown. I extoll the wonders of the city while they try to take it all in. The Modern Jazz Quartet dances the musical notes around “England’s Carol,” their version of “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen…”

A merry woman spends much of my time trying to fit as many purchases into a twenty-dollar bill as she possibly can. She finally seems happy with three small leatherbound Shakespeare plays and an enormous encyclopedia volume. She leaves behind several 1940′s pulp-fiction novels and a beat-up Purple Heart display case. Now, candyman Sammy Davis, Jr., is soaring about “Christmastime in the city…”

One departing customer returns to the shop, unable to resist purchasing an old copy of TALES OF UNCLE REMUS by Joel Chandler Harris. Something resonates with her childhood and she has to have it. The Russian couple wants to walk the city, so I send them to their next stops, the Jazz Museum and the Civil Rights Institute. Vince Guaraldi continues interpreting Charlie Brown with his rendition of “Oh Tannenbaum, oh Tannenbaum….”

The day is filled with auld acquaintances materializing, new friends made, adventuresome explorers sated, bookmongers always looking for the next fix, children grabbing stacks of tales for their dad to read aloud, and one man spending two hours to find just the right volume to adopt. Dean Martin trills, “Rudoph, with your nose so bright, won’t you guide mein sleigh tonight…”

And by gosh and by golly, a good day was had by almost all, and isn’t that about as much as you could possibly hope for in this erratic, terror-filled, joy-soaked world? “I’ll be home for Christmas, if only in my dreams…”

(c) 2012 A.D. by Jim Reed

jim@jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com

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Listen to Jim: http://jimreedbooks.com/mp3/spitzjunior.mp3

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Here’s a vivid Christmas memory. Hope it takes you back…

When I was a young one just trying to absorb the fact that I’d never be a Babe Ruth or an Albert Einstein or an Edgar Allan Poe or a Gregory Peck, I received for Christmas, sitting there just beyond reach of the carnival-decorated gaudy fir tree, a SPITZ JUNIOR PLANETARIUM, manufactured by HARMONIC REED CORPORATION OF ROSEMONT, PENNA.

It was a most special Christmas gift.

Just looking at it now, in my mind’s eye, it has remained crystal-clear all these many years: a shiny black flexible-plastic globe bifurcated by a yellow rubber equatorial flange that represents the stellar ecliptic and incidentally holds the two half-spheres together. The black globe sits atop a white plastic observatory-shaped base, and the whole thing can be rotated round and round as well as moved up and down to simulate all the naked-eye observable movements of the stars.

To appreciate the planetarium, you had to take it into a pitch-dark, preferably cube-shaped room and slowly turn up the rheostat just above the off-on switch on the front of the base. If you did it just right and just slowly enough, you would suddenly feel yourself transported to the middle of a darkened field in the middle of the night in the middle of the planet in the middle of the universe because, all around you, there would suddenly appear stars in exactly the same positions, the same configurations, as they would appear if you actually were in the middle of a darkened field in the middle of the night in the middle of…etc.

Even if you couldn’t go outside to see the stars, even if it was cloudy and raining, even if you had just come indoors from the humid sunshine, you could still go into that darkened room and be somewhere else in time and space and feel all alone in a crowd of billions of others whose names you did not know.

One day way back when, my sister Rosi got my SPITZ JUNIOR PLANETARIUM out of storage and presented it to me and I took it home and now I sleep again in the middle of a darkened field in the middle of the night in the middle…

Whenever the demon insomnia causes my eyes to flicker open, I can see the old familiar stars keeping me silent company and reminding me that they will always be there and that any problems that seem gargantuan now are minuscule compared to the distant silent coolness and the close-up noisy fury of those suns upon suns upon suns out there. The mathematics and physics of astronomy escaped me early on, but the sheer personal poetry of the tiny points of light so large and so far away still affects me and still makes me remember what it was like to be a small boy and open an incredible shiny gift that pure and lonely Christmas so many eons ago in Tuscaloosa, Alabama

(c) 2012 A.D. by Jim Reed

jim@jimreedbooks.com

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LISTEN HERE: http://jimreedbooks.com/mp3/themoutsideagitators.mp3 

or READ ON…

So exactly who are those outside agitators we used to mutter about so much Down South and here in the Big City?

