McHuston Booksellers

Rare, Collectible, & Otherwise

Tag: literature (Page 12 of 39)

These dreams.

April 4, 2014 /

Sure and you’re darn-tootin’ I did…

That wasn’t the answer give by the fellow being interviewed by the CBS reporter. The singer – getting questioned on TV for his several music award nominations – gave a measured response and was much more articulate. I was glad he didn’t humble himself for the camera.

The question put to him was: Did you ever in your Wildest Dreams think you’d find yourself in this position?

That interviewer-nugget is tossed out on camera way too often, and normally the response is an Aw-shucks-heck-no kind of reply. Why?

Success is rarely an accident. Admittedly, there are lottery beneficiaries – but most winners become that because of dreams.

Wild dreams are the foundations of plans. No apologies are needed for them. Dreams aren’t non-refundable tickets for distant destinations. You can book your course and change it.

Whenever you like.

You might leave your wildest dream for another and later abandon that for the original. Dreams are flexible that way. You can have a dream and realize it may not come to pass – for whatever reason – and continue to harbor it. Of my sleeping dreams, my favorites are the ones in which I can fly; it’s a soaring Superman-with-arms-at-the-sides flight. Talk about goofy fun.

They are exhilarating.

But even knowing those thrilling flights won’t ever happen, I enjoy the dreams all the same.

I’m thinking Danny Manning’s Wildest Dream did not include the head basketball coach’s job at the University of Tulsa. That’s a great job, as evidenced by the many coaches who have gone from there to larger schools, institutions with legacies of winning, and embarrassingly large coach’s paychecks.

That Mr. Manning has opted to leave for Wake Forest reflects on dreams in general, and how can it be wrong to move in that direction? A disappointment for the Golden Hurricane, but hopefully (except for how quickly it happened) not a surprise to anyone.

There was a time when the musician interviewed this morning was a young boy with a guitar in his hand and fingers aching from the practice. At some point, maybe in the back of his mind, there was a dream of performing. Do you think he was imagining standing on the smallest stage in the world?

No way. The dream needs to include a spotlight on the grandest stage, playing for the most important, appreciative audience on the planet.

Did you ever in your Wildest Dreams think you would be where you are today?

I hope not. Dreams ought to be dynamic, evolving, and enjoyed for what they are – wild or not.

That young baller in the picture has that dreamer’s determined look. (Apologies, Big-D, but I ran across the pic this morning and with the basketball it seemed fitting.) Perhaps Danny Manning might have turned down the Wake job if he’d only had this young point guard’s savvy in the lineup. Every boy and girl with a basketball in hand wants to make the winning shot. In today’s game. In the playoff. In the National Championship game.

We should never be humbled by the question.

If you reply, Never in my Wildest Dreams, then you aren’t dreaming wild enough.

Dream wild, my friends.

McHuston

Booksellers & Irish Bistro
Rose District
122 South Main St. Broken Arrow, OK!

Sign O’ Progress

April 2, 2014 /

Nothing like a special sale price to spur a little creativity.

Those decal-type letters you see on business windows don’t come cheap. As a result, my front signage project has been on the back burner since getting the front door lettered. In the meantime, I guess I’ve been overlooking the tacky thing I taped up to the inside of the glass.

The artwork for the St. Paddy’s green beer cups looked good enough that it inspired me to replace the computer-paper-printout sign that I hung in the window two years ago. It was supposed to be temporary.

It took a couple of tries at submitting the art. It tends have a different appearance on the computer screen than it does when it’s in your hands and nearly four feet wide.

Luckily, at the sale price, I could afford an error and still come out on the cheap. On the second try, I managed to get a banner that met with approval for inside and a window decal for the front glass.

Of course, I had no sooner peeled the protective backing loose than the Oklahoma winds kicked up and threatened to stick the sticky where it ought not be stuck.

Despite the southerly gusts, it went up pretty well.

The banner is hanging at the front counter for the time being, and inspired one guest to ask if that fellow in the black and white image was me. In my youth, he suggested.

I only wish.

Not for the Bohemian beard or the hairline that is proceeding where mine own is receding. And not for the Victorian-era button-down shirt and cuffed jacket sleeves. Nope.

You see, if I was the gentleman in the black and white image, then I’d be Charles Dickens.

And wouldn’t that be a hoot, after all?

Come visit!

McHuston

Booksellers & Irish Bistro
Rose District
122 South Main St. Broken Arrow OK!

Teaching an old book new tricks.

March 25, 2014 /

Weak spine. Sunburn. Bumped head. Maladies of aging that aren’t that surprising after more than one-hundred years on this old Earth. I hope I hold up as well as these old books. At the very least, I hope my appendages don’t fall off from overuse, like the leather book covers did on this two volume set.

Back when these volumes were printed, paper was a lot sturdier. In general, books printed and bound before the mid-nineteenth century hold up well over time. Like everything else, it depends on how they are cared for during their life on the shelf.

If you never change the oil in the car, the engine could fail eventually, if pressed hard enough. A lot of shiny cars turn rusty on the coasts. Sun does its damage over time, too. Particularly when it comes to books parked near a window.

It might have just been constant opening and closing that ruined the leather-bound boards on this 1860 set. A well-read book of that time would be more likely to lose only the front cover. Sun and humidity will ruin even fine leather over the decades, and I’m guessing that’s what happened to Lord McCauley’s Miscellaneous Writings, published by Spottiswood and Company of London.

When the books arrived, the back cover of volume two was missing in action. The three others were completely detached.

There are ways to repair loose boards, but the process is much more involved and – to tell the truth – many antique books don’t warrant the time and effort required to put them to rights. Like old car restoration, some classics will benefit from a frame-off, ground-up repair. Others just need the dents pounded out and spray painted.

I’m hoping the work on these two volumes will increase their value, and it’s probable, since I picked them up on the cheap due to their condition. Since one board was gone, reattaching the covers wasn’t an option. The back board of volume two came courtesy of an old Clive Cussler novel that had seen better days. Sort of like the organ donor program. It was sky-blue and hardly suited for an antique, but that’s all right. It’s well hidden after the repair.

The Cussler-cover is now underneath a new leather binding at the spine, and an 1860s-design-appropriate piece of cloth. Rather than lose the nice marbled paper used in the original free end page, I photocopied the board interior and used it as the new paste-down page, which covers the binding work on the inside.

As you can see in the third image, Volume One is still waiting for the emergency room doctor, but Volume Two is now complete and ready for another 150 years.

With a little good fortune, it will spend its second incarnation out of the sunlight and in the comfort of a good home, so those covers won’t come loose again.

Of course, after 150 years, I won’t be surprised if my arms simply drop off one day. I’ll keep the binder’s glue ready, just in case.

Come visit!

McHuston

Booksellers & Irish Bistro
Rose District
122 South Main St. Broken Arrow OK!

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