Sold a “Lollipop” to a fellow (contractor/author) with whom I’d played pick-up basketball for months and months on Saturday afternoons, before, between games, we got past first names and learned we’d overlapped for one year at Brandx without being aware of each other’s presence. (“Enjoying hell out of your book,” he says.)
Sold a “Cheesesteak” and a “Schiz” to a second cousin (grandmother/fine artist), now from Boca Raton, originally from Alliance, NJ, where our families had settled when they came over from Kiev in the late 19th century. We may have met at a Cousins’ Club picnic in the summer of 1960 from which I recall jumping off a tire-swing into a creek.

In other news…
1.) “Lollipop” took some ribbing from the fellow whose memoir I’d edited due to my having asked him to identify Silky Sullivan for his readers, while in my first couple chapters I’d baffled him with Preston Sturges, Saul Alinsky, and The Rule in Shelley’s Case. “Who is better known?” he demanded. “Saul Alinsky or Silky Sullivan?” Are your readers expected to bring along an encylopedia?
Google, I answered.

2.) “Are these books free?” a visitor to my table asked. She had shouler-length, uncombed, sparse white hair. She wore a baggy black zipper jacket and baggy black pants. She wore teardrop earrings and had small, piercing black eyes.
“They’re for sale,” I said. “Ten, fifteen, ten, twenty.”
She looked more closely. “I’ve never heard of any of them.”
“That’s why they’re for sale. I f people had heard of them, I wouldn’t be sitting here.” I smiled and handed her my card. “Now you can learn more about them and me.”
She absorbed the content – and said, “Zei gezunt.”

Sold five Lollipops. One went to a reliable customer/semi-relative/retired attorney in NYC, who explained he hadn’t bought earlier because he’d been ill. One went to a reliable customer/café pal/retired UC administrator, who explained… Well, actually she didn’t. One went to a sometime customer/retired physician/e-mail correspondent (mainly basketball). One went to a long time friend from Philly/psycholgist-turned-B&B-owner/now living in the Carribean, which required me to equip my business account to accept funds wired internationally. (So if you know any oligarchs in need of a way to launder funds…) And one. along with a Schiz, went to an adjunct college professor in Texas/apparent UG-comix fan, whom I “know” only through FB, hence a “stranger” and those sales a special thrill.
I also sold a Best Ride. It went to another stranger, affiliated with a production company in LA which, further inquiry revealed, seeks “interesting” properties to develop into films. Now solicitations from outfits which have spotted possibilities in my work are not unknown to me. [Just this morning one came from an allegedly Chicago-based company that had seen such “potential” in one of my books (unnamed) it would “offer more than 540% investment to Republished or Published (it)” (sic.) Their “investment seems to take the form of reducing the cost to me of their re-publishing my book from $1699 to $1299, a “one time opportunity.”] So this “stranger”’s plunking down $10 American coats his presentation in a titillating patina. But I recall the producer he once told me, “You know how it works. I tell you how much I love your book, and you never hear from me again,” so I am not ordering any Teslas yet.
(Another weird thing is that BR has been around for 45 largely ignored years, but recently a fellow – now friend – who had optioned its film rights shortly after its publication told me he was trying to revive his project. Now here comes this guy, and, the last time someone wanted to option one of my books, I was immediately contacted by someone else who did too. It’s like once somebody in Hollywood gets their eye on something, someone else does.)

In other news…
1.) My correspondent who writes e-books for the Christian bondage market asked if I was the author of Most Outrageous: The Trials and Trespasses of Dwaine Tinsley and Chester the Molester. I said I was and asked why she wanted to know. She said she had wondered what I wrote and found it at Amazon.
This led me to click the link she provided, where I saw the book had two reviews. One (five stars) was posted in 2008, praising it as a “powerful and disturbing” reminder of the forces of cultural repression in America. The other (two stars) went up a few months ago and complained there were not enough cartoons.
You can’t please everyone.
2.) The editor of a book I recently reviewed requested the editor of the on-line journal where it appeared to re-write one of my paragraphs. My editor forwarded her request, and I said I preferred my version but suggested her’s run in the “Comments” section. The complainant seemed okay with this – but seems not to have proceeded with the purchase of either of my books she had been contemplating.
3.) On a more positive note, the fellow (See “Adventures” 313) who bought Outlaws, Rebels… let me know it had found a place on his shelf for books he has found “meaningful.”
That’s three people, previously unknown to me, that book has touched sufficiently to take the trouble to express appreciation for it.
I am grateful.

