Non, je ne regrette rien...

Peut-être...cela dépend de Jake et Tone...et mademoiselle Edith Piaf...

Progressing...

So far, I know The Vanishing of Owen Taylor will be in four parts spread over about 500 typed pages. I still have between 180-190 pages to rework, then comes the inputting...and another polish. Jake keeps adding dimensions to himself as we go along...or should I say, revealing aspects of himself that I hadn't figured on. Secrets and needs that factor into this. Who knows? By the time I get done with all the rewriting, I may actually have a decent story on my hands.

I'd really like to use this image as part of the cover, or one like it. But I don't know where it came from. Of course, that's assuming I'll self-publish the book. I'm halfway thinking of sending it to the people who published The Lyons' Den, to give it better access to readers...and yet I'm not sure that's the right way to go. They haven't done much in the way of publicity for it, so its sales have tanked. I wish I could get more reviews on it, but don't know how to do that short of paying people.

I've been downloading ideas on how to better promote my books, but I have to admit -- my first 3 titles are for a very specialized audience, and I seem to be hitting them, well enough. Bobby Carapisi is more mainstream, just not by much. LD could use some careful handling since it's so off-the-wall, but I'm not sure what.

So far nothing I've done has helped David Martin get anywhere. I even did a giveaway with the understanding the people would review the book, and only one has done so. Dammit. So maybe I should work with a more experienced publisher.

I'll think about it more, once I'm close to finishing this book...if I ever get finished.

New dog tries new trick...

I have ordered pants online for the first time in my life. I've ordered shirts, plenty of times, even undies and all sorts of other things. And I did buy some cabana loungers with a drawstring waist, years and years ago. But I can't find cargo pants in Buffalo, in my size, so I ordered two pair from Old Navy. I should have them in a few days.

Damn things ain't cheap -- $30 each, on special -- but I need new clothes. I'm down to 1 truly decent pair of pants and 3 so-so ones. Gotta try to at least appear to be neat.

I'm leery of doing this because I've found such wide discrepancies in sizes. One brand will fit me while another doesn't even come close, both in the exact same size and basic style. I don't do slim-cut; it feels like they're binding my legs even though there's still space in them. And I like cargo pants because they have pockets in the legs, so I don't have to put my wallet in my butt pocket. So we'll see how these do when they come. I went a bit large, just to be safe.

Of course, this is how I think I look when I'm in them -- very Joe Cool...sans cigarette since I've never smoked. But even when I was young and weighted 145, I didn't look like that. My body's not built for abs and my face was never meant for a James Dean frown.

This is closer to my reality...sans beard, since I can't grow one. The goofy style of my own, but with a satchel slung around my neck instead of a scarf.

I have to admit, there are times I look in the mirror and am shocked at what I see. Still...my hair is more red than not, as is my mustache. And I haven't gained any weight in the last three years, but neither have I lost any. Dammit.

I wonder if I can blame Zyrtek for that?

Imaging myself...

This is how I think I look when I'm writing -- intense, focused, buff and beautiful.

This is how I really look, I'm sure -- hunched over my laptop, horrified at what I'm reading and wondering, "Did I really write that crap?"

Because I'm still finding aspects of OT that need delving into and inconsistencies which have to be addressed. Like the timeframe for the last time Jake saw his mother -- I had it down as being 10 years then added a bit, in an earlier rewrite, where she took care of her mother's (his grandmother's) funeral in a cold and casual manner. But that was only about two years earlier, so one aspect of the story fell apart, as regards estrangement...because the funeral stays.

Oh, well...that's why I rewrite my rewritten rewrites that have been rewritten.

I dig the hole, I fill the hole...

This is the world of a writer. You work out the frame of the area you want to fill, slop concrete into it till it's full, then smooth it down and keep smoothing until it's nice and neat and solid. This guy is doing the last bit of polishing before the curing process begins.

Looks like this is the floor of a building, and that may be even more appropriate to how things go. Foundation is done; now comes the building of the building. I've spent the last two days, when not at the day job or dealing with online stuff, going through my notes, filling in the spots of the story that need it and noting other places that could use some more explanation, not to mention making sure consistency is maintained, and getting it ready to start inputting this latest draft.

I'm at the stage where the cement is flat and settling in, ready to begin the final stages of preparedness. I'll probably need to do another polish on this draft before I'm ready to beg for responses from readers, just something to see if it makes sense to me, right now, and correct for as many typos and missing or wrongly used words as possible.

And if anybody cuts their initials into my nice clean floor, I'll kill 'em.

Stupid cops are everywhere...

