Reading Frenzy
In the market for 50 copies of The Making of the Counter Culure? You know, the book that predicted that the feel good culture of the 60's would eventually supplant global capitalism. Because.... well, because, it was the age of aquarius and anyone who had ever smoked dope, heard Jimmi Hendrix in concert, spent a summer in the Haight, piled into a VW bus covered with day glo rainbows, really never wanted to face the fact they might have to grow up and sell pork belly futures. Well, ýou're likely to find at least 50 copies of that classic of wishful thinking at the Friend's Library Sale running May 5 to 23. Ez knows a New Age homesteader in Danby who uses copies of the book for insulation. Stephen King novels don't work quite so well to keep out the winter winds.
Holy cow, Ithacans! It's library sale weekend! The first tents and portable habitats started going up this morning outside the massive warehouse structure on Esty St that offers the chance for an afterlife to yesterday's books. Booksellers from Belgium and as far as Damascus are pulling into town. Befitting the intellectual Paris of the Catskills (wait, are we in the Catskills?), Ithaca's book sale is world famous.
The first 250 people in line, invariably, are bookdealers. Which explains why they are always talking shop. How the book business sucks now the internet makes it possible for everyman to open a virtual bookstore. Yo, dude, 35% of Ithacans under 35 support themselves by selling books on the web. Most second graders have ebay accounts these days so it's little surprise that college students are selling their college textbooks online and a few intellectual bounty hunters haunt booksales and garage sales, looking for a first edition of The Golden Bough.
Ez doesn't sell books on line but he has been known to show up the first day of the booksale. He knows that one day he'll find a hardcover copy of Your Inner Child of the Past. Ez has been looking for his inner child for years. He thinks the kid's name is Schlomo. And the key to discovering Schlomo's whereabouts is buried in Chapter 5 of this 1962 self help classic.
If you find a copy in the Psych aisle at the booksale, will you please leave it there for Ez. Thanks.
Comments invited at: ezrakidder@gmail.com - Peace, Ezra at 2:39 PM
