SOBE One

You haven’t heard from me in a while because of the South Beach Wine and Food Festival. Books & Books has been the sole bookseller for this event for nine years. With so much going on at work, virtual (online) me has disappeared.

The South Beach Wine and Food Festival is also the reason I was in the accident three years ago. Well, God is the reason (or capital F Fate, if God makes you uncomfortable) but SOBEW&FF is all I was thinking about as I drove to work. Instead of focusing on the treacherous roads, I’d set my mental cruise control. The bulk of my mind was in the receiving room at Books & Books, ensuring Conway Freight dropped off the pallet of Chronicle cookbooks they’d been holding, receiving Chronicle and some other stragglers and turning them around to bring with me to the sand.

As Yoda said, “Never his mind on where he was, on what he was doing.”

The accident put a hex on SOBEW&FF for me. As fun as it is working barefoot in the sands of South Beach, with the breathtaking views of rolling turquoise waves and cleavage all over the place, I couldn’t bring myself to work there.

In 2009, I decided to brave the sands again. I had been tracking SOBEW&FF book sales for five years with three detailed spreadsheets and had everything figured perfectly. Come Sunday, we could have fit our returns in Mitchell’s truck. Gone were the days when our rented U-Haul was so heavy with returns it got stuck in the sand, gone were the eleven PM pack-ups. Half hour after the festival ended, it was Miller time.

When I moved from bookselling at the store level to a desk in the buying office, I lost something in the way of job satisfaction. I have a row of smoldering disasters waiting to burst into flame. While I’m tending the worst of them, three more flare out of control. Keeping everything crackling but not critical is a neverending task. In addition, Books & Books is not a place for people who need a lot of positive feedback. Or even feedback.

SOBEW&FF, there is planning, ordering, receiving, making a bookstore in the sand, selling, packing up, and returns. Clear steps, clear goals, and a conclusion. Because the ordering was so precise last year, my co-workers drowned me in praise. I loved it. The hard work I do in the shadows on a daily basis was brought to light.

I’ve been looking forward to SOBE 2010 for a year, anticipating another moment in the sun.

Well.

Some festival goers say that at $215 bucks a ticket, they should get their books for free. Sorry, no. Books & Books is a for-profit business. I say, since you shelled out $215 for fourteen hours of entertainment (and at least $30 for parking) over two days, why not add another $30-$40 for a collection of recipes from your favorite chef, a cookbook which will be around long after you're buried? You’ll wait an hour-and-a-half in line at Disney for a two-minute ride, why not wait a few minutes to get a cookbook signed?

We didn’t sell as much as we usually do. Festival-goers packed the two big tasting tents at the opposite end of the sand. It looked like a huge block party. Buying cookbooks was not on their agenda, which probably looked like this:

1 – Get the largest pour possible of whatever will make me tipsy.
2 – Eat some delicious morsels.
3 – Get hammered and / or shitfaced, whichever comes first.

People’s lives are strained right now. SOBEW&FF was an excuse to blow off steam, with a price point which insured rubbing elbows only with other well-to-do individuals.

Maybe I’m weathering the recession better because my lifestyle has pared down from minimally indulgent to borderline monastic; how do I know they haven’t scratched and scrimped for their tickets and their parking . . . and their Gucci sunglasses and fake breasts and spray tans and sand-filled Prada loafers and Fendi handbags and rhinoplasties and collagen lips and facelifts and who am I trying to kid I HATE YOU, I HATE YOU, I HATE YOU ALL there’s nothing real about you except your money, so use it to support your local independent bookstore, you drunk fucks!

I should have said that. Clearly, missed my calling. I should have been in marketing.

Here’s looking at 2011.

2.23.2010 - The Three Year Anniversary

A friend of mine was mildly disfigured about the face in a car accident some years back. I say “mildly” because I think the scar is sexy, but I’m not a young, gorgeous woman, so what could I know about wearing it? And missing teeth are never sexy, except on hockey players. Anyway, she wrote her obituary afterwards as a cathartic exercise. After my own accident, she suggested I do the same.

