McHuston Booksellers

Rare, Collectible, & Otherwise

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It’s a Lookbook, by hook or crook.

May 16, 2011 /

I think I may have just been slapped in the face. I’m not certain about the actual location of the hit, but I’m still sort-of stinging from a customer’s question today.

She wondered what I knew about the Look, her new electronic book reader.

“The Nook, you mean,” I answered.

“No,” she replied. “It’s a Lookbook. Do you have wi-fi here?”

I felt like I had been drawn into some sort of science fiction time warp. Here I am with my stacks and stacks of books – those old paper ones – on shelves, perfectly content in my work-a-day world, when I am suddenly barraged by this techno-robotic-electronic invasion.

“Lookbook?” I asked, thinking she must be mistaking the name of her device. I was at the laptop, and sure enough after a quick Google, I learned there is some other morphed product that stores books in a plastic-cased battery-operated device. Look. The Lookbook.

I found it listed as available at Walmart and CVS Pharmacies. Color!

150 Free Books!

Wireless book reader.

“Do you have wi-fi?” she asked again. “I was at Panera Bread and I couldn’t get the connection to work at all.”

“Why do you need wi-fi to read your Lookbook?” I asked. “I thought the books were stored on the device.”

“I was trying to download more of my free books,” she said. “I don’t have wi-fi at home.”

Ahhhhhhh. Now I see. She needed a wireless internet connection, since the Look has no cable-connect ability. She was out scouring the town for an internet wi-fi hotspot that would let her download, and came to – naturally, I suppose – the book store.

She was hoping that I had wireless internet so she could use my connection to download free books onto her electronic reader.

Slap!

Ouch. That smarts.

Not only did she not want to buy a book, she wanted to use my internet to collect her free electronic books. I kept smiling.

“No,” I said, finally. “Sorry.”

After she left I was thinking about wi-fi and remembered I had a hi-fi stereo once. Traded it for an 8-track.

But I can’t tell him ‘I told you so…’

May 13, 2011 / / 0 Comments

He wasn’t always right, but my father was a smart fellow. He used words in conversation with me as a kid that I had to secretly look up later in his dictionary to understand what it was he meant.

That’s probably why I still remember having the answer once, when he wondered aloud on a thing.

I was seven or eight years old and we were watching a televised baseball game. During an intentional walk by the pitcher, Ray J. questioned the need to throw the pitches. Why not just send the batter down to first and forget the four consecutive pitches that no one could possibly touch with the bat?

“Maybe,” I said, “sometimes the throw goes wild.”

It’s a really clear memory for me: my tentative response, worried while he thought over my idea that some things taken for granted don’t always work out as planned.

He considered the possibility for a moment, and gave a young kid a great deal of satisfaction.

“I guess you’re right,” he admitted, and that was enough for me.

It’s taken most of forty years to back me up, but on Wednesday, LA Angels pitcher Kevin Jepsen was trying to deliver a toss for an intentional walk and sent the pitch clear to the back screen.

It was exactly the scenario I had envisioned when my father wondered aloud: there was a man on third base at the time.

Alexei Ramirez was able to score easily, and the White Sox wound up winning the game 6-4, with the Angels choking up a three-run eighth inning lead.

“I threw it about 10 feet too high,” Jepsen said. “Just sailed it. Sometimes on an intentional walk, you can take it too easy.”

In other words – the things we take for granted, don’t always work out like they should – which was exactly what I was trying to tell my dad, oh – so many years ago.

He would have known the answer anyway, had he given it a moment’s thought. Like I said, he was one smart fellow.

Acceptance letters from publishers: still fun

May 11, 2011 / / 0 Comments

Maybe all those years of getting rejections still haven’t worn off, but there is no denying it still brings a thrill to have a publisher – even if it is an internet publisher – accept something I’ve written.

I still have the first acceptance letter I ever received, back when those sorts of things arrived from the postman on paper that came from actual trees – nothing digital, nothing recycled, nothing but the old typewriter.

Typewriter (tīp’rī’tər) n. A writing machine that produces characters similar to typeset print by means of a manually operated keyboard that actuates a set of raised types, which strike the paper through an inked ribbon.

That first letter was for a piece of short fiction I wrote – the magazine editor mentioned he thought it sounded a little Ray Bradbury-esque. That was high praise, for me. Included with the acceptance letter was a small check. I mean, small.

I ran across something that Yahoo! offers called Associated Content that supposedly pays for stories, and sent in an article. Today, I got a note – email – that it had been accepted. No check, as yet, but I learned years ago that you cannot set out to be a writer for money.

People write because they are driven to do it – more like a curse, really. It is something that usually has to be done alone, and little comes from most of it.

Except, occasionally, there is an acceptance letter.

It’s still fun to have a stranger publish your writing.

Makes for a happy day.

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