Luncheonette Library

 Softly, as they say, the door opened. Okay not the door, the shop. Softly the shop opened. The problem is I somehow feel duly bent to read all the books before listing them.

Or stare at the photos, reading stories right into them. I had no idea, when I was 10, that all the postcards and pictures I kept in that Louis Sherry candy box were called ephemera. To me they were lives lived that I had to know about. I was always reporting on make believe.

All the books, all the birds, all the words

Headline news around the farmstead:

Really excited about a new project that has to do with that photograph and a whole trove of old cabinet cards, books, maps, and, yes, ephemera. That word. More on that soon. The luncheonette is branching out.

The aim is to finish my own book by early fall. Wish me luck and good writing. Have to thank some of the people keeping me on track. Thank you, people keeping me on track. I promise to not get too sidetracked by the chickens.

Lucy, my main mama hen, has gone broody again, so there will be more new chicks on the farm.

This is what happened to the grey chick that used to like roosting on his mama's back. He's three months here. He's a mutt, but we call him a Speckled Greentailed Nutjob. A new breed. He comes from bird man Barry down High Falls way. Or his egg did. If you want to know about feathered things, visit his site. It's addictive.

The yellow chick is tamer and is probably a rooster as well, but likes to follow me around the pen as I pick up rocks — there are worms under them there rocks. For some reason we didn't try to define this one. It/he/she doesn't seem so novel, so odd. Metaphors and chickens go together so well.

Some plumage on this one. His tailfeathers are starting to flow irridescent green. He has bell bottoms. I know there's a term for leg feathers. Shall look under some rocks for it.

walking the newfoundland

It was unusually cold today. Raining, then wind rolling the treetops around, all these big maples flipping the green leaves up into a flinty sky. The newfoundland was ready for her walk despite, or perhaps because of the weather: she's a newfoundland after all. Probably felt like, finally. I love our walks.

Number crunching

The hens laid 4 eggs.

The orchid bloomed 7 flowers.

The 1960s dress is one crazy psychedelic abstract coffee house wonder and is 25% off.

The 2 peace sign pendant necklaces really are from the sixties and have never been outside til now.

From the family album

Proton, daughter of Quax and Maya, in the field, May 2010

Maya teaches Proton all about the water, same day.

Pups from the Quax and Maya litter pretending to be pups in a Japanese woodblock print, around May 2010

German shepherd play in the back room, involving lots of mutual teeth clacking and other forms of bonding, 2010

Quax as he appeared on the TOC of Field and Stream magazine

EH in 1896, ideals shining right off his cowlicks, dreaming of a better future.

Elbert not Ehlro-n (from the dept. of exploding tangents)

Massive, massive, gigantic, megagigundous difference between the Roycrofters and the guy responsible, besides the Martians, for that vast cult known as the sci-ummmologisumissimists. The guy whose name rhymes with, wouldn't you know it, Enron. Hm. Given that I once wrote an exposé for a magzine published by Ralph Lauren's son on EST offshoot the landmarx fourhum (not the real name), and thus nearly got sued by the cult's admin, I hesitate to even say the word scientolomoneybrainwashbarleywaterologiwhich. And yes, I know that one is not the other. But they both have formidable legal teams.

The inscription reads: Elbert Hubbard on Garnet leading Asbestos. Garnet according to the Elbert Hubbard museum was his favorite mare. Asbestos: her foal. (Hubbard Roycroft Museum)

Meanwhile, Elbert Hubbard. Actually there are some similarities between Elbert and the EST guy, to explore a tangent, which I can and will. (That's where that incredibly long tag with the words "tellingest line" comes in). 1) They both had names that started with "E" and had a short first and a long second syllable, though Elbert is a first name, and Ehrsatz (ok, it's Erhard) is a last name. 2) They were both salesmen, though Elbert was a soap salesman, and the EST guy sold used cars in St. Louis. But Elbert Hubbard did good things. Really good things. It wasn't about the money.

Cars during the transit strike in an American city during the 1970s. From Documerica, an amazing piece about the mess we were in during the 1970s, in the Atlantic.

 I knew Elbert had founded the Roycrofters, that Arts & Crafts colony in East Aurora, maker of the most lovely, lovely books (since he could not find a publisher), the most ornate yet perfect typography and ornament, and lots of seriously honest, lovely stuff.

Roycroft magazine stand from 1915, the same year the Lusitania sank.

I didn't know that Elbert and his wife (often referred to as his "second wife") —

"Elbert Hubbard with his second wife, Alice Moore Hubbard, and their daughter, Miriam" from the Hubbard Roycroft Museum.

— died while traveling on the Lusitania in 1915 when it was torpedoed by a German submarine. A very not Arts and Crafts way to go. A Roycrofter's booklet came into the shop from 1916, the strangely titled (until you read it) Message to Garcia.

The title gets its name from the fact that there is a man who has to get a message to Garcia, and, well, he does. And saves the day.

And that's what got me started looking up Elberto. History begs to be messed with in a writer's head, and to me the title sounds like a very modern short story, a Godotian plot, perhaps, where someone has to get a message to someone who may or may not be named Garcia, and perhaps the whole thing takes place in Miami on Calle Ocho, and the protagonist, a very anti antihero, finds himself stepping on toes every time he asked. As in, What, you think we're all named Garcia? 

Actor Andy Garcia

Of course this has nothing to do with Elbert Hubbard or his noble, noble ideals and the lovely little booklet, whose only flaw, really, is a grease penciled "2" on the cover. Who would do that? Certainly not someone who knew anything about Elbert, or loyalty.

Leonia, 1970s

It wasn't just about Mom and the rhododendrons and the tree.