Resisting the powerful urge to edit, I present the obituary as I wrote it forty-eight days after the fact:

On February 23rd, 2007, Aaron John Curtis of Miami, Florida lost his life in a traffic accident at the age of 34. Paramedics airlifted him to Jackson Memorial Hospital’s famed Ryder Trauma Center, but he died on route due to injuries sustained at the scene. While Aaron eventually settled in Miami, he also lived in Richmond, Virginia, Syracuse, New York, and Akwesasne (the St. Regis Mohawk Indian Reservation). Had Harper Collins published the book he finished but never quite liked, or had he finished the two books he liked very much and published them, or had he started the two potential Fantasy and Mystery series and had them published, any one of these places may have fought for the right to bury him rather than forgetting he had been there at all. In addition to these unseen works, he also never produced four scripts and never published 29 essays and 30 short stories of varying quality. Aaron is survived by everyone in his family he had known since he was born (except Uncle Fran and Grandma and Grandpa on his father’s side - and what a crazy fucking thought that is, considering all the white trash and filthy Injuns out there who are related to him), each relationship also of varying quality. He met his wife of eight years in 1992 and they never stopped loving each-other, so at least he did something right. Maybe the important thing.

Three years ago today, I knew I was going to die. The car came at me and color bled from the day as God took me out of the equation for a few moments. I didn’t know I’d be back. I didn’t see my life pass before my eyes, I felt my entire emotional life happening all at once, every friend and family member I’ve ever loved and who ever loved me. It was a moment that seemed to last forever, but I didn’t even have time to finish a single thought before the world went white.

If only- I thought, then nothing but white.

Given decades instead of milliseconds, I don’t know how I would have ended that sentence. Maybe the rest of my life is the end of that sentence.

I’ve rewritten my obituary a few times. Once, when I lost some time around an MTBI while biking (that’s Mild Traumatic Brain Injury, which is what they’re calling a mild concussion nowadays), I made that the inciting accident, but usually I just edit the emotional truth.

Let me make clear, I’ve never lived on Akwesasne. I’m a halfbreed, and we often have chips on our shoulders about not being Indian enough. I was up there a lot as a child and I’m closer with my mother’s side of the family, but I never lived there. I find it odd I’d want to die on a lie. Let’s call it dying on a wish.

I mentioned Harper Collins because they were looking at Scratch the Dead Places. At the time, it was still called Skritch Skratch Man. My cover letter was a chatty invitation for coffee with every cover letter cliché and mistake an aspiring writer is supposed to avoid. I even asked Stacy for some craptastic cover art. Of course they didn’t publish this unpalatable, unpublishable mess. Brimming with excitement at meeting my personal goal of writing a book, wildly optimistic when our Harper Collins sales rep offered to bring it back to the New York offices with him, I subjected an industry shaker with the insult of a first draft.

It was a difficult time for friends and family. To know me was to be subjected to three hundred pages of what amounted to a writing exercise.

“All the white trash and filthy Injuns.” From the litany of unpublished works listed in the obit, it’s clear I was worried no one would see and appreciate my work. My resentment at not having the right publishing pedigree manifested itself in this lame attempt at self-deprecating humor.

There was a question written on the back wall of my seventh grade English teacher’s classroom; “Will it matter that I was?” I think Mr. Genarro wanted to inspire us to greatness, not haunt us for life, but what are you gonna do? Since I almost ended, I was worried about my legacy.

Yes, getting outside notice feels good. Yes, I could use the validation and the money. Yes, it’s largely luck and who you know. But opportunity is luck plus preparation. I’m fortunate enough to love a profession which, all trumpeting over wunderkinds like Zadie Smith or Dave Eggers aside, embraces late-bloomers. Right now, I’m happy enough preparing.

The obit ends with the one thing which made me know I’d lived my life right; my marriage. Well, I still think I did the important thing right, warts and all. Love with your whole heart in this life, or get busy dying by slow degrees.

I suppose the only satisfying ending, the only fitting ending, is a three-year anniversary obituary.

Maybe later. Sorry to be a blog tease, but that sounds pretty fucking morbid.

Buy Our Books

A few weeks back at Books & Books, we hosted Ann Louise Bardach for her most recent book, Without Fidel. Nearly eighty people showed up to hear this expert on Cuba speak. The Q&A session lasted two hours.

We sold four copies of the book.

Before I get into the reasons why this frustrates me to the growling point, let me explain that what I’ve just done is a no-no. I’m sure we reported a crowd of one hundred plus and dozens of sales to the publisher; telling an author, publisher, or publicist the truth is a no-no.

On one level, we want everyone to be happy.  It’s disappointing for everyone – the buyers, the events and marketing folks, the booksellers, the author, the publisher – when only a handful of people show up. Padding the numbers is sometimes a way of spreading cheer.

On another level, events keep Books & Books in business. We need these events to be successful.

