BOOKCELLAR NOTES (2/28/03 Fri):

CDs played today (indicative of time spent hard at work in my downstairs warehouse/office):
- THE COMPLETE STAX/VOLT SOUL SINGLES VOL. 2: 1968-1971 (Disc 3)--another emusic download
- Mississippi John Hurt LAST SESSIONS (Vanguard, 1972) (Xgau: A)
- Purcell SONNATAS OF III PARTS (Sonnatas Vol. 1) (Chandos, 1988)

---Got started by 8AM this morning. Not much sleep last night, thinking about having to get up to put the recycling out by the curb in time for the truck’s usual trundling 6:30 arrival.
---Fixed myself some eggs and toast to avoid conking out for a while at least. I do not eat meat, but I do eat eggs and dairy, even salmon (which is bad for the fish population, I know) or sardines; so I don’t know what sort of vegetarian I might be, but it is not hard, with all the excellent meat substitutes on the market today. Seitan is one of my favorites. Tempeh, tofu, and texturized vegetable protein (TVP) are good too. You would not miss meat, believe me. After a while it would seem kind of gross to eat it. But I guess we human beings are cruel and vicious as a species, so it is misguided to try to go against our natures.

---Heard from Babbage Press by email. The books I finally got around to ordering are being sent now. I can report that the proprietress (also the owner of Dangerous Visions bookstore) is most pleasant to deal with. I am only getting four titles to start with, but here is a list of what was available as of last September:

00-3 ECLIPSE (John Shirley) $17.95
01-1 ECLIPSE PENUMBRA (John Shirley) $17.95
02-X ECLIPSE CORONA (John Shirley) $17.95
03-8 DRAGON'S FIN SOUP (S.P. Somtow) $17.95*
*At the request of the author, this title will be "retired" for a
while. Limited quantities available.
04-6 THE DARK COUNTRY (Dennis Etchison) $17.95
05-4 SEEING RED (David J. Schow) $18.95
06-2 LOST ANGELS (David J. Schow) $17.95
07-0 THE FALLEN COUNTRY (S.P. Somtow) $17.95
08-9 WILD HAIRS (David J. Schow) $19.95 **
** Winner of the 2002 International Horror Guild Award for Best Nonfiction [I thought that said Horror Guilt Award when I first saw it--Chris]
09-7 THINGS BEYOND MIDNIGHT (William F. Nolan) $17.95
10-0 FALSE DAWN (Chelsea Quinn Yarbro) $17.95
11-9 A SONG FOR LYA (George R.R. Martin) $17.95
13-5 HOMUNCULUS (James P. Blaylock) $17.95
14-3 CONTROL FREAK (Christa Faust) $18.95
16-X THE DIGGING LEVIATHAN (James P. Blaylock) $18.95
17-8 THE EMERALD BURRITO OF OZ (John Skipp & Marc Levinthal) $19.95

Coming soon:
12-7 AUTUMN ANGELS (Arthur Byron Cover, sf novel - revised) 18.95
15-1 THE HEIGHT OF THE SCREAM (Ramsey Campbell, horror collection
- reprint) 18.95
21-6 ELVISLAND (John Farris - a BP original collection) 19.95
23-2 A SPLENDID CHAOS (John Shirley, sf novel - 1st pb) 19.95
25-9 THE NIGHT PEOPLE (Michael Reaves - BP original collection) 19.95
26-7 CRYPT ORCHIDS (David J. Schow - 1st pb) 18.95

Printable catalogs available online at
http://www.babbagepress.com/catalog/0602.pdf (with covers)
and
http://www.babbagepress.com/catalog/0602-to.pdf (text only)

--And this news about current projects:
"As soon as John Farris sends me the last or four new stories, his new
collection ELVISLAND will be ready to rock. CRYPT ORCHIDS (Schow) is
nearly ready too. I'm adding a glossary of sorts to AUTUMN ANGELS
(Cover)-- something to help the next generation of readers get the
references in the roman á clef. Will keep you in the loop."