I had a thing for yellow because we didn't, as a family, wear yellow a lot. Peasant blouse from missfarfalla

We had Dodges. So I thought the coolest cars were Buicks and Fords. Buick station wagon in a color my mother could have tolerated. She had the right idea on that one, I think. That cars should try to blend in with the trees a little more.

Everyone had crazy bedding. It's a wonder we got any sleep. Flower power bedding, raggletaggle

frye boots, what all the cool girls wore, what I dreamed of wearing when I got older and my legs got a little longer.

Everything was patterned. Everything was printed to look like something else. Patchwork patten sewing box, thevintagepepper

There were super bells, elephant bells, fancy bells. Unbelievably amazing jeans, lovefashionmusic

But mostly the clothes seemed strangely unwearable and overcoordinated. Stiff vests over thick dresses, clingy skirts sticking to tights. (via here)

I was more into the free spirit version. Like this fringed vest, another cool girl friday night at the ice cream parlor staple

And then there were girls I knew were just cool. Whatever they did. Skinny and nightgowned and phone calls from cool people and doing cool things and wearing hear in cool braided ways and cool. (via him)

Dept. of semidaily walks

The new dog who is often mistaken for a bear.

The new dog likes her walks. We head up the road and hang a left, trudge up the hill. Dogs will trudge happily. That is perhaps a key distinction between dogs and humans, one I am trying to learn from.

The house we pass every walk. It seems to be empty.

 We always pass the same houses, the same barns, but they never look the same. Not even the grass looks the same from one day to the next. 

That same house. Same tree, post blossoms, different angle. Now the rhododendron is blooming all along the side of that house.

This is perhaps a key distinction between my mother and myself. She used to talk about how bored, how claustrophobic, how trapped she felt when we lived in Leonia, NJ, a tiny little town filled with old houses and rhododendrons and spreading old elms and maples. There was a specific tree, a sugar maple, on the main street as we walked into town. I remember it as a wonder. She remembered it as "There's that damn tree again." Of course she didn't drive so in a sense she was trapped there, as the other mothers motored by in their Buick wagons. Another story entirely.

1940s rotary phone. Model 302. Designed by Henry Dreyfus in the late 1930s. Reminds me of the days I was writing the Design Patents book.

After caffeine came fever
I never sit down when I do a reading. I get into it and stand and make gestures and apparently do some kind of trademark kick and am known to surf the hand through the air for emphasis. So to the audience, all you good people, I apologize. But I had to sit down. I was feeling a little woozy and warm. Clomping down Partition Street looking for a quick bite beforehand, I could not focus on store signs. My brain did not want to process information. It wanted to shut down.

I got through it, by sitting, with some kind of no doubt bizarre explanation as to why the chair. Apologies for that too. But I did get through the whole chapter. And thanks to great Southern homie and son in their red volvo, got back to Winchell's corners and my car. Could not recognize the car for a full ten seconds. Now if there is one thing a driving person does, it's instantly know their car. We imprint on them so quickly. Clearly this was not normal. I drove carefully. Slowly. The night seemed to have a reddish cast and I ignored the feeling that I was driving on Mars and just followed the plum colored road all the way to the pinkish gate.

1940s - 1950s bedtable. Perfect for being sick in bed — or better yet, just pulling a Judy Holliday and eating bon bons.

For the next 6 days I had a fever that crested somewhere past 102. Turned out to be walking pneumonia. Which means, no walk, just — collapse. How the heck it decided to settle here, who knows? There went the neighborhood. And now, for a while, I have to keep driving slow. This thing takes a long time to pack its bags and actually leave. But I swear I will not read sitting down again until I am of an age when it is appropriate and suitable.

Written and performed under the influence of caffeine, tonight

1960s coffee cups, here

Ironically my genius chiropractor healer guy who gets completely geeked out by new concepts of meridian points and eyedropfuls of shots, found out that I am not supposed to drink much coffee anymore. But tonight's theme is fine with me. There are four of us reading (all reading from upcoming forthcomings). It's great to read it out loud, a great way to test it out and see what works. If you're in Saugerties tonight, come.

LOVE! LUST! HATE! ADVENTURE! EXCELLENT FOOD! ROCK & ROLL! WOLVES! New works written under the influence of CAFFEINE.

also with
Maureen Cummins (producer of more than 30 limited edition books, Cooper Union grad, printer and bookbinder), purveyor of a printshop/studio in a turn-of-the-century warehouse in Brooklyn.

Robert Burke Warren (Texas Music, Brooklyn Parent, the Woodstock Times, vulture.com, Paste, TheRumpus.net, Fathermucker.com, RockPaperPhoto.com, Chronogram, and the Da Capo anthology The Show I ‘ll Never Forget), bassist, writer for Rosanne Cash and Wanda Jackson, played Buddy Holly in the West End musical Buddy: the Buddy Holly Story, and he's Uncle. Rock.

Scott Anderson (Prima Materia, Chronogram and more), and a scriptwriter, radio play performer and novelist.

Inquiring Minds Coffee House and Bookstore
68 Partition St., Saugerties, NY 12477
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Vanilla ice cream with butterscotch sauce

New bedding coming to the shop from the 1950s and 1960s. Delicious.

Mama Lucille

Out of eight eggs, three chicks, who will be five days old tomorrow. They are doted on by Lucille with great passion and intensity. If they flick a shaving into the water, she picks it out. If they are not pecking at the chickstarter feed fast enough, she pushes a heap of it out of the bowl at their feet. Any sense of danger and she clucks for them to hide in her wings. The grey one, or so we call it right now, likes to roost on her back.