I remember reporting sales to our Penguin rep a few weeks back. He’d sent a list of several key titles in their winter catalog to see how they’re doing.  Right down the line, it was one to three copies sold on titles we’d ordered for the shelf and dozens of sales (or hundreds, in the cases of some more well-known authors) on titles associated with a signing.

“Hmmm,” the rep dead-panned. “I think having author appearances positively impacts sales.”

Publishers know not every event can be a home run, so I don’t understand this need to be so secretive about the numbers.  And if you’re going to inflate, why not be consistent?  If Elizabeth Gilbert sells eight hundred copies of Committed when she comes to the store, why not say she sold two thousand?

We need these events to be successful.  If they’re not, publishers will stop sending authors our way.  Miami is gorgeous, but the authors are here to push copies, not get a tan.

Let me also say, Ann Louise Bardach is one of our bestselling authors, and has been for years.  Her consistent sales performance is strong enough to be immune to lackluster sales at one event.

When it comes to packing a house and loving an event but keeping your wallet closed, I know times are tight, but think of the consequences. How long do you think you’ll be able to treat Books & Books as your free meeting place to get together and discuss hot topics of the day, then move on without buying anything, often taking a parking stamp on your way out?

Side Note to Books & Books customers: WE PAY FOR THOSE PARKING STAMPS.  The City of Coral Gables doesn’t give them to us out of the kindness of their hearts.  We buy them.  We’re paying for your parking.  Show some appreciation.

Side Note on “Appreciation”: I mean money.

If the doors close people will say, “Wow, I supported them for so many years.”

Did you?  Really?  Or did you come in, sit down, watch an event, walk out with a smile, and leave us holding unsold copies of the book?  No one’s asking you to buy a book for each of our seventy events a month, but how about half of the events you come to?   How about buying a latte or a glass of wine? How about not showing up at our store with fucking Barnes & Nobles bags and Starbucks cups?

When one of our booksellers spends her time with you, making recommendations, walking you through the sections, then you smile and say you’ll probably pick it up on Amazon because it’s cheaper, how do expect not to get slapped?

Does Amazon employ native Miamians?  Does Amazon do anything at all for this community?  Do you want to shit on your neighbors in the long run to save some pennies in the short term?

Deep breath.

Our reliance on events also bothers me because of our booksellers.  There are far fewer booksellers working at Books & Books now than when I started five years ago, and I don’t just mean fewer employees.  With all the events going on, and the pressure for them to be successful, who has time to talk books anymore?  Who remembers folks by name and says, “Hey, Mr. Valdez, Out of Sheer Rage just came back in print.  I set a copy aside when it came in, because I thought of you.”

I’m a firm believer that it takes a penny to make a dollar. I think the nuts and bolts of bookselling – organization, displays, and matching book to reader – are more important than what best-selling author is on the bill that night.  Of course, I haven’t been in the game for twenty-seven years.

I just think there can be a middle ground between hardcore bookselling and being clowns in a three-ring circus.

Especially when no one’s buying a ticket.

My First Edit

My seventh grade advanced English class studied the descriptive paragraph. We read one aloud, then picked one to memorize and perform in front of the class, and finally we had to write one of our own.

The example we read aloud was of a t-rex coming through the trees in the most re-published short story of all time, Ray Bradbury's A Sound of Thunder. We underlined adverbs and circled adjectives, then looked up definitions and synonyms. We learned about the Butterfly Effect.

I was reading Frank Herbert's Dune, so I pulled a paragraph from there which starts, “A pre-dawn hush had fallen over the desert basin.” I don’t remember the rest.

The last part of the assignment is trickier to recall. I wrote a paragraph about a guy who visits his dead wife’s grave. Our teacher, Mrs. Temple, ripped it to pieces. When I applied her notes, the man became much older. He needed help getting out of his car. Before placing flowers on his dead wife’s grave, he he’d wrapped them in a wedding vale that had yellowed with age (“swathed in a yellowing wedding vale” was the line, God help us; what do you want, I was thirteen), and he leaned heavily on a cane for support.

Mrs. Temple read both drafts in front of the class, one after the other, and critiqued both. I remember getting odds looks from people after she read the second draft. They weighed me with their eyes, discovering me for the first time.

I think there was a paragraph we had to edit to make descriptive. The elements were there; the man, the car, the grave, the cane. Actually, all I remember for certain was the cane. In my first draft, the cane “kept rhythm with his spry step” as the man walked away, which doesn’t sound much like visiting a grave (unless you’re glad this person died, an entirely different kind of descriptive paragraph). In the second draft the man “leaned heavily on his cane” as he shuffled away. Did the cane bow with the weight of his aged body, with the weight of grief in his heart? I’m sure it would if I wrote it now...and I'll probably look back on that with disdain in years to come, too.

