Book Expo America 2011: Perverts Like Books

At BEA today, I'm enjoying myself at the Steidl booth when I see a white-bearded, pear-shaped man in his fifties.  He's wearing an author's badge, which doesn't make him one. 

Apparently, Santa's pervert brother doesn't know how to use the internet to find soft core porn, because he's leafing through the coffee table books, stopping on pages with topless or nude women, and snapping pictures.  Not surreptitiiously, not digitally or on a cell phone, but with a Nikon that has a fucking zoom lense.  He's not in any hurry, either.  He doesn't look a bit self-conscious or guilty.

I can't believe what I'm seeing.  A woman standing next to me stares, jaw dropped, open book forgotten in her hands, contemp and disgust crumpling her face.  With a camera that nice, he clearly can afford internet access.  He could be at home typing "nude women" into a Google image search, but no - he wants to share this behavior with us.

I can't shake a vague feeling of guilt, like both of us having dicks makes me an accomplice.  Before anyone can assume my presence indicates approval of his actions, I take the coward's way out and bail.


A short time later I overhear this conversation between a twenty-something, lovely sales rep and a different guy, also in his fifties, also bearded, also shaped like a pear.

Customer Service Rep: Are you a bookseller?  Or a librarian?

Bearded Pear-Shaped Perv: I'm an author.

(Aaron's Silent Judgment: Yeah, right.)

CSR: What do you write?

BPSP: Whatever I get paid to write. 

[He laughs like he's the funniest thing on two feet; she maintains her customer service smile.]

CSR: Like what?

BPSP: Mostly non-fiction, travel narratives, that kind of thing.  Why do it if you're not getting paid for it, am I right?

CSR: Sure.

BPSP:  I've found that going into a bookstore and seeing your book on the shelf is better than sex.

At this point, he's standing very close to the rep.  His voice is still pitched normally, like he's being jovial.  Really, he's fucking with her.  His eye-contact burns.  He's trying to see how much she'll put up with, and he's enjoying her discomfort.

After a very pregnant pause, she says, "I don't know about that."  And he says, "The first time, the first time."  She walks him around the booth and shows off her publisher's books.  He laughs at his own jokes, stands a little too close, and stares at her a little too intently.  He wears a wolf's grin the whole time.

I probably don't need to tell you this, but after working eleven years in the book business, the last seven as a buyer, I've never heard of this "author."

I would like to slap both of these guys.  Their existence reinforces the stereotype that readers only love books because they are unable to function within normal social parameters.  Their actions also create a hostile environment for the women around them, and the men who give a shit.  Really, they're making it tougher for me to be me.

Maybe I'm being too sensitive; it could have been worse.  I could have seen this guy:

Rowland Coffee Roasters is Dead, Long Live J.M. Smucker Co.

Despite what you may have read in the Miami Herald, I've been drinking Cuban espresso since 1991, not 1997.  It was too complicated to go into.  My ex-wife worked at an office in Miami with a group of viejitas who refused to leave their desks but who insisted she make their cafecito each morning and afternoon.  She brought the stovetop coffee maker to Syracuse with her, along with bricks of Pilon.  I was already hooked on the stuff when I moved to Miami.

Becky told me I had it all wrong.  Bustelo, not Pilon.  Don't leave the grinds loose so the water shoots through it easily, tamp it down tight.  Don't eyeball the sugar and the first black spit-up of espresso for the espumita, measure it.  I was even using the wrong brewer.

Whatever, I had been brewing delicious Cuban coffee for a good eighteen years and I never heard any complaints.

"Listen," Becky said.  "Don't mess with my Cuban cofffee.  I'm Manny Q's daughter."

 Or words to that effect, which, if you knew Papa Q, would be saying something.

Of course she was right (being right is one of her strengths).  Her espresso was darker, richer.  Her espumita the perfect caramel color each time, without adjustments.  She served her shots with a good quarter-inch of creme across the top.  I drink my "American-style" coffee - as they call it in Miami - black and sugarless, but those little shots of sugary espresso goodness are something special.

Miami brewer Rowland Coffee owns the two most recognizable and successful of the local coffees - Pilon and Bustelo.  Really, they're like Coke and Pepsi.  Some people taste the difference, some don't, but those who do are fierce advocates of their choice.

Rowland's patriarch, Jose Angel "Pepe" Souto, died four years ago.  His sons just sold Rowland to Smucker's for $360 million.  In cash, for some reason.  Jose Enrique Souto, who co-ran the company with his brothers Jose Alberto and Angel, called it, "The all-American dream to start a little business, sell it to a big company, and then go enjoy life."  I suppose.  But it sounds like Pepe dreamed of coffee, and Pepe's sons dreamed of money.

Souto claims this deal honors his father's legacy - "The future of our brand is assured with this deal."  Rowlands made $115 million a year, but we all know that won't be enough for a corporation that makes $4.6 billion a year.  People who need "creative ideas" to justify their jobs will get in there and try to make something happen.  They will decide a red and yellow package design is too loud for a mass audience.  They will kill the charm.