This is a letter sent out by the president of the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers in response to the ludicrous arrest of an antiquarian book dealer in Denmark. It stems from the discovery a few years ago that hundreds of antiquarian books and manuscripts had been stolen from libraries in Italy over the course of a few years and sold or offered for sale to book dealers. This was done mainly by one thief, who covered his actions by destroying any trace of the books in the libraries catalogues, so the full extent of the theft may never be known.

Once the thefts were revealed, the Italian cops turned into the Keystone Cops and went bumbling about trying to act like they knew what they were doing. Instead, they are willfully destroying the reputations of innocent people. They have ignored offers of assistance from ILAB and have wreaked havoc and mayhem wherever they went. For example, the entire stock of two different book auctions (one in Germany, one in Italy) were seized and are still being held by the police, even though many of the books had never even been a part of Italy's library system. God knows when those books will be released back to their owners.

Now what the Italian police have done, and what the Danish police stupidly went along with, was accuse a well-respected dealer of having some of these stolen books. So without even talking to him, first, they arrested him like some drug dealer and the books were seized. And apparently it doesn't matter that the books were completely different copies of the ones that had actually been stolen. They just had the same title and author. In fact, the stolen books he was accused of having were actually still under lock and key after having been seized from one of those auctions.

It's insane how ignorant and absolutist cops are proving to be, not just in the US but all over the world. I have a feeling this will not get sorted out until some high-priced lawyers are brought in.

-----------------------
De Caro and the Girolamini Thefts – A Letter to the Presidents of ILAB's Member Associations
Dear Fellow-Presidents,

I am very sorry to be the bearer of bad news which are related to the thefts at the Girolamini-Library at Naples and Marino Massimo de Caro.

Christian Westergaard, from Denmark, was arrested some days ago - and later released - for supposedly handling stolen Italian books. The books in question had no immediate Italian provenance (some came from the Macclesfield Library) but were on an Italian list of stolen books, presumably those known to have been stolen by De Caro and his accomplices. Because Christian and other dealers openly list their stock online, it seems that the Italian investigators just matched authors and titles, without reading the detailed notes, or examining the photos on the web, which would have demonstrated that these were not the copies in question. It is also more than curious that all of the eleven books that were confiscated by the Danish Police were titles that had appeared in auction 59 at Zisska & Schauer, Munich, in May of 2012. All of the then withdrawn books– totaling up to 540 – are still kept under lock by the Bavarian Police and that factor was forgotten by the Italian investigators! It may therefore even be that they do not fully understand that these books exist in multiple copies.

It is nowadays known that De Caro had stolen from at least five other libraries: Montecassino, Naples Municipal Library, Ministry of Agriculture Library, a Seminary in Padua, and the Ximines Observatory Library in Florence. It is also known meanwhile that it was not only Italian books he had stolen but valuable books in other languages and printed in other countries as well. We should therefore no longer talk about the “Girolamini-Issue” but the “De Caro-Issue”.

I am also very concerned about a detail some dealers told me. For some time they had been aware that someone had been checking out their online stock; ABEbooks alerts you when someone looks at a description (the auto e-mails say: Someone is interested in one of your books; to find out more click on this ‘link’, and when they did so they would find twenty or so books at a time, with no common denominator, other than they were early sciences and mostly Italian). This had happened several times and it is very likely that this is what they were doing with Christian Westergaard as well.

That would mean that Italian authorities are now checking the online stocks of our affiliates! That could also mean that every dealer handling continental books could be subject to the same criminal charges being brought, which however innocent one may be, is damaging in itself even when subsequently you are found to be innocent. And this also means that the Italian authorities have lists of the stolen items which they have never showed or given us!

ILAB had offered both help and cooperation to clear up these crimes for more than two years, and so did ALAI but up to now all the letters that were sent to the Italian investigators by Fabrizio Govi, Arnoud Gerits, and Tom Congalton have remained unanswered. This situation has become totally unacceptable as Italian authorities do not seem to understand that they are intentionally damaging the reputation of both individual dealers and the whole trade.

I will therefore, on behalf of ILAB, address a note of protest to the Minister of Culture of Italy, Dr. Dario Franceschini, the Minister of Justice, Dr. Andrea Orlando, and the head of investigation, Dr. Antonella Serio. I WILL ALSO REQUEST AGAIN FOR LISTS OF THE STOLEN ITEMS. This note will also be published on our website, on the websites of our members, in relevant magazines, and in newspapers.

Norbert Donhofer (ILAB President) - August 2014

Time to dive in...

Even though I can't swim.