---Next orders I need to send out include Wildside, HarperCollins etc., Random House etc....

---Email from me that might interest more than just the recipient:
"I forgot to send updated publisher list for MDP [Membership Discount Plan]. A copy will be in your shipment, but here is a paste from my datafile:
Aberrations • Aboriginal-Absolute Magnitude-Weird Tales-Dreams of Decadence • Academy Chicago • AC Projects • Addison Wesley • Advent • Alexander-Farthest Star • Anamnesis • Andrews & McMeel humor books • Armchair Detective Library • Bantam-Doubleday-Anchor-Dell-Delacorte • Bereshith-ShadowLands (25%) • Black Heron • Borgo (30%; hc 10%) • Broken Mirrors • Cambrian (20% tpb/10% hc) • Carroll & Graf • Century • Charnel House (10%) • Chronicle (25%) • Consortium Group • Crawdaddy • Crossroads (10%) • Cumberland House • Dalkey Archive • Dark Harvest (20%/ltd. 5%) • Dark Regions • Deathrealm • Delirium Design Image • Drumm (30%/ltd. 20%) • Eel Grass • Eotu Group • Fantasy Commentator • Fantasy Macabre-Fantasy & Terror • Fedogan & Bremer (30%/ ltd. 10%) • Fenham • Five Star (5%) • Fjord • Foul Play-Countryman • Fragments West • Galactic Central-Benson Bibliographies • Galaxy (25%) • Gauntlet (30%/books 10%) • Geek • Golden Gryphon • Grove Press-Weidenfeld & Nicolson • Gryphon-Paperback Parade • Haffner (20%/ ltd. 15%) • Harcourt Brace-Harvest • HarperCollins-Perennial Library-Continuum-Avon-Morrow-Greenwillow-Books of Wonder • Horror's Head • Houghton Mifflin-Ticknor & Fields • Hypatia-Hargreaves-Darkside-Silver Salamander (20%/ltd. 10%) • Incunabula (10%) • Jwindz (30%/ltd. 10%) • Kensington-Zebra-Pinnacle-Citadel • Libraries Unlimited (5%) • Little, Brown-Atlantic Montly Press-Evans • Longstreet • Macabre, Inc. • Maclay (30%/ltd. 20%) • McPherson-Treacle • Magazine of Speculative Poetry • Malibu Graphics-Eternity (25%) • Manuscript Press • Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy Magazine • Masquerade-Badboy-Rhinoceros • Meisha Merlin (25% pb/20% hc) • Merrimack • Midnight Graffiti • Midnight Zoo • Mississippi • Morpheus • Mystery Scene • Naiad • Necro-Into the Darkness (30%/hc 20%) • Necronomicon • Necropolitan • New Blood • New Moon • New Pathways • Night Shade (20%/ltds. 10%) • Norton-Dembner-Thames and Hudson • Nova Express • Ocean View (30%/ltd. 10%) • Old Earth • Original Music (25%) • Owlswick • Penguin-Putnam-Viking-Dutton-Overlook-NAL-Onyx-DAW-Signet-Roc-Ace-Berkley • Pulphouse-Axolotl (20%/10% “leather”) • PS (15%) • Random House-Knopf-Pantheon-Vintage-Modern Library-Schocken-Ballantine-Del Rey-Fawcett-Crown-Harmony • ReSearch (30%/hc 10%) • River City • Rutledge Hill • St. Martin's-Tor-Tarcher-Forge-Orb-FSG-Holt • Sarob (15%) • Sasquatch • Scarecrow (10%) • Scream Factory/Deadline (20%/books 10%) • SF Eye • SF Review • Sequitur-R&D Publishing • Simon & Schuster-Fireside-Summit-Pocket-Baen • Sirius Visions • Small Beer • Spectrum SF (10%) • Spine-Tingling • Starmont • Stone Dragon (15%) • Strange Co. • Strange Plasma-Edgewood • Subterranean (15%) • Tachyon (pb 30%/hc 20%) • Tafford • TAL Publications • Talebones-Fairwood • Tartarus (15%) • Three Stones • Heliocentric Net-Detours • Thrust-Quantum • Tomorrow • Trafalgar Square (distributor for many UK publishers) • Twayne (5%) • 2AM • Ugly Town • Ultramarine (25%) • Underwood-Miller (30%/ltd. 5%) • Univ. of Chicago & Univ. of Illinois Presses (5%) • Ursus (30%/ltd. 10%) • Van Hise • Walker • Warner-Popular Library-Questar-Mysterious • WCS-Eyeball (30%/ltd. 20%) • Weirdbook-Ganley (all editions) • Westview (5%) • White Wolf • Without Fear • Wordcraft of Oregon-Jazz Police • Wormhole (10%) • WSFA (10%) • Wynwood • Zero Gravity Freefall • Ziesing (20%/ltd. 10%) • Zwitter——and others to be added to this list from time to time. Ask for e-mail of updated list, if you wish.

