Notes · · Tucson

The Book Stop is 50.

Fifty? Wowza.

Hiram and I found this out on Saturday when we stopped in on our way to the John Waters Christmas show at the Rialto. There were plates of cookies and a big thermos of lemonade. It was around 7:00 I think — practically past our bedtime — which made the eating and drinking all the more delicious.

I remembered all the hours I spent at the store when I was in high school and decided to re-read something I would have been reading then, but there was no Richard Brautigan or Kurt Vonnegut available. We've been reading Oliver Sacks's autobiography, On The Move, and in it he's mentioned plenty of authors I've never read but have this idea I should — W.H. Auden, for example. I asked the owner for a recommendation of something by Auden and she said she'd never read him either, so I know I'm in good company. I bought a hardback of his collected works printed the year I was born a couple years before the Book Stop opened.

Happy Anniversary, Book Stop. We have always been close, but I didn't realize we were contemporaries.

 

Plates of cookies sit on the counter at the Book Stop, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary.

Plates of cookies sit on the counter at the Book Stop, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary.

Television ·

Stranger Things, Season 2

Missing from the Eggo, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Three Musketeers and other product placements in Stranger Things so far has been any reference to Mister Microphone. You know, one of the characters — I'm thinking Dustin — saying we'll be back to pick you up in an hour? 

It's not like it would be any more out of place than the Chicago detour. 

Cineclub ·

The B-Side

The B-Side: Elsa Dorfman's Portrait Photography. Dir. Errol Morris. 2016


If you're a kind of a "Oh, this'll be the same forever" person... or if you're a photographer and you're always nailing down what's the now... when you realize it doesn't matter how much you try to nail down the now, the now is racing beyond you.

— Elsa Dorfman

Notes · · Tucson

Good Old Oil Prices

Emily Litella

For years I have thought the NPR announcer (all of them) doing the market report was saying “good old oil prices” Apparently, they’re saying “crude oil prices.”

Nevermind.