Rare, Collectible, & Otherwise

Tag: new books (Page 84 of 91)

The big time. Right here.

Today, through the magic of the internet, we go behind the scenes of the making of a television commercial. Pretty literally, in fact. From here, I can see the back of the guitar player and the man on the stand-up base, picking and grinning from the beds of two pickup trucks.

Pineapple Advertising, a neighbor of McHuston Booksellers with offices above the Main Street Tavern, is behind the production, which has blocked off the street from Commercial to the next intersection.

We’ve got folks out in the street with power washers, shining up the vehicles for the ad, extras are milling around waiting for their cue to queue – so to speak. I overheard someone talking to the supervising police officer.

“I’m running the show here,” said the fellow running the show.

“I’m running you in,” replied the officer. “You need a permit for this stuff.” (Just kidding, that last part.)

Compared to some of the events (like several recent parades) that result in the barricading of Main, this one has had some advance notice. I’ve gotten a couple of email reminders and a pop-in visit from the folks at Economic Development (that’s probably not the correct name for their office, but it seems like that’s what they do). I still forgot until I saw the Road Closed sign go up in front of the Tavern.

It isn’t necessarily good for business here, as parking becomes a premium when the spaces are blocked down the street, but I like the fact that an ad-man wants to use the Rose District as a back drop for a car ad. Even if none of the businesses are visible, it’s nice that Broken Arrow offers the sort of cooperation that will allow the closing of a major street for a film production.

A couple of cars had to divert around the block, but it seems a minor inconvenience to allow the crew to work.

The weather cooperated, sunshine-wise. It’s a little breezy, but no one seems to be complaining.

Yes, I went out and rubbernecked. Sat on the bench in front of the store sipping a sarsaparilla and giving the entire operation the once-over. I call it supervising. Others see it as goofing-off.

Life is good in the fast lane of the book business.

Parties and the table.

There were three of us. We sat down at the only open table, the one with four chairs over in the corner. I’m sure we looked like tourists, because we were.

The talk was about the day’s itinerary and – of course – what we were going to order for lunch in the little café. It was a roadside place on the west coast of Ireland. Nothing fancy, but looking it over as we were, through visitor’s eyes, it seemed extra quaint and cozy.

A man sat down in the open chair at our table.

I have to admit, I was startled. Barging in on a group’s lunch is frowned upon, at least in my circle of dining-out acquaintances. If we’d invited him to sit down that would have been another thing. I hadn’t even noticed him until he joined us.

He was smiling, anyway. Kind of an infectious grin. Maybe that impression was also due to my tourist eyes. He didn’t look like a nut, particularly.

As it turned out, he was a sportswriter for one of the area’s newspapers just popping in for a bite to eat. He saw an open chair and sat in it. I later learned that’s the custom in Ireland and Europe.

In retrospect, I think I would have paid cash money for the experience. Bought a ticket for the dine-with-a-local excursion and looked forward to it, just like the medieval dining night in a local castle. I realized then that it was a shame that Americans are so set apart by our zones of privacy and comfort.

Today is catch-up with bookstacks, but yesterday was another busy day at lunchtime. At one point, three separate parties were looking for a place to sit. There were two ladies who came in independently, and a woman with her husband, who were out to celebrate his birthday.

“We were just looking for a little adventure,” she said.

“I’ll bring out the rhinos,” I answered. (Just kidding about that part.)

One table was open, the four-top (that’s our secret restaurant code for a table that will accommodate four chairs). By the time I arrived to welcome them, they were all settled in and smiling, and I assumed they were all together.

It was well into the experience before I realized three groups had seated themselves together, European-style. Ironically, another guest and I had talked about that very thing earlier in the week, how Americans would turn away rather than share a table with strangers. And here it was, happening.

When one of the ladies excused herself to return to work, I overheard the group saying their goodbyes, using first names, with promises to “call you soon.” Maybe astonished is a little strong, but I was certainly amazed.

There is a bit of coziness amongst the tables here. I have noticed guests speaking to each other from table to table, which I rarely see when I dine out. Of course, there aren’t any booths or wall dividers here. One table is slightly set apart from the others. Perhaps that can be the designated privacy section. Or not.

After getting over the surprise at having the Irish gentleman sit down at our table, I truly enjoyed the chance to learn something about his world and his experiences. It was an opportunity to have a conversation with someone with a different perspective on life, a person I would never, ever, speak to again. A chance encounter.

Here in Broken Arrow, I suppose the odds are better that you might later run into someone you’d spoken to in the little bistro area of McHuston Booksellers. But that’s not a bad thing, is it?

We can all use another friendly acquaintance or two, in my book. And books are what I do.

Come visit!

McHuston

Booksellers and Irish Bistro
Rose District, Broken Arrow OK
122 South Main Street
918-258-3301

Sitting on the dock of the bay (leaf).

Things said in passing – to be embedded in memory forever, seemingly. My dear Mum read the restaurant review in this morning’s Tulsa World.

“I can’t believe you remembered Esther talking about shanty Irish,” she said. “How old were you anyway?”

It seems to me I was about five or six years old.

“So you remember the conversation too?” I asked. “How old are you anyway?” (Just kidding about that last part. I would never ask my mother her age. I already know it.)

I’m indebted to Mr Cherry of the World for his kind comments about the shop and the lunchtime fare. It was a nice article and I was only slightly mortified over his noting the retrieval of a bay leaf from his stew. Bay leaves are deceptive. You think you have them fished out, and yet there is another one – lurking in the bowl of Tulsa’s most influential restaurant critic.

Oops.

Maybe it serves as proof that I make the stew myself.

The article (which I’ve attached in the click-able image, not so much out of pride, but to let you read it for yourself – in case you don’t have the paper tossed on your porch these days…) – the article also mentions my Shanty Club sandwich, the poor cousin of the traditional sandwich. It has no bacon, you see.

Shanty Irish was a pejorative phrase back then that isn’t heard much anymore. It described (mostly in the Irish community) someone from the “other side of the tracks” or the poorer side of town. It could be spoken in a mean-spirited way the way “white trash” is sometimes used. There were plenty of Irish in Parsons, Kansas – a Katy Railroad town where many immigrants found work during the laying of the rail line across Indian Territory to Texas in the late 1800s.

The review created enough interest that I was making stacks of Shanty Club sandwiches at lunchtime today, along with the many, many bowls of Irish Stew dished up and served. Enough of these busy lunches and I may dwindle down to a shadow of myself, running to and from the kitchen. (Like THAT would ever happen.)

Five years old and overhearing the grownup talk, also called gossip, going on in the kitchen – a conversation that stuck with me for some reason for more than fifty years, and wound up on the bistro menu. I realize now Grandma Mimi could afford a little gossip about the shanty Irish. She lived near enough to St. Patrick’s church that should could lean out the window and say a prayer of contrition, and another on Esther’s behalf. (Like THAT would ever happen.)

Plenty of new visitors found the shop today, most having mentioned that they had seen the article in the newspaper, and many of them ordering Shepherd’s Pie and Irish Stew.

I made a particular point of fishing out the bay leaves…

Come visit!

McHuston

Booksellers & Irish Bistro
Rose District
122 South Main St, Broken Arrow OK
918-258-3301

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