Jump starting New Year's resolutions

Well the battery for the New Year's resolution had run down, but I am recharging it today and will, hopefully, continue the momentum for the remainder of the year to maintain a charge. I had planned to write last week after redesigning the window for my store front-a task I have enjoyed over the last three years. Trying to catch passersby's attention with colorful books, art and etc. January tends to be a month where I display those authors we have lost in the past year, e.g. John Updike, Marilyn French and etc. this year, as well as, some thing bright and lively to welcome in the new year. This year there is even more mixed emotion as I will be temporarily closing the store and February will be the last month for this task for quite awhile. I have learned a lot during my three years and hope to put this learned information to good use when I re-open-let's hope it, the lessons, are not lost in the intervening time.

This past week, I also had the opportunity to see/touch a facsimile edition of the Book of Kells that is housed at St. John Fisher's College as part of the Bibliophile Society of Rochester's agenda for the year. We were shown a short film regarding how the book was made and the history of the original book. The staff was friendly and more than accommodating to our group.

Well we made it to a new year, a new decade and the scare of the turn of the century, from 1999 to 2000, seems like a distant fantasy of childhood. I have just finished reading J. M. Coetzee's Life and Times of Michael K. The story sucked me right in and the ease of the reading allowed me to finish this book in a relatively short time, I am generally a very slow reader. I tend to start and read several books at the same time and then the one that catches my attention gets ridden like a wave until it is complete. The story line has similarities to the movie Avatar (oppressed/oppressor-colonized/colonizer), and is not necessarily a new one, but it is the telling and the "special effects" both visual and emotional that carries the work.

So, to 2010, welcome all. I have successfully written twice this week and I am taking the baby steps toward making my writing resolution for the year a success.

New Year's Eve-day

I just posted my first response to a blog, it was related to Mae West and items published by Earl H. Emmons at his Maverick Press, and thought why not end the year with a new tradition and also make a resolution at the same time. So here it is the new tradition, writing about items that: I have in my store; find at sales; or people bring to me. The resolution is that I write something at least twice weekly. I am notorious for not writing and keeping up with communications to friends, just check the last time I responded to anything on FB. Maybe I have also been inspired by the movie Julie/Julia or maybe this is an outgrowth of previous attempts to keep a journal related to my adventures in the book business or I am listening to the prodding of a local poet who has encouraged me to keep track of the comings and goings within my store. By the way, Earl Emmons produced several chapbook like publications related to Mae West, Bruce Rogers, Frank Goudy and etc., as well as, other ephemera in the mid to late 30's in New York. If I can figure out how to add images I will do so at a later time. Till... I hope everyone's New Year's Eve celebrations are safe and joyous.