Sold an “IWKYA,” a “Lollipop,” a “Pirates & Mouse” and “Outlaws, Rebels…” (jointly), and (just about) a “Most Outrageous.”
“IWKYA” went to “Marcel” (last mentioned in “Adventure 309″), my Christian Scientist-raised café pal. (Did you know Ms. Baker-Eddy okayed dentists? His mother went every few weeks.) I gave him third off cover-price, as befitting his subsidized-living status.
“Lollipop” went to “Pat,” a buddy from my pick-up basketball days, who has since moved on to tennis and, now, pickleball, which he recommends for aging joints.
“Pirates” and “Outlaws” were purchased, via PayPal, by a “Richard,” which puzzled me somewhat since I had sold neither of those recently and, just a week or so ago, a woman in North Carolina had said she planned to buy both. Was he her, I wondered. Was he buying them for her? Had she transitioned in the brief period since e-mailing me her intent? Discretely, I inquired, “How should my dedication read?” And “Richard” revealed himself to be, indeed, “Richard,” an UG comix fan and “collector” who already had one of the books in question but desired signed copies of both.
“MO”’s sale was even more circuitous. A couple years ago, I had advised “Coop,” a fellow at the café who worked primarily in off-the-books agriculture, about a problem he was having with SSI. To thank me then, he had bought a “Cheesesteak.” I had thought the problem solved, but that turned out not to have been the case and he required further assistance. This time he slapped $10 on the table.
“I can’t take that,” I said. “Buy a book.”
“Lemme buy you a coffee instead.”
“I have a coffee.”
“Lemme buy him one then,” he said of Pat, who was about to join us.
“He has a coffee too.”
“So I’ll buy him a book.”
“That’s what he’s here for. (See above.) You’re cutting into my gross.”
He left the money on the table, and since Monroe had previously expressed his interest in “MO,” I decided I would credit it to his account.
Everybody’s happy.

First of the Month has published excerpts a review of Lollipop:

https://www.firstofthemonth.org/a-year-in-legal-limbo/

Followed by excerpts from the book itself:

https://www.firstofthemonth.org/licks-from-lollipop-bob-levins-essential-memoir-of-the-sixties/

Copies available ONLY from www.theboblevin.com or by sending $20 to Spruce Hill Press, POB 9492, Berkeley 94709.

Less than 75 remaining.

Don’t be left out.

Holy Moly! I’ve been at this SIX years.
[For those of you who don’t know what “this” is, every morning I sit in a café with a selection of my books and a sign, either “Buy Bob’s Books” (S. Clay Wilson), or “Meet the Author” (J.T, Dockery). I record all sales and noteworthy conversations that result – as well as related matters – here. Performance art, I think of it, an opinion, based upon the number of galleries who have invited me, unshared by a single curator.]
Anyway…

Sold five “Lollipop”s, one “Schiz, one IWKYA (via Amazon).
The “Lollipop”s went to (a) the editor who bought two last week. It was for a contributor to his mag who teaches a course on the ‘60s. (Now if he adds it to his reading list…); (b) a fellow at the café to whom I’d given a copy because (i) he’d lacked cash and (ii) my new iPhone wouldn’t accept my old Square. His check finally arrived; (c) a lawyer-pal/aspiring novelist/ regular reader; (d) and (e) a college pal/ex-journalist/attorney who wanted one for himself and one for a friend in Chicago.
The “Schiz” went to a therapist-friend following a discussion of the rewards and tribulations of our professions.
IWKYA went to the attorney to whom I’d offered a pdf after she’d said she was disabled from handling a physical copy (for $15) an e-book of which there are none. After discovering she could save some bucks ($7, new, $11 used), she must have decided the pain and suffering was worth it. (She did post a lovely five-star review (“intimate,” “vivid”) which, unfortunately, due to the scam our former distributor pulled, will benefit only Jeff Bezos.)

