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

http://www.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

 Twitter and Facebook

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

 Twitter and Facebook

LISTEN TO JIM:  http://jimreedbooks.com/mp3/riseofthedrinkmachines.mp3 

OR READ ON…

Regarding the disregarded is my job as a writer, my task as a teller of stories.

It’s easy to notice the obvious, and there are plenty of other folks whose job that is.

But paying attention to the invisible, looking between the cracks, examining the interstices, walking backward in a forward-motion crowd, even describing things so obvious that they’ve become obscure…that’s my job.

1. The looming electronic soft-drink machine flashes its message: EXACT CHANGE ONLY. Only, what the exact change should be is not posted, leaving the caffeine addict no choice but to pour money in until something—or nothing—happens.

2.  The parking meter asks for quarters, but nothing happens when a quarter is inserted, leaving the visitor no choice but to pour more quarters in, just in case this magically fixes the problem.

3.  The flashing yellow light at a busy intersection totally confounds most motorists. Does yellow mean stop, does it mean speed up, does it act as a four-way stop, does the other driver know the same set of rules that you know? Most of us simply look both ways, make a wish and take the Acceleration of Faith, hoping that irresistible objects don’t suddenly meet and mess with the laws of physics. Either way, the light never stops communicating its uncommunicative message: YELLOWFLASH YELLOWFLASH YELLOWFLASH

4.  The elevator light doesn’t come on when you punch it, leaving you no choice to punch it again and again, just in case it didn’t get the message the first time. Then, another pedestrian arrives and starts punching, too. The elevator disregards us all and operates exactly as it is designed to. It’s the elevator’s world, we just live in it. And obey.

5.  The fast-food clerk has done her job so many times, she no longer feels the need to speak. Her economy of movement dictates that she simply sit there staring at me, slightly raising an eyebrow as if to say, “Come on, speak up. I don’t have all day.” I am amused and decide to play the game. I stare silently at her and raise an eyebrow, too. She doesn’t respond. Finally, I say, “Welcome to MacDonald’s, may I take your order, please?” She snaps out of her contempt, acts confused, then decides to take my order. She never knew what hit her.

6.  The city employees I most admire are the trash and garbage collectors. They do their jobs like clockwork, exposing themselves to every manner of germ and fragrance and dangerous object, come rain, drought, storm or darkness. They cannot possibly be paid enough, and certainly should make more than city leaders…about as much as surgeons. The only thing I have to do as a citizen is obey their rules, which are sometimes obscure. I obey because I don’t want them to fail to pick up my detritus.

7.  The city’s signage programs are useless because graffiti artists and taggers have obliterated virtually every signal that should be visible. Walls and fences are filled with their symbols. I feel sorry for them and have no respect for their misguided efforts—their work would indeed be deemed ART if it weren’t for the fact that said work is basically vandalism, destruction of property, trespassing, and sometimes ugly. They produce art without permission of the property-owners. While they are occupied doing their best—and worst—at 3 a.m. in the abandoned city, I would like to enter their abodes and spray-paint everything they cherish with images of my own design. Would they like coming home at sunrise to find caricatures of Billy Graham and Pee Wee Herman and Police Chief  Roper covering all they see? Just an idea.

Regarding the disregardable is a gift and a curse. Disregarding the all-too-obvious is next best. Forgetting the unforgettable, always remembering the forgettable…that’s what we writers do. I hope we have your sympathy…even if we don’t, we still have one shared secret that keeps us going:

This kind of life is sooo entertaining.

Get yourself a pencil and you can live it, too

 (c) 2012 A.D. by Jim Reed

jim@jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com

 Twitter and Facebook 

Listen to Jim’s comments here: http://jimreedbooks.com/mp3/differencebetweentexting.mp3 

or read on…

The medium is the message, according to both Marshall McLuhan and Sherlock Holmes.

When McLuhan says this, he’s giving us a cautionary thought: Don’t be seduced by the tools you use to communicate an idea. Pay attention to the medium of transmission.

The question is, if you publish a thought twenty different ways, does it become twenty different thoughts?

Sherlock Holmes noticed everything about him—and he knew how a medium transforms an idea:
“…I offered to typewrite (some letters), but he wouldn’t
have that, for he said that when I wrote them (by hand) they seemed
to come from me, but when they were typewritten
he always felt that the machine had come between us.”