Back in the bad ol’ days, it was usually anybody who stirred our emotions by bringing unpopular ideas to town—ideas sometimes contained in carpetbags. These agitators were referred to in the context of being troublemakers…but in the long run, their actions and ideas often gave us hope.

Mainly, those folks were our Avatars—they could say and do things we could never say and do, since we lived here, were rooted here. The agitators were able to do their magic, then get the heck out of Dodge before the criticism started. If we agreed with what they did, we didn’t have to take ownership until it was safe…we could just say, well, it was their idea—don’t look at me!

That was then. This is now.

Anyhow, these days, outside agitators are often toting messages of hope to the town. Their presence isn’t as resented as in the past.

I guess if you have a permanent residence here, you can’t be called an outside agitator.

That means the following are just some of the folks who can be considered outside agitators:

Visitors, layovers, business trippers, vendors, employees who go home to the ‘burbs each night, conventioneers, tourists (both accidental and purposeful), guests, temporary residents, consultants, jurors, events-goers, passers-through, flyovers, fugitives from justice, fugitives from injustice, aliens (documented, undocumented or other-worldly), patients, traveling salespeople, transients, escapees, performers, temps… Who did I leave out?

Most of these outsiders know more about Birmingham than you and I do.

These outsiders (i.e., agitators, strangers, Yankees, interlopers…whatever we decide to call them) are more willing than we are to explore and spend money here, and they don’t know the “bad” things we locals have been taught about the City. They see us fresh, and they teach us much about what is good about Birmingham—when we pay attention.

We in turn can show them us at our best.

They usually go away before we have time to point out our fissures and flaws.

These Others can bring out the best in us and let us see ourselves anew.

They are truly outside agitators, the people who come to town and shake us up and get us all excited and hopeful, then leave before we revert to our old habits and start punishing them for their good deeds

(c) 2012 A.D. by Jim Reed

jim@jimreedbooks.com

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Listen here:  jimbobaggypants.mp3  or read on…

JIMBO BAGGYPANTS SAVES THE DAY

Elmo Riley calls me Jimbo, and I call him Bo. We don’t know why.

Tex Ritter’s next cowboy action film is being previewed on the patched screen of the ratty Ritz Theatre in Downtown Tuscaloosa. Tex is firing both pistols at the bad guys while backing toward his trusty steed. Suddenly, he twists in the air, is astride in a split second, and gallops away to safety. “See it at a theatre near you!” the excited, dulcet voice of the announcer shouts, which is what my pal Bo Riley and I firmly intend to do this time next Saturday. Meanwhile, it’s time to splurge our two nickels for some popcorn and soft drink, before the chapter starts, the chapter being an episode of an extended serial, featuring Batman and his pal, Robin, the Boy Wonder.

While a preview of one of those disgustingly smoochy Barbara Stanwyck romance movies is running, we both run to the shabby concession stand, lay down our coins, grab some grub and rush back to the torn and rickety seats.

Scrunching down in anticipation of unknown horrors and victories to come, we brace ourselves to see whether our heroes will survive diabolical schemes of the villains of the day.

Back then, the Batmobile is just a black Ford, but we don’t know any better. We don’t know about high-tech and million-dollar movie prop design. Low-budget Batman and Robin are all we have. But one thing Batman possesses that surpasses all the low- and high-tech gadgets you could possibly imagine, is…the utility belt! Inside that thick black leather belt is anything you could ever need to escape an impossible situation.

In one tense episode, Batman and Robin are thrown into a jail cell while the criminals make their get-away. The cell is solidly built and the situation seems hopeless. Suddenly, Batman remembers that his utility belt holds the solution to any problem. He whips out a blowtorch, lights it up with a batmatch, and handily cuts the bars, long before anybody dreams up a batlaser or an atomic-ray knife. The day is saved!

We hardly remember the bus ride home, because we are re-playing the serial scenes in our minds—long before instant replay and slo-mo are invented.

Back in the day, small movie fans still play in yards, unaware of the eventual onslaught of videos and television and ipods and texting and a dozen other indoor distractions. The yards are made for play and adventure, and they become whatever we desire—today, simply an outdoor batcave where we can come up with a slew of gadgets like Batman would use.

Taping together some old belt and suspender parts, I dye them black with liquid shoe polish, fashion a bat insignia out of felt, glue it over a buckle, staple some cloth pockets to the inside of the makeshift belt, then look around for emergency tools with which to stuff them.