I finally got the reveal section down to where it's working, so now I can go through my notes and make sure I have everything in this draft to advance it...and then I will be almost ready for feedback. I've already got one victim -- uh, volunteer lined up to read the story and tell me what they think. Any other takers?

And I do mean I want serious critiques. What works. What doesn't. Where I gloss over things. When something doesn't make any sense. Which parts are slow and which go too fast. A full-scale model of all opinions, because I want this book to be as close to perfect as possible.

Meaning also point out typos and missing words; I'm bad about those.

BTW, this is Tom Daley doing his gold medal work. He's a cute little munchkin, and is almost as beautiful as Greg Louganis when he dives. I only say almost because Greg was so physical and soulful. Tom's still a boy.

And now, off to finish cleaning my fridge.

Peel the onion

When I'm chopping up some onion to add to whatever I'm cooking, I always peel off the dry crinkly layers of skin to get to the fresh sections. Normally that's enough to work, but sometimes there's mold on that part and washing doesn't remove it all, so I peel further.

It's the same with potatoes. When I make mashed or hashbrowns, I remove all the skin and wash it, then peel or cut away the bruises and imperfections. I can't eat a potato if I know it's not completely fresh before being cooked...or raw; I've sliced them up to nibble on. You have to do it fast, though, because they don't last long.

So...what I'm doing now is peeling into the revelation scene of "The Vanishing of Owen Taylor" and making it as clean and pure as I can. And it's taking some work, that's fer shure. However, by doing this I'm finding out what needs to be set up earlier in the story and how to handle the remainder of the mystery. And it's coming across much more honestly, now.

There's still Jake's goofiness, but it works with the exposure of what happened and not against, nor is it a distraction. It also leads to a moral quandary, which surprised me. Something that could be tragic, if not handled right.

But if I let this stand, it leaves Jake in a bad spot. Which means I'm peeling back another layer, to make certain this is right. Don't want no imperfections.

Onions are imperfect enough.

"Les Enfants du Paradis" by Marcel Carne and Jacques Prevert

I finished the latest rewrite of The Vanishing of Owen Taylor and just need to input the red pen changes, so I treated myself to one of the greatest movies ever made, bar none. It's got love, comedy, romance, tragedy, heartbreak, murder, insanity, hope, perseverance, the whole scope of human experience in all its beauty and stupidity. Even Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 97% rating, and says:

Even in 1945, Marcel Carne's "Children of Paradise" was regarded as an old-fashioned film. Set in the Parisian theatrical world of the 1840s, Jacques Prevert's screenplay concerns four men in love with the mysterious Garance (Arletty). Each loves Garance in his own fashion, but only the intentions of sensitive mime-actor Deburau (Jean-Louis Barrault) are entirely honorable; as a result, it is he who suffers most, hurdling one obstacle after another in pursuit of an evidently unattainable goal. In the stylized fashion of 19th-century French drama, many grand passions are spent during the film's totally absorbing 195 minutes. The film was produced under overwhelmingly difficult circumstances during the Nazi occupation of France, and many of the participants/creators were members of the Maquis, so the movie's existence itself is somewhat miraculous. Children of Paradise has gone on to become one of the great romantic classics of international cinema. ~ Hal Erickson

Baptiste is based on Jean-Gaspard Deburau, who is credited with inventing the character of Pierrot in Mime sometime between 1825 and 1830 at the Theatre des Funambules. He was born the same day as me, albeit in 1796, and died when he was 50. The character in the movie is, of course, enhanced in many ways, but the Mime presented is supposedly very close to what he used to do.

I have the Criterion edition, which includes an introduction by Terry Gilliam that is wonderfully droll and is a lovely copy of the film, showing off its glorious black and white cinematography. I saw it first in college and have seen it a couple more times, but not in years. I'd sold my copy when I lived in Texas and needed money. I bought this one a couple years ago, when I was in LA for the book fair and had an income, again. It still enthralls me.

I do have one question as regards the film. Is it wrong of me to identify both with Baptiste, the tortured genius who suffers from love for someone he cannot have, and also for Lacenaire, an unpublished playwright whose soul was built for murder? One the romantic in search of pure beauty, the other a cynic who sees the world for the banality that it is.

Does it really matter?

I'm a pathetic drunk...

2 glasses of wine and all I want to do is go to sleep. BOR-ring. And blank-headed. Work on OT is now slated for tomorrow. So how's about something to liven up our worlds, instead? The biggest laugh I've ever had was watching this "escape artist" skit on Carol Burnett. Still cracks me up, so...

It's not what she says or does so much as how she says and does it...and I oughta put that to melody...

Ah, Liam, my thought, exaclty...