Little Devils

Once a certain age is reached, every day is good. It’s great just to still be here. And some days are better than others, such as today. Since my car was in one of the two prime locations in terms of the floating book shop, I didn’t want to go to an alternate location, despite the wind blowing along Avenue Z on this raw afternoon. Fortunately, three of my regulars made my decision pay off. My thanks to The Quiet Man, who bought four audio books, 101 Horror Films by Jay Schneider, and a stack of Mets baseball cards from the ‘80’s; and to Arthur, who purchased a huge hardcover collection of Sherlock Holmes stories and The Wit and Wisdom of Archie Bunker, culled from All in the Family; and to Ira, who selected a huge pictorial of the 2019 Guinness Book of World Records, and PetSpeak: Communication Breakthroughs for Closer Companionship with Your Dog or Cat by The Editors of Pets: Part of the Family. Things got even better when Bob Rubenstein pulled his car behind the old Hyundai and gave me a copy of his latest book, The Hanging Doll, inspired by the suicide of a close friend. He read me a brief passage a comment of mine about his previous book, which baffled me, had inspired. Here are the pertinent parts: “…The one that stuck in my craw came from a corner bookseller who sold books under the rising slightly repelling aromas that came from a Halal street vendor. ‘It has too many commas,’ he said. But it was true. It needed another revision or I would be found out and labeled as a fraud… That chance comment about a comma sent me reeling. I couldn’t write another word…” Fortunately, he recovered. The comma is always problematic. In the case of Bob’s novel, there were so many I wondered if he was doing something I didn’t get, as his other works did not have nearly as many. My method follows the old adage: “When in doubt, leave it out.” Still, I struggle not to agonize about the little devils. I force myself to move forward, not dwell. I look forward to reading Bob’s new creation. Here’s the cover, which he did himself, taking a picture of one of his possessions:

Another celebrity has been caught in the vicious web of Trump Derangement Syndrome, inciting a barrage of nasty Tweets about spending time with the President at last night’s big game. It’s captured beautifully in this headline at foxnews.com: “Left seems more upset about Vince Vaughn than Soleimani killing Americans.”

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