Let’s see…what would come in handy for Batman? A small pocket knife (who doesn’t need one on hand?), a tiny file (can’t find a blowtorch), nail clippers (might need to snip my way out of a gypsy’s burlap bag), matches (for warming my hands during an arctic escapade), three quarters (could use them to bribe a henchman), two bandages (wound prevention), a small slingshot (silent weapons are always in vogue), four marbles (could throw them behind me while being chased by buffoons who would in all likelihood slip on them), and so on and so forth.

Pretty soon, that utility belt is loaded, my pants are becoming baggy and weighted down, and I’m beginning to lope along like a wounded buffalo. But I’m prepared!

Within minutes, I learn the pitfalls of wearing a utility belt. When under threat, you need to remember exactly where you placed the needed tool…not only that, you have to whip it out before the bad guys can overwhelm you!

It just doesn’t work. You feel like a jerk, asking the desperadoes to hold on while you draw your weapon. You wind up abandoning the project in order to keep your playmates from rolling on the lawn, laughing.

It’s enough to make you retreat back into your solitary books and movies, where you can always find what you need in that utility belt…because fulfilling your fantasy does not require reality.

I can lick any bully on the playground, as long as it happens inside my head. This does become a somewhat effective strategy…the bullies are puzzled because I seem so confident and because they don’t know why  I have that quiet smile on my face—maybe they’re afraid I have a secret plan that might make them laughingstocks. Better leave the dreaming nerd kid alone and go pick on someone who seems afraid and clueless.

Jimbo Baggypants once again saves the day

(c) 2012 A.D. by Jim Reed

jim@jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com

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Listen here: http://www.jimreedbooks.com/mp3/graffitisistine.mp3 or read on…

Good art is what you like that I also like.

Bad art is what you don’t like that I also don’t like.

However…

Bad art is what you like that I don’t like.

Good art is what I like, whether or not you like it.

Bad art is what I don’t like that the critics like, so I go along with it and pretend to like it.

Good art is what the critics don’t like that I like, but I don’t say anything because, you know, the critics must be right and I must have missed something. Who am I to criticize the criticizers?

Good art is what gets you a good grade in art class, no matter how bad it is.

Bad art is what gets you a bad grade in art class, no matter how good it is.

Good art is what I see when I am ready to see it.

Bad art is what may be good but I’m seeing it before I’m ready to see it.

Good art is, I know what I like, and this is it.

 Bad art is, What in the world came over that artist?

Good art is my taste.

Bad art is not my taste.

Bad art is art that can’t possibly be good because that very successful and filthy-rich artist produced it.

Good art is what that starving but passionately suffering artist produced—so it has to be good, you know?

Good art must never be judged objectively. I might discard most of it if I did.

Bad art must never be judged objectively. I might come to appreciate it if I did.

Bad art is necessary, in order to have good art.

Good art is necessary, in order to have bad art.

Bad art is sometimes the most enduring art.

Good art sometimes lasts about as long as ducktail haircuts

 (c) 2012 A.D. by Jim Reed

jim@jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com

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Time to take stock, look forward, look back…at Reed Books and The Museum of Fond Memories and the Library of Thought—all founded in 1980 by owner Jim Reed.

Here is the transcript of a recent interview with Jim: 

Q: Reed Books will soon begin its 33rd year of operation. Looking back, why did you create this business?
A: I had no choice. My previous career stalled out and burned out. It was time to do something good for a change.
 
Q: I sense that you do not consider Reed Books to be a business.
A: You sense correctly. This job is literally a calling for me, as corny as that might sound. I feel I’m providing a public service to the community and to the world at large.
 
Q: How so?
 A: I am rescuing orphans (books and artifacts) from certain perdition, and giving them new life. I adopt them, clean them up, put them in a safe place and house them comfortably until new adoptive parents come along to find and purchase them. Somebody’s got to do it, so it might as well be me. I could have become a priest or an activist or a true believer or an out-of-work actor, but this, it turns out, is what I know how to do best.
 
Q: You must have a lot of energy to spare. I notice that you also write books and columns and stories about your life in Alabama, and that you do some acting, performing and public speaking on the side.
A: I don’t know whether it’s called energy, or just a continuing and compelling need to tell my story, my stories—just in case somebody’s paying attention. All my writings are about my life and the lives of those around me, and my mixed feelings about these lives.
 
