Reports of two sales (one actual, one contemplated).
That one, of “Outlaws, Rebels…,” would be of its e-book version, if that even exists, since its buyer would be to an artist/cartoonist in Serbia, who contacted me via Facebook, because she is a friend of another artist/cartoonist in Serbia, who recommended it, and the cost of postage makes a direct purchase from me unappetizing.
The other sale (“Most Outrageous”) went to a woman in Virginia who, having learned her reputed father died more than 10 months before her birth, has come to believe, for reasons unexplained, that her true dad, if not the subject of my book, is likely to have been his brother – or their father. She e-mailed me a request for any photos in my possession obtained during my research which might aid in her Visual Recognition study.
That both these events occurred the same week that a jackass I’d known in Powelton Village showed up, fictionalized, in a “New Yorker” story, and, after I’d mentioned to a fellow I had just met who had graduated Haverford College in 1964, the only two classmates of his I’d known, and he turned out to have roomed with one and baby sat for child of the other after he’d returned to school following an expulsion for heroin use, led me to ponder the mysteries of connection that string the web or our lives.
I may have also said, “It’s a small world.”
I also gave away two books.
An “I Will Keep You Alive” went to my optometrist, who was retiring after 40 years in practice. She is devoted enough to Ram Dass, whose favorable quote adorns our front cover, to have sat at his feet in Hawaii within the last year. She also knocked to cover price of books her patients gave her off their bill. Alas, this deal seems to have ended since my last book landed.
And a “Cheesesteak” went to a fellow drawn to my table by me new (See previous “Adventure”) “Meet the Author” sign. A leading member of the café’s acoustic music gang and a veteran of the Village and Bay Area folk scenes, I’d gone up in his estimation, once he’d learned I’d actually written the books I was peddling. He wa from Detroit and a couple years older than me, but by the time we’d connected around comics and early rock’n’roll, I knew he’d be a perfect reader. We’d gotten around to basketball – and his playing against Dave DeBuscherre and Togo Pallazzi – when I had to leave.