                           –From “A Case of Identity” by Arthur Conan Doyle

Here’s how to verify what I am trying to impart:

Take one of your  favorite anecdotes and tell it in twenty different media, each time conforming to the rules of the medium used:

1. Pencil on legal pad  2. Fingers on manual typewriter  3. Chisel on granite  4. Crayon on butcher paper  5. Ballpoint pen on sticky note  6. Voice on recording  7. Sermon from pulpit 8. Locker room anecdote  9. Tale around a campfire  10. Sign language  11. Scrabble tiles 12. Three words a day till it’s all told  13. Keyboard to desktop  14. Text message  15. A single Tweet  16. Blog column  17. Thirty-second verbal report  18. Message in bottle 19.  Time capsule  20. Morse Code

What happens each time you switch media? Does the tale get longer, shorter, faster, slower…does the vocabulary change…does editing occur…does rambling increase or decrease…does the story improve or get funnier or sadder…do you enjoy the tale each time or begin to see meanings and ideas you hadn’t noticed before?  And so on and so forth.

Now, take the same story and tell it to different audiences. How does it change when you conform to the mores and structures of each group? Rotary Club meeting, snickering behind the barn, strangers crossing the street, family gathering, kindergarten storytime, fancy restaurant by candlelight, pillow talk, your imaginary playmate, woman in a nursing home, customer, pollwatcher, panhandler. And so on and so forth.

McLuhan also says the medium is the massage, not just the message. The message transforms the tale, and the alert storyteller utilizes the medium to massage its meaning.

There, I’ve just shown you how to make one tale into twenty that are all alike and all different at the same time. Who else has taken the time to show you this? You can thank me later.

It doesn’t take a Sherlock Holmes to solve the mystery of the twenty identical totally different tales. It just takes you, the teller of tales

 (c) 2012 A.D. by Jim Reed

jim@jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com

 Twitter and Facebook 

Listen to Jim’s comments here: http://jimreedbooks.com/mp3/writersofwordschaotically.mp3

or read on…

There are workshops and conferences and gatherings and meetings where writers and wanna-be writers cluster to find The Secret. Big groups, small groups, tiny groups…all converge to learn something new about the mystery of being a writer.

But a startlingly easy way to energize yourself as a writer is to accidentally happen upon synergy, in the form of an unconscious conflagration of inspired artists who want to write write write.

This just happened at Reed Books/The Museum of Fond Memories.

They walked the hot asphalt streets of Birmingham for blocks and blocks, a mass of disparate personalities and cultures and ages and ethnicities, heading toward Mecca—the bookstore at the center of the universe.

The door opens to the shop, the chime starts chiming, and the unhuddled masses begin filing in, maybe twenty in all. They fill the space. They in no way resemble the majority of young patrons who usually visit us. The difference is palpable.

This amalgam of students, seventh through twelfth grades, is a joyfully seething mixture of authors and poets, diary-keepers and maintainers of notes…and they have one thing in common. Even the most sophisticated among them are excited to be surrounded by books and magazines and newspapers and postcards and letters and documents and sayings and ephemera.

They are ramped up by the sight of the written word, enthused by the spoken word, inspired by the sung word, motivated by the dramatized word.

These students of the Alabama School of Fine Arts are here because they want to be, even though they are led by creative writing teacher Stuart Flynn. Even though the bossman is present, the students want to be here! and the proof is in their joy, the proof is in the fact that they use their own money to purchase books when many their age would be investing in another snack or pair of shoes or one more concert. They are actually buying books!

Their youth and energy rev up the customers and the aged bookdealer, who takes pleasure in finding obscure titles they seek, in bantering with the more extroverted among them, in conversing with the quieter ones, in listening to their exclamations and comments and chatter. Two seventh graders are everywhere at once, asking, probing, absorbing and asking more, and one eleventh-grader comments with a grin, “Oh, they are such children, aren’t they?” She’s observing and making mental notes, as do all writers I’ve ever met. We can’t help documenting the world around us.

What would my bookie life be like if all the customers were this enthused?

Well, I’d be happy and worn-out at the end of the day…but that’s what going home to a quiet life and fondling a good book is for.

We bookies are such children, aren’t we

 (c) 2012 A.D. by Jim Reed

jim@jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com

 Twitter and Facebook 

Listen to Jim’s comments here: http://jimreedbooks.com/mp3/gqtips.mp3 

or read on…

If you don’t much care about fashion, it should be easy to take personal-appearance tips from the editor of GQ (Geezer Quarterly) Magazine.

I am that editor.

