Matters at Hand

It's been a quiet week at Miss Prothero's Books...which is never good. Internet orders are down. Strange visitors are up.

This morning it was a tall blond with pock marked skin. He said he had a Lassie book and a book on Donatello. Copyright 1903! (The book on Donatello, that is.) I tried to be diplomatic. I told him that I'd have to see the books to make a judgment, that they could be valuable and they could be valueless. Just because a book had depreciated beyond its usual shelf life didn't mean it was appreciated by someone with money. Sometimes old is just old. He nodded, but I don't think he understood.

Then there was the young girl from Israel. She was looking for the Unity Infoshop (formerly of 1145 Santa Fe). It's gone, I told her. Where to, she asked. I shrugged my shoulders. I told her that I heard rumors, that I saw their sign go down after Christmas, that a rent sign went up in January, that the rent sign went back down again. Oh, she said, but Black Bart said it was open at 11. Perhaps somewhere, I said, but not here. Denver is such a sleepy town, she said, where are all the activists. I shrugged my shoulders, again. What kind of activism are you interested in, I asked. Oh, she said, animal rights, anarchy...If I'd given her the chance, she might have made it all the way through the alphabet. We did find the address for the Derailer Bike Collective. She was happy. I haven't seen her again, so I suppose she didn't get lost.

That's not to say some good things haven't happened:

• Manuel Ramos is coming in less than a week. I'm looking forward to looking back at The Ballad of Rocky Ruiz.
  
• I've been catching up on my reading. I finished Michael Chabon's Gentlemen of the Road. It was a fun, but no match for The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. (I have a signed copy of that on sale if you're interested...Oops, I had a copy. Someone just read this and bought it!)
  
• I was visited by Debbie Knapp of Homegrown Tales. She was wondering if her group might do a reading at the store. I'm hoping we can work something out.
  
• Rose Metal Press contacted me about their new short, short collection -- A Peculiar Feeling of Restlessness. Kathy Fish, one of the contributors to that collection, should be coming here to read in May.

If you have a book or event that you'd like to promote, why don't you stop by and let me know about it. Miss P's Books may be the perfect venue. And I could use some company.