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Thursday, October 04, 2007

Me! Me!


Yesterday Mike tagged me for this meme, and as Catalyst had already tagged me for a similar meme a week ago, I finally have to stop sending them nasty emails step up and do the job!

The rules, which you've probably already seen elsewhere, are-

1 Link the person who has tagged you.
2 Tell seven true things about yourself.
3 Tag seven new people.
4 Leave a message with the person you have tagged so they know about it.

Anyone who thinks I can follow such complicated directions, I'm going to do all four, needs to keep thinking. But here we go-

1. I'm inordinately proud, for no good reason, of being left-handed.

2. My favorite piece of music in the entire world is Bedrich Smetna's 'The Moldau' (Vltava) part of his 'My County' (Ma Vlast) symphonic poem.

3. I love cooking and have bookcases full of cookbooks, but am mentally unable to actually follow a recipe. I skim cookbooks with an ingredient in mind, looking for ideas, and then wing it.

4. I cannot deal with having people behind me. At auctions I always sit in the last row, against the back wall. When I'm sitting at my desk and someone stands behind me to look at the computer screen it freaks me out.

5. Most people are "working on a novel" -I've actually written full two (unpublished) novels and two screenplays. The novels were crap, flawed, but I thoroughly enjoyed the process and learned a lot for next time. One of the screenplays actually got a good first report from a Hollywood reader for a major director, but was judged too expensive to produce for its probable return.

6. One of my bookselling sub-specialties is books and other materials on historic funeral customs, epitaphs, gravestones and mourning. My wife delights in introducing me at parties as "The Death Guy".

7. I took my SATs in my sophmore year of high school, graduated in three years and took a "year off" before college, and then never went. I fell into bookselling (there's no other way to get into bookselling) and have been doing it ever since.

29 comments:

Tequila Mockingbird said...

i am lefthanded too. it sucks when buying scissors, but i have threatened to fuck people in the face with a cactus anytime they gave me shit about it.

as a ninja pirate, i dont like having people behind me too.

i think we would make great drinking buddies.

Mike said...

It's strange, but most of my really good friends are left-handed. I am right handed and don't quite know how this happens, but it does seem to work out that way somehow.

I also love to cook and refuse to follow directions. My son found a recipe for something he wanted the other night and brought it to me. I scanned it, changed it somewhat and made it last night. Everyone loved it.

I also find it interesting that you mentioned that you can't stand anyone standing behind you. I drive family members crazy with this problem. I am totally uncomfortable when someone is standing behind me.

Thanks for playing along.

Forrest Proper said...

T-Bird- I'll buy the first round!

Mike- I was once sitting at a table having a committee meeting with 6 other booksellers, and suddenly we realized that every single one of us was left-handed.

I think it's something to do with Sputnik.

Phoebe Fay said...

I thought it was the "Spontaneous Combustion" guy.

And I'll buy the next round. What are we drinking?

Bruce said...

Another lefty here. I worked in an office a couple years ago where we had six people and found that five of us were left handed. What were the odds?
You'd be a good mafia don. You wouldn't sit with your back to the door and you'd see the hitman coming. Leave the gun, take the cannoli.

Forrest Proper said...

Phebes- True- it was the Spontaneous Human Combustion Guy (always looking for 17th and 18th century books on the subject) on the Beekslayers list (for anyone wondering, that's where the nickname "Col.Flames" originated, which then morphed into Col.Col. here).

I'll have a bourbon on the rocks, straight up.

Forrest Proper said...

Bruce- I'd shoot the hitman for good cannoli.

Commander Zaius said...

I love cooking and have bookcases full of cookbooks, but am mentally unable to actually follow a recipe. I skim cookbooks with an ingredient in mind, looking for ideas, and then wing it.

I do the same thing and my wife HATES it. She is a strictly by the book person and sometimes I believe if a book told her to jump off a cliff....well you get the message. But I love playing around with recipes.

Anonymous said...

My son is a lefty and super proud of the fact. Although, we have to pay through the nose for guitars for him which totally sucks, but what are you going to do? His only problem with being left handed is writing...his hand gets dirty because he refuses to write in anything other than pencil.

I freak out when people are behind me too. I suspect though it's more because I want to know what everyone is doing than anything else. I'm nosy that way.

Forrest Proper said...

Beach Bum- the way I look at it is, why do it the way it's written in the book? We already know how that turns out, and what's the fun of that?