But that's just speculation.  The reality is that part of this deal entails closing Miami's facilities and folding those operations into Folgers, putting 150 employees out of business.  This also affects local businesses whose services Rowland purchased - pest control, linen delivery, area eateries, etc.

Hundreds of people are blown out of the water so three dudes can roll around in $120 million each.  

Simon & Schuster wants to brand this chick lit, but I liked the hardcover cover better;
you should see the Norwegian cover.

I sounded off on Fabiola Santiago's Facebook post of the link above, so she asked me to elaborate in a side email.  She writes for the Miami Herald, and coffee and books are my passion, so this happened.

Talk about books for years and no one gives a hoot.  Talk about coffee one time, the world listens.

I guess we know what more folks are addicted to.

**UPDATE 4/7/13**

Did you know there's a TED talk on Cuban coffee as an intellectual property?

My post originally stated that "Miami brewer Rowland Coffee began in Cuba in 1865, and they own the two most recognizable and successful of the local coffees - Pilon and Bustelo."  I got this info from the Rowland Coffee website.  A reader graciously pointed out that this isn't the case (in fact, "Pepe" Souto's obituary mentions that they were primarily ranchers in Cuba before they lost their businesses to Castro).

Manuel Jesus Bascuas started the very popular Pilon in Cuba.  According to his daughter, this was in the early 1900s.

Rowland purchased Pilon in 1967.
 
(As far as Bustelo, Gregario Bustelo started making coffee in 1920s and Rowland bought them in 2000.)

We have Manuel Jesus Bascuas to thank for the packaging and flavor we know today.

Awkward Moments with Authors Come in Twos

This week Mitchell introduced me to two authors.  Both men, both well-respected, prolific writers whose work I have at home, but neither are authors I've read.

The first conversation went like this:

ME (on the way to clock out): How's it going, Mitchell?

MY BOSS: Good, good.  You want to meet Fred Savage?

ME: Not really, no.  

MY BOSS: Hey, Fred, I'd like you to meet someone.  Fred, this is Aaron.  Aaron, this is Fred.  Aaron is one of our buyers.  He's a big, big fan of your work.

ME (grinning hugely): Good to meet you!  Wow, great stuff this time!

FRED SAVAGE* (not buying it for a minute, not even a little):  . . . 

ME: So. . .

FRED: I like your tattoo, Aaron.

The second encounter went like this:

ME (on the way out): S'up, MK?

MY BOSS: Hey, how's it going?  Do you want to meet Idi Amin?

ME: No, I'm good.

MY BOSS: Idi, this is Aaron.  Aaron, this is Idi.

ME (holding my hand out): Hi, it's good to meet you.

[IDI AMIN** stares past the proffered hand, saying nothing.]

ME (still holding hand out): Uh.... I'm one of Mitchell's buyers.

[IDI AMIN continues to ignore ME's hand, saying nothing.  ME's hand falls, his smile wilts.  A fissure opens up in the ground, and ME steps inside.]

This is why I'll be avoiding my boss in the future.

As further proof of the world of awkward twos, two authors offered to memorialize themselves on my ass.  This is a first for me which managed to happen twice in just a few months.

The first was the mighty Brock Clarke, who I've written about once or twice.  He was in town for the early release of his third novel, Exley.

I'm fucking awesome; buy me.

We drank the night away before I realized he hadn't signed my poster for An Arsonist's Guide to Writers Homes in New England, a brilliant piece of marketing with quotes from the book set up as rules to follow when torching historic homes.  I was thinking it would look lovely with my signed posters for Choke and Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet.  Plus, I was going for an even fifty for things I need to get framed.

Two am was a distant memory.  Brock was understandably reluctant for me to run across the street, open the locked store, grab the poster, and run back.

"I'll be back for Miami Book Fair.  I'll sign anything you want, I promise."

Seeing my lack of enthusiasm for this idea, Brock offered his Ace in the Hole.

"I'll sign your ass," he said.

I worked Miami Book Fair, but my ass and Brock's pen somehow missed each-other.

A few months later, this happened:

PHASE 1: This will be awesome - wheeeee!!!  Thanks so much, Lane!

PHASE 2: She realizes she is the most ticklish person who currently exists.

PHASE 3: Lane discovers how hard it is to erase wavy Sharpie Lines from skin.

(and if you haven't already, buy It's a Book now)

After mortalizing the bibliophile monkey inside Becky's biceps, Lane Smith was on a high.  When he found out Becky and I were a couple, he turned to me and said, "How about one for you?  I could put it right on your ass."

Here's what he suggested:

That, of course, is Stinky Cheese Man.

Oh Lane Smith, my favorite jackass***, you know me so well.


* Not.
** Not, either.
*** His words, not mine!

You Should Read Cardboard Gods

When I fell in love with Garth Stein’s Art of Racing in the Rain, it was in spite of the subject matter, not because of the subject matter.  I have a cat tattoo, which should be sufficient evidence of my feelings about dog books.  Yet despite not caring a whit about car racing, and active hostility toward dog books, Art of Racing in the Rain charmed me so much that I resolved to name my next pet Enzo.