Most other publishers are discounted 20%.
Used and “as new” books receive a 10% discount.

Looks like a big game against Orlando tonight--one of the teams a couple games ahead of them [the Knicks--actually they are more like four games behind, and tonight is Patrick Ewing night] they need to catch to make the playoffs. Good thing I don't get cable! I would have to miss Springsteen on CBS, but I have my VCR programmed anyway."

---Not that I am a big Boss fan. Believe it or not, he came along during my rock-interest hiatus and I never really cottoned to him that much. But he is an institution, and I don’t expect he would do a Garth Brooks (maybe a Garth-Brooks alter ego). Now, Garth I would prefer hearing on CD, but he is insufferable to behold in his TV concert specials.

---Had another 5-mile run, third day in a row after two weeks off. The thaw is still not here yet, but right around the freezing mark feels okay. Once the bike trail clears off, maybe I can start increasing distance again and maybe run a time-trial for fun and agony, to see how much I have slowed down now and give me something to improve upon during the springtime--if we don’t get nuked.

---CEMETERY DANCE #42 just came in (yes, at four o’clock in the afternoon). Names on cover: Nancy Collins, Charles L. Grant, Tom Piccirilli, Thomas Tessier.

---Had to go upstairs to preheat the oven for baked potatoes to serve leftover chili over. I had to stay up there to poke the potatoes, because if I came back downstairs to work I would lose track of the time and the timer would be going off unheeded for who knows how long. So I brewed up a pot of yerba matté and watched an episode of my Netflix-rented DVD of Sopranos. Hour-long shows are a bit more managable than some of those epic movies. And with all the DVD special features, sometimes even a regular-length movie can become a marathon viewing experience, especially if commentary is required for full appreciation, or even partial appreciation.

BOOKCELLAR NOTES (2/27/03 Thurs):

CDs played today (background, mostly):
- Judy Collins vinyl LP side (I try to start out the day with a side of vinyl from my sixties and seventies accretion--a lot of bargain-bin misses and dud albums built around one or two decent radio cuts, but a few that are still fun to hear)--this side four of So Early In the Spring: The First Fifteen Years. Xgau might only rate it a C+, but it doesn’t kill me to listen to it anyway.
- David Shea CLASSICAL WORKS II (Tzadik)
- Morton Feldman VOICES & INSTRUMENTS (1949-1971), (Mode)

---Got a better start today (9AM), having done a bunch of book packaging. I still need to print out the mailing labels. I check my email first in case any of the recipients, who I apprised yesterday of the imminence of their shipments, might have some feedback on the invoice-copies I pasted to them. Not much reply today, but lots of spam. So far the spam in my in-box only fills up two windows full every day, so it is not much trouble deleting. It takes less than a minute, but I am fearful of a geometrical increase that might come from an ill-considered stop at some website. Like when I was searching for a Philip K. Dick visage to imprint on a t-shirt (for fun) with an inkjet transfer I have had lying around here a long time but never got around to using. Googling PKD, one of the sites that came up apparently had been co-opted by a site that was a virtual encyclopedia of spam scams. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough--no doubt about that.

