latest trip to Barnes and Noble. a buzzing place. I used to think hail to thee blithe little bookstores, but the romance of them has paled. I would just as soon see a mongo selection than a cat sleeping on the counter. liking cats tho I do. selection, price and coffee, woohoo. there were signs of Christmas, with giftie stuff in plain view. and a major rearrangement had occurred. I couldn't tell at 1st if the piped in music was faceless Christmas music or faceless regular music. I guess it was the latter. I went in with a vague hankering and didn't know where to look. if John Hodgman had a new book out, bingo! but I didn't see such a thing. I made my dutiful trip to the poetry section. came close to getting Creeley's collected from 75 on. the blurbs for it were mostly by dead people, Williams and Olson, for 2. really, it was just that it wasn't the vague thing I came in hankering for that kept me from that purchase. several editions of Howl. Ginsberg's mug showed up in a number of manifestations, on his own writing and as representative Beat in collections and histories. in my dotage I grow more fond of Ginsberg. certes, he's it for pizzazz in the poetry section. it really could be pumped, but I suppose that's a radicalism. it's just so faceless, all these poets who think they've made it because their strophes dedicated to chickadess (wee gaunt challengers of winter's froreness) or Saul Bellow were 1st published in Poetry. I think at the poetry section I encountered a guy on the phone. it was some serious conversation he engaged that I could happily have ignored, but he had no intention in denying me my public right to eavesdrop. I think he said the like of, I'm not the type of person to fuck people over. good on him! he moved on, only to be encountered in the psychology/self help area. which I immediately left. many editions of Walden, collect them all. I guess the big news is that Nicole Richey has a book. a copy was in the window and I saw it in the stacks. beneath the title are the words: a novel a novel a novel. I should do it marquee style: a novel a novel a novel a novel a novel. the point is, for the unwary, that the book is a novel. not a dissertation on eating disorders, nor a tell all about Lionel Richey's wardrobe nor even a discussion of Paris Hilton's contribution to shoe theory. nay, it is a fictionalistical story. of some sort. a ghastly glamour portrait of Nicole graces the cover. she appears to be made of shiny plastic. someday I will collect a few such oddities and um read them. I looked around for Fu Manchu books but found none. not sure where to look. what I took home from this experience is William Gaddis' last novel, a book on the Civil War by Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain (division leader of the Maine unit that held the flank at Little Round Top and even, sans ammunition, chased Johhny Reb down the hill in a moment of wartime esprit. also a package of little Moleskine notebooks, I like them Moleskines. the Gaddis is his last novel. I wonder if it aint a posthumously patched together item. it's very short. I really loved JR, still haven't read Frolic of their Own. he only wrote 4 novels, by gum. the regular price for this treasure is 25 smackers, which is ridiculous, tho hardcover at least. luckily it was cheaped to the max, thus my readiness to take a swing. I'm not big on posthumous discoveries. I read one by Hemingway, which someone likened to the work of Robert Benchley. negatory on that one. at the time, Benchley was pretty much ne plus ultra for me (sheen's a bit off now but he's still semi god). and Hemingway wasn't within a country mile of Benchley. good lord!!! so psyched enough to have the goods I got. I don't even know what Beth got. Erin I think scored something in the realm of D&D or Magic card. I go thru all this semi-literary stuff but jinkies, the past week Jack Kimball has perspicaciously written up at least 5 poetry readings that he attended. Boston is not entirely empty of sceneness, and I had ought to place my support more boldly. but a trip to B&N is a family thing, which beats rock, paper and scissors, hands down.