I remember how much I liked the image of the cane, tapping rhythm with the man’s shiny black shoes. Maybe that was one of the problems Mrs. Temple addressed in her notes, how out of place it seemed at a gravesite. Maybe there was no grave at all, and the only image I had was of the cane so I changed the destination. Who knows?

Memory is a strange thing. I’m wise enough now to know that my memory and facts are not the same things. However it happened, seventh grade English was my first lesson in the importance of the editing process, of taking work I’d done to entertain myself and changing it to communicate something with a reader. There is nothing a like a fresh, objective, keen set of eyes on a piece to make it sing.

I’ve been in Lip Service twice now. My favorite part of the process both times has been those rehearsals at Andrea's house the Wednesday before, a bunch of writers fueled by wine and snacks, eager to view each-other’s work and make it better.

It’s what brought me back. Reading in front of a crowd was mostly an afterthought.

Back at the Bottom of the Pyramid

When you meet someone at nineteen and manage to keep them until you’re thirty-six, people look at you a certain way. You must know some trick of love or life that they’re missing. You’re happy in a way they’ll never be . . . if you’re speaking of your love in a certain way, of course.

Something I missed in this post which is important to clarify because people who didn’t know us as a couple are starting to read this blog, Andi and I were that couple. We genuinely enjoyed each-other’s company, made our decisions as a team, always had each-other’s backs, and spoke in glowing terms about our partner and our relationship. People admired what we had and, I flatter myself to think, wanted it in their own relationships.

I remember a few years back, three of us men were in the stockroom at Books & Books. Guy talk, you know? My friend (who we’re calling) Graham is about twelve years older than me, married for twenty years. My other friend JC is a bit younger, and had married only recently.

Even though he’s a house-husband, Graham belongs in a sitcom from the fifties. He was bitching about his wife using the most clichéd clichés. Because I’d been with Andi for thirteen years at that point, Graham tried using me as an example to back up a point he was making with JC.

Graham wanted to know I felt about my wife.

“I love her more with each passing day.”

JC and Graham braced themselves, waiting for the punchline. I looked back and forth between them.

“That’s it,” I said.

Graham shrugged off this minor hiccup and continued to say how he’d rather masturbate than have sex with his wife, or whatever the story was at the moment. Then he paused, returning to me.

“Wait, do you have kids?”

“No,” I said.

“That explains it,” he said. Like, have kids and then talk to me about married life.

If you believe Graham (and Bill Cosby), married people without children can’t talk about married life, the same way people with one child can’t talk about parenting to people with multiple children.

Maybe that’s true, but the Smug Relationship Pyramid topped by wrinkled oldsters celebrating fifty years together, surrounded by gaggles of children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, that pyramid was built by sad sack singletons who think anything beyond a few years is worth memorializing in a power ballad.

It’s important to distinguish Power Singles from Sad Sack Singletons. Most Power Singles I know are women in their forties and fifties. Some of them have been married, but not all. The thing which unifies them is they’ve had their men and it didn’t impress them all that much. They’d rather have their own space than share it with someone sub-par.

To Sad Sack Singletons, there is no greater glory than marriage. To anyone.

When I became a member of the recently-separated, people handled me like an egg. Little did I know, that was only a stop on my way to becoming another statistic, another story, another failed marriage. Yeah, you’re marriage busted up. Score one for you, now get over it.
I refuse to categorize my marriage as a failure because it ended. Everything living dies, which is the tragic beauty of life. I’d rather drop dead of a massive stroke when I’m biking at eighty-five than linger until a hundred and five and be unable to remember my own name.

Scratch that; I’d rather have a massive stroke in my sleep at a mentally vibrant hundred and five than linger to a doddering hundred and ten.

Since I won’t be part of a wrinkled couple celebrating fifty years, I’ll never know whether our marriage would have been a tree forever sprouting new growth, felled only by one of our deaths, or if it would have looked healthy to an outsider, yet have been riddled with years of rot inside. Either way, I’ve got to let it go.

What’s bothering me lately is how my world view has been rocked. The loss of Andi as a person is incidental to the loss of my marriage as the defining thing in my life, and to realizing that love doesn’t conquer all.

I've heard I could ruin the present worrying about the future. Too true. Ditto, mooning over the past.