Kerstin- I went through my entire school career with the side of my left hand black with graphite...

Tequila Mockingbird said...

me too. pencils are the bane of my existence. we have a dry erase board at work, and i write stuff in the columns, but i write from right to left to avoid my hand smelling like dry erase marker ass.

here today, gone tomorrow said...

Cookbooks, schmookbooks. Why do you think god invented takeout?

FreeOscar said...

So is there a reason you can't have anyone behind you? You & the Pope maybe?

Hot4AngryMan said...

I never took the SATs. I took the ALTs, AngryMan Lovin' Tests.

Malach the Merciless said...

I am looking for the Necronomicon, you stock that?

Pope Benedict XVI said...

I am wanting the 400AD writing of Irabeus?

Anonymous said...

I'm right handed but won't hold your left handedness against you :-) Most of my left handed friends are quite artistic. Me? Not so much.

I don't mind people behind me. I will sit close to the front if not the front at most seminars....but not movies. I'll sit somewhere in the middle.

Interesting that you do what you like to do. Most people don't. Do you own the bookstore?

Sefton said...

I dunno how your blog has escaped the radar of my blogroll for so long, but I've fixed it!

Sara Sue said...

I'm a freak about old/ancient death rites, and graveyards too. I have hundreds of pictures of old graves.

Can we have more details on the screenplay?

Anonymous said...

>>One of the screenplays actually got a good first report from a Hollywood reader for a major director, but was judged too expensive to produce for its probable return.

That'll teach you to write time-travel stories that visit all the major periods of history.

Forrest Proper said...

T-Bird- "i write from right to left to avoid my hand smelling like dry erase marker ass."

I write checks from right to left to keep from smudging the ink, but dry marker ass sounds a lot worse.

HTGT- "Cookbooks, schmookbooks. Why do you think god invented takeout?"

Takeout? Did you see all the styrofoam containers in my trash? Shhh!!!

C.Rag- "So is there a reason you can't have anyone behind you? You & the Pope maybe?"

No, I was never an altar boy... I did have an odd encounter with George Bush once, though.

H4A- "I took the ALTs, AngryMan Lovin' Tests"

Obviously you tested positive, but I hear there's a shot for that now.

Malach- "I am looking for the Necronomicon, you stock that?"

I believe you can find the Mad Arab's book here (no signed copies, damn!)

Popey- "I am wanting the 400AD writing of Irabeus?"

I sold a nice one last week. To Satan.

Sirdar- "Interesting that you do what you like to do. Most people don't. Do you own the bookstore?"

Yes- but not an open shop, but a book company -we still issue printed catalogs.

Jedi- "but I've fixed it!"

Thanks! I rolled you this week too.

Sara- "Can we have more details on the screenplay?"

See below-

Reverend- "That'll teach you to write time-travel stories that visit all the major periods of history."

Well, only one but yes, it was a fantasy time-travel. That will indeed teach me. My next one will involve a conversation between two people in a restaurant...

AngryMan said...

NO MORE MEMES!!!

Forrest Proper said...

AngryMan: SIR! YES SIR!!

here today, gone tomorrow said...

Off topic...if you are really in the business of selling obscure books, I've been on the hunt for two of them. If you think you can help me, please visit my profile and email me. They are:
- Svetlana Alpers "Rembrandt's Enterprise : The Studio and the Market"
- Cynthia Connolly "Banned in DC: Photos and Anecdotes from the DC Punk Underground" (hopefully you have it for less than $70?)

Hope this isn't inappropriate...
Thanks.

Forrest Proper said...

HTGT- Not inappropriate at all, but we specialize in art, architecture and design. However, here is a good sight for hunting books -if they are to be found, they will be there.

Forrest Proper said...

OOps ok, just actually read all of the first title, which is art. I saw "punk underground" and gots distracted...

Commander Zaius said...

6. One of my bookselling sub-specialties is books and other materials on historic funeral customs, epitaphs, gravestones and mourning. My wife delights in introducing me at parties as "The Death Guy".

While the kids an I were on our recent beach trip to the coast we stopped at a 18th century graveyard located outside Pawleys Island because my son, Darth Spoilboy, had been introduced to some of South Carolina's ghostly lore in school. Been looking for an excuse to post the pictures along with the story of one ghost in particular, you might find it interesting. I'll have it up by Saturday.

here today, gone tomorrow said...

Thank you, colonel colonel!

FOUR DINNERS said...

'The Death Guy'?! I like you more n more!