In other news…
1.) Sent a “Lollipop” to a review which only discusses books about Chicago or by Chicagoans. It provides a brief bio of its stable of reviewers; you pick three; and if one wants your book, you send it. I chose two attorneys and one South Side resident, and the younger attorney asked for my book.
2.) A college friend, who had served four-years in Air Force intelligence, complained that I had mistreated the military in “Lollipop.” He noted that while I was living penuriously in the Y (See: Chapter II), he was out-earning me a few-fold, living in a high rise in Alabama, on a floor filled with nurses – and probably in less danger than I was. (I told him, next edition, I’d give him a footnote.)
3.) A café regular/novelist/UC writing professor, who has been reading “Goshkin,” e-mailed me he found in “rich AND strange.” (I liked that “strange.” I see it as a future blurb.)
4.) Have begun clearing storage boxes from the basement. The first to hit the recycle bin were drafts of “The Schiz.” Future generations of scholars will be out of luck. You libraries that failed to come calling for my papers have no one to blame but yourselves.

Sold five “Lollipop”’s; swapped one; gave one away.
The sales were to (1) a friend from here, who had moved east decades ago and was back visiting; (2) a friend from my lawyer-days, one of the two remaining on my most-likely-to-buy-a-copy-but-hadn’t list; (3) a college friend who usually ignores news of my books; and (4) and (5) both to the editor of a journal in which I publish, one for a fellow-contributor, who writes about his volunteer work in Haiti, and one to replace the copy his son took back with him to college – in Chicago, the first copy to return to the land of its origin.
The swap was for a self-published collection of children’s (and discerning adults) stories by an 88-year-old author/ex-high school teacher/ex-commercial fisherman, whom I’d met at one of the readings I’d run, pre-Covid. The swap occurred at a North Oakland cafe, where we sat trading stories of the ‘60s – sex, drugs, and the Creative Writing program at San Francisco State – to who-knows-what thoughts of the younger generations at surrounding tables.
The gift – per previous instructions (see: “Adventures” 310) – was to the fellow who’d asked two-or-three times if I was the “Bob” I would have thought my books and signs would have made clear. In his mid-50s and an “activist” (self-described) by trade, he lives in a tent “in the woods.” My largesse led to him sharing his experiences of being arrested coast-to-coast, eight times in Berkeley alone for bike law violations. (He also gave me a flyer of his creation (“Founding Fathers Tortured Slaves,” it began), a limited edition, the library only permitting patrons five free photo-copies. He promised to read my book and give it to someone else.

In other news…
1.) The editor of a book I’d reviewed favorably expressed interest in buying one of mine. I directed her to my web site (www.theboblevin.com, for the curious), which resulted in… So far, nothing. But it’s only Day Eleven.
2.) A lawyer-friend, physically disabled from holding an actual book, asked about purchasing an e-book of IWKYA. There was none, I told her, but I could send a pdf – for $15. Nothing, again. Ten days there.
3. A fellow in Idaho e-mailed interest in Adele’s and my article on Dori Seda (“‘I Don’t Fuck My Dog’”). He had purchased an “Outlaws, Rebels…” (No doubt “pre-owned,” since it’s out of print), in which it is collected, but needed it sooner and wondered if I could send him a pdf. Unfortunately, we’d written it pre-computer, so I couldn’t. I suggested he check libraries near him, but none in all of Idaho was holding.

Sold four “Lollipop”’s – and swapped one to a fellow author/publisher for a volume of his seniors’ erotica.
The sales went to (1) a poet/short story writer and ex-secretary of mine in upstate Michigan; (2) a retired boxing promoter/memoirist of Philadelphia and Boca Raton; (3) a retired ER physician and long time friend in Napa; and (4) a Doctors Without Borders radiologist who frequents the café. He paid double and, while I was groping for change, said I should give a copy to someone in need.
The first candidate to engage me was a toothless, semi-incoherent, shriveled woman, her face wrinkled as an apple left too long in the sun. I had already questioned her fitness as a reader before she responded to management’s requests for a face mask by curses and threats of murder.

All, I should note, except her, have been previous readers. Strangers have been staying away.
I thought what I needed was one of those sexy women – usually Asian – whom vendors at Comics Cons post beside their tables. (For $10, you can have your photo taken with the sexy woman.)
“Will I do?” Adele said.
“Sure,” I said.