FASHION TIPS FOR GUYS:

If you’re going to primp, do it once a day, preferably right before you let anybody else see you. It looks vain to keep checking your hair all day, so just do it right one time and forget about it. If you’re Clint Eastwood, you can get away with having a fluffy cowlick all day, because you’re Clint Eastwood. It doesn’t matter whether the rest of us walk around all day with cowlicks, simply because nobody notices.

Throw away all your socks and get a dozen pair in just one color, maybe black. That way, you don’t have to waste time finding matching partners, and black goes with everything. If you’re a geezer, people expect you to wear black socks. By the way, the same goes for underpants. Buy black ones and they’ll never look dirty.

If you don’t want your copious gut to call attention to itself, wear a black (there’s that color again!) t-shirt or a Book-‘Em-Danno shirt. Book-‘Em-Danno shirts are so colorful and distracting that nobody will focus on your flab. Besides, it’s kind of OK to be chunky when you’re wearing a Book-‘Em-Danno shirt.

The no-iron rule: select all casual clothes based on whether they have to be pressed after washing. Ironing is a waste of time and, like I said, after a certain age, everybody expects you to be wrinkled, but nobody expects your clothes to be wrinkle-free. Beware of friends and acquaintances who have their blue jeans washed, starched and ironed. There’s something a little bit wrong there.

Never, never do a comb-over…unless you go all the way. The only person who does his all the way is Donald Trump, and he only gets away with it because he’s rich and famous. Try to do your own Trump-over and see how many foxy gold-diggers hang out with you. Comb-overs have the same effect on people as toupees and hair club do-overs. Everybody notices them. And the best un-kept secret about toupees is: If you wear one, that’s all anybody will remember about you. Period.

Exceptions to the toupee rule: Give actors and performers a pass on their toupees. It’s how they make their living. They have to look suave to get jobs. Just enjoy how good-looking they are and let the snarky remarks slide.

All day each day, avoid looking at yourself in mirrors. It will only demoralize you. Nothing more disturbing than seeing the reflection of some old guy and suddenly realizing it’s you. Best to cherish how you appeared in high school—sans acne, of course.

Each pocket you add to your shirt ages you another decade. One pocket is useful, two pockets are overkill—you might as well wear a protector. The coolest thing to do is wear shirts without pockets, since pockets only encourage you to stuff things into them, thus bulking you up even more. 

On the other hand, make sure you utilize all the pockets in your trousers. Keep everything in them for easy access…and don’t ever carry a belt pouch (it looks like a snake that just swallowed something really huge). This allows you to keep both hands free, swinging loose and easy. Pretend you’re Clint Eastwood, loping along, looking purposeful and intense. Would Clint carry a back pack or brief case or pouch?

Don’t get me started about shoes. I learned early on that the only shoes worth wearing are the ones that fit comfortably from the first moment you put them on. If they hurt in the store, they’re never going to stop.      

Don’t wear trousers unless your pockets contain a set of keys, IDs, money.  This prevents hours of lost time searching for the above. Don’t put them down anywhere, ever!

Had enough of this for one sitting?

Why not absorb today’s GQ tips and see whether they work for you.

And stay tuned for more geezer wisdom as it occurs. Or recurs 

(c) 2012 A.D. by Jim Reed

jim@jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com

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Listen to Jim’s column here:  http://jimreedbooks.com/mp3/scapinggoats.mp3

or read on…

In the second sentence of his latest business column, billionaire Steve Forbes loses his way with this observation, “…but the overall direction is heading toward catastrophe.”

Whaa-?

It’s not really bothersome to hear some yokel make such a gaff, but wouldn’t you think Forbes could afford a copy editor to protect him from embarrassment? Maybe his proofers and staffers are afraid to face him with grammar.

Or maybe I’m wrong—perhaps a direction could head toward something. Can a direction lose its direction?

In the same piece, Forbes says, “…governments are doing exactly what their forebearers did in the 1930’s…”

Really? Forebearers? Maybe Forbes was confusing the word forebearers with the four litter-bearers rich guys like him use to get from place to place. Maybe he forgot the fairy tale about the forebears and Goldilocks. Or did I lose count?

Where are the editors? My secret hunch is that Forbes’ staff is playing a passive-aggressive game: let the old man make a fool of himself instead of asking our opinion.  The emperor forebade criticism and see where it got him?

I’ll bet you four bades that things will not go well at the editorial meeting next week. Someone’s goat will be scaped for sure

(c) 2012 A.D. by Jim Reed

jim@jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com

 Twitter and Facebook