---I did get one email from Bill Schaffer at Subterranean responding to my Feb 21 inquiry about my Jan 16 inquiry/order. He said it was never received, so I re-sent it. It was in my emails-sent file with the correct address, but I guess something went awry. Maybe this time...

---Only had a banana to eat so far today, along with my mega-cup of coffee and quart travel-tumbler of watered down orange juice.

---After going to the post office, I went for another five-mile run--with still only a banana for fuel. The temperature rose 6 degrees in an hour this morning, so what was another frigid start to the day became almost balmy by comparison. It might have been all of 20 degrees (Fahrenheit) when I was running. The bike path was still icy and snowy in spots, but there were also some clear stretches. I need to put together a few more days in a row running, but I also need to do a better job of getting back to work afterwards. Today I got sidetracked on the upstairs computer (with the relatively faster, but still dial-up, modem).

BOOKCELLAR NOTES (2/26/03 Wednesday):

CDs played today (background, mostly):
- Wes Montgomery COMPLETE RIVERSIDE Vol. 3
- Solomon Burke DON’T GIVE UP ON ME (Christgau’s Dud of the Month in his latest Consumer Guide--a B minus)--both of these were downloaded legitimately from emusic.com and burned on CDs. They sound darn good, considering. I am glad I didn’t pay for them, though.
- Wes Montgomery COMPLETE RIVERSIDE Vol. 4
(Note: CDs listened to is an indicator of how much time I am spending down here, where I am supposedly hard at work handling book orders)

---This is getting to be the place where my conscience resides. I am only properly at work when I am down here with this computer turned on, meaning I am likely to be doing book business. When I confess that I did not get started here until 2:30 PM today, it is a situation that could be worse if I did not have the newfound knowledge that I will have to account for my whereabouts to my blog. All has not been fooling around, though, until this point in the day. Book packaging that needs to be done usually occurs before this computer is turned on for the day. As well, book pulling and reshelving occurs, as they did today. These are necessary tasks, and much as I might wish they would occur while I sat around and read magazines/newspapers/books or watched DVDs, I have not yet wangled my affairs in such a way that this has become the situation. Part of my lateness today can be blamed on the 5-mile run I took (first in more than two weeks). It is still mighty cold and the bike trail where I insist on running still has a few treacherous spots (treacherous for me--where a slight ankle turn or slip seems to aggravate old injuries); but it was good to get out there. My weight after running was about the same as usual, albeit 15 or 20 lbs. more than I might like, so I guess I am still better off than a lot of people.
---Also explaining my tardiness--I did a couple loads of laundry and started a pot of chili--with cooked dried beans and texturized vegetable protein, four various peppers (hot, anaheim, green, sweet yellow), an onion, several cloves of garlic, chili powder, cumin, a few dashes of tobasco. But obviously I am not getting anything accomplished while yammering here, so I will check back whenever something to say pops into my head. (I almost didn’t mention that I watched the DVD of Episode 5 of The Sopranos during my lunch snack. Snacks take longer than meals.)

BOOKCELLAR NOTES (2/25/03 Tuesday):

CDs played today (background, mostly):
- Gossec SYMPHONIES (Chandos, 1998)--good music to work to (competent, accomplished, used to be only for rich people--but we live in a democracy nowadays, don’t we?)
- Pierre-Yves Macé FAUX-JUMEAUX (Tzadik, 2002)--avant garde, soundscape; as with all Tzadik CDs, good exploitation of decent sound-system capabilities.

---Early afternoon: back to work, hopefully, having done a bit of book packing, book pulling, and re-shelving. Desk did get cleared off yesterday but not much else. Some of the thin sheets of paper belied their requirements to be satisfied. Now a few new things on the desktop to cope with. Namely, the shipments from Meisha Merlin and Arkham House.

---Orders to process too. No details available.