Last 10 Books Read (XII)
(in order of completion)

1. Shirley Hazzard. “Transit of Venus.” Boy, does she know how to work a sentence. She may spend more time on them than I do paragraphs and I spend a lot time on paragraphs. But “Venus” had about the cruelest ending I can recall since I was a little kid and someone’s pet died.
2. Wendy Bartlett. “Girl With a Violin.” Enjoyed two-thirds, but the ending didn’t work for me. Wendy, a café pal and I have discussed it and decided I am not attuned with the zeitgeist.
3. Emmanuel Carrere. “Limonov.” Most of the way I was thinking I had never met such an unpleasant guy. But then you got a pretty good look at Putin – before he began this current madness. (I wonder where Limonov stands on it.)
4 and 8. Sigrid Nunez. “Mitz” and “What Are You Going Through” My second and third Nunezes in recent months – and I’m into a fourth. “Mitz” was delightful and WAYGT, while not up to “Friend,” to which it is similar – even an improvisation on – is a fine work.
5, 7 and 10. Janet Lewis. “The Ghost of Monsieur Scarone,” “The Wife of Martin Guere,” and “The Trial of Soren Qvist.” I rarely read historical fiction, but, once I’d read one and learned the back-story, I was hooked. It seems Lewis’s husband, Yvor Winter, hoped to cure her writer’s block through a collection of case studies, published in 1873, of murderers convicted on circumstantial evidence in the 16th and 17th centuries.. (At about that time, a colleague of theirs in the Stanford English Department was being of convicted on circumstantial evidence of killing his wife). It worked and she got these novels – compelling but grim, grim, grim.
6. Iris Murdoch. “The Sea, The Sea.” I like Murdoch and I’d been looking for this a long time, except I thought its title was “The Sun, The Sun.” Anyway, it was a fine, old-fashioned (1978) novel. Won the Booker Prize, though I liked a couple others by her more.
9. Renata Adler. “Reckless Disregard.” (Second time.) Adler is among my favorite writers. I’d been thinking of writing about her but her work seemed daunting. This was short and I thought it might have been a way in, but I didn’t find one. In fact, I thought it lacked clarity.
Semi-Honorable Mention: (1) Read most of Dave Hickey’s “Invisible Drug,” a collection of art criticism I thought might be useful to me, but I started skipping paragraph, then pages and didn’t retain an idea or word of it. (2) and (3) John Hawkes’s “Death Stops the Traveler” and Iain Sinclair’s Downriver.” I couldn’t understand either guy and quit both books early. (4) Dan Rottenberg’s “Education of a Journalist.” I could understand this but found, while it might be of interest to someone who wanted to become a journalist, I didn’t and it wasn’t.

Sold one “Lollipop.”
The buyer was “Marcel,” my café pal with the fuel-injected hatchback and the Christian Scientist mother. (See “Adventure” 306.) Three people have said they intend to buy it but have not as yet, and the fellow who said he’d send me $10 has not as yet.

Here are some reactions: Adele loved it. So did a close friend. Another friend praised my writing and “sensibility,” but, word has reached me, disapproved of my political thinking. The first friend and another person have said they hope to review it. One of the two places from which I had solicited reviews has noted I am not a subscriber and suggested, while this would not influence its decision, I might wish to become one. I explained that my policy (unexpressed), when I used to submit stories to quarterlies who hit me up for subscriptions, was that I would subscribe if they published my story and that if they didn’t, I wouldn’t. I offered that, even if the review was a hit job, I would buy a subscription, which I thought was more than fair.

I also had several visitors to my table.
“An-ti-GO-knee” (See a previous “Adventure”) looked over both “Lollipop” and IWKYA and said she hoped to talk more but had a BART train to catch. (She had a question in reference to the latter though: “How long have you been married?”)
A tall, thin fellow with long dreadlocks and wearing a white plastic Targer bag on his head asked how much my books cost. When I told him, he said, “Mmmm” an asked the barista how much a refill was. When the barista told him, he said, “Mmmm” and left.
I had a longer conversation with a young man of Indian descent who managed one his family’s hotel (rooms for $100-150) in downtown Oakland. He had developed an entire philosophy of hotel management (“Your rest is our reward”), which he intended to develop into a book and was interested in my thoughts on and experiences with self-publishing.
Then I had an even longer conversation with the husband of a colleague of Adele’s who had died several years ago. He had moved to NYC a year ago and was back in Berkeley tying up loose ends. (When I saw him enter the café, I shifted my book arrangement to what I thought would most engage him.) We covered the usual grounds: children (his); grandchildren (his); health (everyone’s); work; exercise; politics. Then I said, “Good seeing you, but I’ve got to get back to work.”

When I told Adele the closest I had come to a sale was the guy wearing the plastic bag, she said, “What you are getting out of this is more valuable than anything you got from Harper & Row. These are jewels you are polishing and polishing.”