I might need to start a Goodreads shelf because of Josh Wilker’s Cardboard Gods.  I never collected baseball cards.  My cousins Shane, Shawn, and Shannon did, and I looked through their collections a few times growing up.  This passing acquaintance with card collections made the language of Cardboard Gods a little familiar.  I knew there were different teams and colors and statistics on the back, anyway.  

My cousins loved sports, excelled at playing them, captained and co-captained teams with players who went on to start for Division 1 colleges.  No pros, but their hometown holds only 6,000 souls, and even fewer people lived there twenty years ago.  


I followed football and basketball because Syracuse is a college town and those are the two sports you must follow or they send you to Utica (laugh if you’re an upstate New Yorker).  It was also a means to connect with my cousins and the other men in my family.

Then I started college, delivering pizzas for Cosmos on Marshall Street, shipping and receiving for Bonwit Teller at the Carousel Mall, ushering at Syracuse Stage for my work study job, and working the deli counter at Leo & Sons Big M Supermarket in East Syracuse.  I was also in the Honors Program at Syracuse University, which allowed me to take more than the maximum 18 credit hours without paying extra tuition.  I also partied.  Somehow.  

Sports, TV, and any reading which wasn’t for a class got whittled from my life and swept away.  I found reading again after college, but never sports.  

Of course this post isn’t supposed to be about me, this is supposed to be about Cardboard Gods.  But that’s what the best memoirs do - get you thinking about your own life.  

Josh Wilker examines his life honestly, poignantly, and with little regard to how it will make him look.  He uses a different baseball card in each chapter as a metaphor for what he’s going through in that chapter.  It’s a brilliant hook.  It gives a decent memoir an edge, something extra which pushes it into a great book.  Cardboard Gods is about more than Wilker.  It’s about what makes us obsessively collect, it’s about trying to find common ground with family, it’s about why we love the things we love and need the things we need.  

I’m putting Cardboard Gods in a care package to my cousin, along with David Benioff’s 25th Hour and Lane Smith’s It’s a Book for his daughter.  As much as he loved City of Thieves, as much as he loves seeing his daughter’s face light up, I know Wilker’s book will be the best of the lot for Shannon.

If you’re not one for sports, you’ll love Cardboard Gods anyway.  But if you do love sports, or card collecting, be careful; you might become obsessed.   

A Breather

A few things before I move on from the last week of posts.

1 - Blogger has been spotty since Tuesday.  I had no intention of leaving that misery up for an extra week, unbuffered by book reviews, navel gazing, and cooking tips, but I couldn't log on.  Watcha gonna do?

2 - I went out on a weekday this week and it didn't even involve my book club.  I stayed up past eleven, because I'm a rock star.

3 - Becky and I are impressively happy, I promise.  I offer this link to our wedding website as proof, 90% of which was created post-Fester.

Mothers Day, 2011

I see that "Long Time No Post" has creeped up to #2 on my all-time most-read list.  That's almost enough to make me remove the "Popular Posts" feature from my blog, the fact that some meh about why I haven't posted in a while is the second-most read item I've ever written.  It doesn't even have a picture.  Still, I've watched its steady climb from #6 to #2.  Again, watcha gonna do?

On the writing front, our fledgling Writers Group missed a month, but we've set a date in stone.  Going forward, this should be a great opportunity to talk shop.  I've promised myself I'll continue my homework by submitting stories to two publications this week.

On the reading front, TC Boyle's The Inner Circle, Tina Fey's Bossypants, Glen Duncan's The Last Werewolf, and Frederick Exley's A Fan's Notes (still) all have been or currently are treating me very well.  I've got an Advanced Readers Copy of Diana Abu-Jaber's Birds of Paradise that I'm very excited about. I think I'll also start writing about my book club here.  Page Against the Machine is awesome, and it's another excuse to talk about books.

On the biking front, my tires are flat.  Or rather, the tires on the bike I borrowed from Mitchell are flat, a situation I hope to remedy with my next paycheck.

On the home front...

The truth can always be questioned.   Religious beliefs, moral convictions, love, it's all worth examining.  It's important to examine these things because we live our lives by them.  If they can't stand the scrutiny, if defensiveness and hostility meet these questions, than the answers are damn shaky.

I taught a six-year-old to tie his own shoes on Friday.  The first knots he's ever tied, one for each foot.  After a few frustrating evenings of trying to teach him how to tie his bathrobe, I was surprised it finally happened for him.  The satisfaction, love, and fear (yes, fear, because he's listening, and what if he inherits my bad along with my good?) flooding me made it almost impossible to function, but I managed to get our lunches together and get us out the door.

In the days after Uncle Fester, Becky and I have found our love is even stronger.  We were being ourselves before, but now we're relaxing into our relationship, into each-other.  There's a playfulness that can only come from confidence.  More than trust, which is a necessity in a building a relationship, confidence only comes from sharing your days.  The more you share, the stronger it becomes.  The trick is not letting that confidence become cockiness.

We faced dark days and came out better for them.  I didn't think it was possible to love Becky more than I already did, but there you go.  

As always, thanks for reading.