---Debate him, Dubya! You will kick his ass! After all, you are the guy with the right God on your side (as you well know). It is good versus evil, after all. You handled sighing Gore with great dispatch, even if you did have to be appointed by the Supremes. Wouldn’t mano-on-mano be preferrable to our sons and daughters as internal-combustion-engine fodder, even if that unemployment rate does need a people reduction?

---Sent out orders to Babbage and Wormhole!

---A couple news articles featuring son Neil:
Three student programmers to represent UI in California - News - The Daily Illini Online

Students protest at DI - News - The Daily Illini Online

BOOKCELLAR NOTES (2/24/03 MONDAY):

CDs listened to today (nonjudgmentally):
- COLUMBIA (Putamayo World Music)
- Charles Wuorinen LEPTON (Tzakik)
- special compilation CD from Jan-Erik in Sweden (various artists including The Minus 5, Blanceflor, Brainstorm, The The, Johnny Cash, Ron Sexsmith, Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra, Tom Tom Club, Billie Myers, Emmylou Harris, B.B. King, The Delicates, Doris, Huey "Piano" Smith, Radiohead, Bryan Ferry, The Refreshments, Parker, Von Blondies--to go ahead and name them all)
- NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL MUSIC 11: 20 Chart-Topping Hits!

---Had to start a pot of split pea soup before coming down here to get to work. On such a cold day it is a good thing to have simmering on the stove. It took a bit of chopping (celery, onion, carrot, turnip, potato, garlic) but now that it is going, I feel like I am good shape. As non-meat eaters (hence no ham hock), I added a tsp or so of dried dillweed to give the thing a bit of flavor. That was not in my instructions. Maybe now I can work right on up until the dinner bell rings.

---A liberating feeling gathering the layers of papers on my literal desktop and sticking them in the carrel vacated by the three remotes now positioned on velcro tabs upside the file cabinet beside me. Not that that means I have effectively dealt with the material now out of sight, but at least it does not have to be in mind by being in the way. From now on I swear I will deal with everything on my desk as it hits the desk, so it will always be clear and clean and well dusted. Now on the desktop is the scratch paper removed from my apron that it is in the wash-closet now. Little jottings that can sometimes make for big work.

---Shipments in from Arkham House (new Clark Ashton Smith: reprint of RENDEZVOUS IN AVEROIGNE), Night Shade (backlist titles), Meisha Merlin (backlist titles).

---Divvying up the printed e-mails for action (immediate response, pull books, file pile, etc.--but not leave on desk top!!!)

---Word from Tartarus, in addition to announcing a forthcoming new title (TARNHELM: The Best Supernatural Stories of Hugh Walpole, $55), notes that THE LOST STRADIVARIUS by John Meade Falkner, THE SALUTATION by Sylvia Townsend Warner and UNCLE STEPHEN by Forrest Read are in very low stock and will not be in their future catalogues (after the one going to press now).

---Word from Haffner that MARTIAN QUEST: The Early Leigh Brackett is out. I better re-affirm my order and see what is already in my order file.

---Go to http://www.cemeterydance.com/subscribe2b/index.mv? to sign up for Cemetery Dance's weekly email newsletter. Although I do not carry their books any more, I like to keep track of what they are doing, and get the magazine.

---Sent out a new Cdrummbks update, featuring Nite Shade. Several titles, testifying both to the productivity of Night Shade and the length of time I have allowed myself to get behind with the updates. Maybe I can keep the Blog updated more-or-less daily. I won't add information pasted from other websites to the blog, as with the updates. But it should contain more current information about what I am doing from moment to moment--if that could possibly be of interest. And it will be less concerned exclusively with book-business doings. I don't want to encumber the updates with extraneous material, so the Blog could be a nice place for me to hang whatever I want out to dry. After all, readers enter the blog at their own behest. I will be flattered by any interest, of course; but since this is something sought out rather than sent out, I feel like I have more freedom to digress here and there. Indeed, I am sure it would be expected. We'll see what it might lead to.

---Sent orders to Haffner and NESFA.