Q: Where do these stories show up?
A: I do a column (a “blast”) each week, for anybody who wishes to receive it; I write a blog for fans; I tweet and “facebook” whenever I feel it’s appropriate; magazines and anthologies occasionally print my pieces; I publish a book now and then when it seems the best way to communicate to a particular audience; and I speak to any group of people who will have me, about my excitements—my love of writing and collecting and communicating. That does sound like a lot of activity, doesn’t it?
 
Q: It’s hard to keep up with…so let’s focus on your love of Downtown Birmingham and your simultaneous love of Reed Books and the Museum of Fond Memories. Where does that come from?
 
A: I’m not sure I can answer that question in a traditional way. I write poetic prose because I see things poetically. So, for what it’s worth, here’s the gist of it: I am the center of my Universe. Each of us is the center of a personal Universe. Therefore, Downtown and Southside Birmingham constitute the center of the Universe, because that’s where I spend most of my time. Now, stay with me: In order to survive in my personal Universe, I have to take care of it, nurture it and respect it. I do this because my Universe is Me and I am It. I’m passionate about this Universe and everything that it contains—customers, friends, fellow denizens, the streets and avenues, the traffic, the chaos, the laughable politics of it all. This is my world and it is most entertaining!
 
Q: So you disagree with those who have given up on Birmingham, those who tell us to turn out the lights and leave it to its own fate?
A: Of course I disagree with this. That would be like giving up on yourself, your Universe. I’m disdainful of those who criticize without celebrating the beauty of the city and its people, when we could all be standing together and protecting this gorgeous creation, this Magic City.
 
Q: For someone who has never visited Reed Books, exactly what is it that you sell?
A: We sell memories, and we sell the objects that evoke those memories.

Q: Can you give some examples?
A: When you see our display of elementary school readers, the moment you spot the ones you had as a child, you are transported back in time. For instance, we carry original Dick and Jane (and Sally) readers, Blue Back Spellers, McGuffey Readers, Elson Readers, Landmark series books, Childhood of Famous Americans books, and so on.
 
Q: What about non-school books that grown-up children still love? 
A: Sure! We have original books starring Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys and Trixie Belden and Five Little Peppers and Bobbsey Twins and Boxcar Children and Uncle Wiggily and the Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland and Tom Swift, and on and on and on.
 
Q: I thought those books had disappeared forever.
A: That’s part of the fun of being Reed Books. Everything you thought your Mother had thrown away, we carry! If you believe it’s out of date, it’s here—because I believe that nothing is ever out of date. It’s at the shop, waiting for you to re-discover it.
 
Q: You can’t possibly carry everything that’s no longer popular!
A: Try us! We have new books and old books—some dated as recently as 2012, some dated as far back as 1579. And the beautiful thing is, we’ve been in business for so long that we can obtain any old book that’s not on our shelves at the moment. We know where all the other old-time bookdealers are, and they provide us with loads of goodies. We live in the past and love it!
 
Q: OK, so you really do have every book known to humankind, or you can obtain it by request. But what about all the non-book items in the store? Why do you carry them? 
A: Everything in the store serves as a memory-stimulator, a fantasy-evoker. When you find an old dial telephone, you are immediately reminded of old times and old reading material that surrounded that phone. When you see a Roy Rogers comic book or a photograph of Birmingham’s old train terminal building, you get the urge to go back in time and regain your old teddy bear or your copy of A Child’s Garden of Verses. All these objects serve as time machines, and Reed Books is a safe haven you can use to travel back and forth in time.
 
Q: I understand remembering the past, but you also claim you wax nostalgic about the future. 
A: We have great science fiction and fantasy fiction and adventure fiction, much of which takes place in the future—authors such as Ray Bradbury and Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein and Shirley Jackson will escort you to alternate futures, utopias and dystopias…the kind you read about when you were young. 
 
Q: I think I get it. You’re saying you’ve invented a shop that can take you anywhere your imagination, your memory, allows you to go?
 A: I’ve been tempted to place an arched sign over the doorway that reads, SANCTUARY!
 
Q: Do you consider yourself to be a retiree?
A: Land O’ Goshen! I’m not retired, nor will I ever retire willingly. I’ll keep going till they drag me off to the assisted living center or the morgue. I’m from a workaholic family—my father kept on working, career after career, and I can’t see myself sitting at home and watching daytime television. I haven’t found time to retire. Besides, I have to make a living!
 
 Q: Do you have plans to expand or transform Reed Books and the Museum of Fond Memories?
A: I’m planning a number of exhibits in the future, just to spice things up and gently “educate” folks. The next show begins in April, 2013. We’ll be exhibiting books and papers and magazines published during Birmingham’s year of racial upheaval—1963. It will be both disturbing and inspirational.
 Q: What else is in Reed Books’ future?
A: I’ve always wanted to do a Dead Writers reading and autograph party. Since most of the writers we sell died long ago, they deserve some attention, some noursishment. I keep trying to get in touch with dead authors, but so far I haven’t gotten any replies to my e-mails.

Q: What’s the most exciting item in the store?
A: The latest artifact I acquire is the most exciting one. Each acquisition gives me a new rush and teaches me something I didn’t know.

Q: Why would I want to purchase an old book or a used one, when I can obtain a freshly-printed one at a chain store, or download an electronic version?
A: I actually don’t know why you would want to do that. An early printing of a book has gravitas, its pages have absorbed something of its previous owners, it now possesses character and lovely battle scars. When you hold a used book, you are communicating with the past regrets and future fears of its owners and its author, their joys and sorrows, their lives, for goodness sake. And you’re not really a green advocate, an environmentalist, until you’ve learned to pass your book on to its next readers. Trashing or throwing a book away instead of bequeathing it to a new reader is a sin. Period.

Q: Thanks for your time. May I look around the shop?

A: Spend all the time you wish. You’ll never have enough time to see everything, but the longer you remain, the more you will want to experience.  This syndrome is called booklust

 (c) 2012 A.D. by Jim Reed

jim@jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com

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Listen here: onbeingnoticed.mp3  or read on…

Some of us quiet people are only quiet because we know no-one listens to us.

The fact that we don’t speak up doesn’t mean we have nothing to say, it just means we’ve gotten used to being ignored or marginalized or challenged or disregarded or rebuked or put in our place.

Quiet people choose not to expend their energy on fighting for a voice.

So, why do so many of us quiet people become performers? Why do we shy folk turn to the stage or the open mic or the camera? Why do we become orators, actors, singers?

It’s because it’s the only way to get attention sans interruption.

In grammar school, as a quiet, shy, introverted kid, I was nothing on the playground. I had zero leadership ability, no attack or self-defense mechanisms, no social skills (except politeness), no circle of classmates to rally around me.

All I was was a reader of books, an absorber of fact and fancy, a listener to radio, a movie fan. All my proactive life was lived in my head, out of sight of those who would criticize or compare, out of sight of those who might even sympathize.

Then, one day, everything changed.

I was required to select a poem I liked and recite it before my classmates. Instead of shrinking from the assigned task, I was glad to give it a try. After all, the words I loved to read to myself would suddenly be read aloud to a captive audience, an audience forbidden to interrupt or degrade. Something seemed right about this.

So it began.

I excitedly and dramatically recited Joaquin Miller’s poem about Christopher Columbus and, lo and behold, I got a round of applause. The kids listened. I even received a compliment or two. This was a heady experience. I was henceforth hooked.

Next thing you know, I was reciting the dramatic and tragic poem “The Highwayman” by Alfred Noyes, giving it all I had. And, again, people watched and listened. I was being paid attention to…something that seldom happened at home or on the playground or in class.

So, the cycle has repeated itself throughout the decades. I have the best of two worlds—in one world I get to quietly surround myself with books and artifacts, in the other world I get to act. Now and then I leave my muted, comfortable world and venture out into Performanceland. For instance, trolling through antiquities in an old estate, I get to share my tales and observations with a willing listener who sees me as The Expert…being The Star guest speaker at clubs and conventions and gatherings, I get to be the center of attention while extolling the details of my life, my booklove, my view of the universe…being The Actor, I get to be in a film or on the stage, again the center of attention for a few moments. And the best part of each of these adventures is when I leave the spotlight and hurry back to the serene environs of my shop or my library or my home, where The Quiet is the thing worth listening to. 

The Quiet pays attention to me, and I it.

Talk to other performers and see how many of them share this experience to some degree. We love being Up There in front of you. But we love even more going back to The Quiet to re-charge, to prepare for the next public act

 (c) 2012 A.D. by Jim Reed

jim@jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com

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